50 Cent once revealed the advice he would give his “teenage self”
It would be an understatement to say that 50 Cent had a turbulent upbringing, and the result of many of his teenage activities sent chills down the spines of his fans. The mere thought of getting shot nine times is horrific to many, and the idea that some of those bullet fragments entered 50 Cent’s face is unconscionable.
However, it all happened, and the result was shocking to many. Many well-known New Yorkers had written Fifty off as a dead man walking when he became such a public figure. The fact that he is still living and breathing today is a testimony to his strength.
That said, upon reflection, the Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ creator revealed that as a grown man, he had an idea of the kind of advice a teenage him would have needed to avoid the hell he ended up going through and the setbacks he faced trying to go from an underground to an overground artist.
Furthermore, he revealed that as a result of everything he has learned in life since becoming a multi-millionaire and astute businessman, he had a sense of what he needed to hear as a fresh face in the early 2000s that would have allowed him to excel much faster, with less friction.
As he looked back on being a teenager, he admitted that the hard-faced, unapologetic 50 Cent that graced the cover of The Massacre was a direct result of him getting shot nine times, unveiling, “I got shot in the afternoon, broad daylight. So I got scared, and that made me harder than I was before.”
The ‘21 Questions’ emcee detailed how the death of his mother set him on the warpath, and the inevitable shooting that occurred made him vengeful, fearless and, as a result, irrational, stating, “I just said – fuck it. When you have the pistol, and you’re looking for them, your attention is shifted. You’re not afraid anymore. You’re like, I hope that is them coming up the block now.”
Still, this emotional, irrational approach to life is not conducive to success in the music industry and in his 2015 open letter told his younger self, Fifty wrote, “If I could talk to my teenage self, I’d tell him to focus on music with a stronger intensity. He could still have this career without going through all the things I went through.”
As he reflected upon the early days of his career, he unveiled the one thing he would change, stating, “If I could go back to any time, I’d go back to when the sales figure for the first week of Get Rich or Die Tryin’ came out. I went to sit at the back of the tour bus and just thought, wow. I couldn’t believe it. When I got those sales I knew that from now on I didn’t have to wait for someone else to say it was okay, I could say it was okay myself. But I put too much focus on those numbers and not on myself. I was seeking validation. I shoulda never done that!”