The 50 Cent song that saw him beg a singer to be involved
Ever since he blew up in the 2000s, 50 Cent probably hasn’t had to beg for much. With all the fame came a lot of money. Tt his peak 50 was valued at $260million, and he let people know it, penning a track titled ‘I Get Money’ and even one simply titled ‘Money’; pretty to the point.
Despite filing for bankruptcy in 2011, the ‘Candy Shop’ rapper is still living pretty comfortably after signing a $40 million contract with Starz to produce the TV show Power. Nevertheless, it wasn’t; always easy living for the Queens native.
Fiddy, born Curtis Jackson, was brought up in a single-parent household after his father abandoned the family. His mother, Sabrina, was a drug dealer, but Jackson didn’t stay in this situation for long. At eight years old he experienced a massive personal tragedy as his mother died in a fire, and he had to move in with his grandparents.
Drugs seemed to follow Curtis wherever he went, as he admitted to selling drugs at 12 years old when his grandparents thought he was in after-school programs. Eventually, his life of crime caught up with him, and he was arrested following a police search of his home that turned up, among other things, heroin and a pistol.
50 realised that he had to get out and began to take hip-hop more seriously after meeting and being mentored by Jam Master Jay of Run DMC. His efforts were halted, though, in 2000 when he was shot an incredible nine times. He should have died, but Curtis knew he had much more work to do.
The New York rapper released his highly successful mixtape Guess Who’s Back?, teasing his brush with death in 2002. This was heard by Eminem and he introduced Fiddy to Dr Dre who signed him to a $1 million record deal. This was the beginning of Jackson’s legend, though he didn’t accomplish it alone.
Even prior to his meeting with Em, Jackson utilised collaboration to guide his triumph. After releasing Guess Who’s Back?, he also released 50 Cent Is The Future which was notably backed by G-Unit. This was a group that consisted of Cent alongside his friends and fellow artists Tony Yayo and Lloyd Banks. Young Buck and The Game also became permanent later in the Unit’s timeline.
G-Unit went on to see success in their own right. Their debut studio album Beg For Mercy has sold 5.8million copies worldwide and has been certified quadruple platinum. Their success as a group, along with their contributions to Curtis’ individual career, seriously helped his sonic ascension.
There was one instance that saw the Queens rapper have to beg for a music video appearance, as he was filming for his track ‘Baby By Me’ for his 2009 album Before I Self Destruct.
Talking to MTV News, he admitted that he had to beg Kelly Rowland to stick around and film with him; “Kelly was getting ready to fly back to Miami…I kinda begged my way into her doing it”. Rowland; the multi-talented singer and actress didn’t actually feature in the song, she instead plays Fiddy’s love interest in his video.
Their meeting only came through chance as the pair bumped into each other at the 2009 Los Premios MTV Latinoamérica award show. Luckily, his begging paid off because he was without a love interest only two days before production of the video was scheduled to begin.