“I can’t do it like this anymore,” says 50 Cent. The heavyweight of American rap, who will share the poster for The Expendables 4 with Sylvester Stallone, is launching a final world tour before devoting himself to other activities. “My activities as a producer of films and TV shows no longer allow me to,” says the soon-to-be 48-year-old artist. His Power series, which has been on the air since 2014, has been a resounding success. “With my film productions and TV shows, I speak directly to my audience, I don’t want to lose them”.
Curtis Jackson, his real name, is taking advantage of the 20th anniversary of his phenomenon album Get Rich or Die Tryin (“Get rich or die trying”) to organize an ultimate major tour that will pass through the United States, Europe , the United Kingdom and then Oceania. “We sold 600,000 tickets, that may sound impressive, but I’m 50 Cent,” he laughs. Additional seats will be on sale. The rapper is even thinking of adding dates in other cities. A concert is planned in France in the fall. Country 50 Cent apparently has fond memories of: “Amazing. Things get a little fuzzy (over time) but I remember. There is nothing like France”.
What could make him reconsider his decision? Touring with “Eminemet Dr. Dre”, other US rap legends and his mentors on Get Rich… “But I don’t think it can be done”. “Em” and “Dre”, as he calls them, had notably supported him for his hit In Da Club, which has just crossed the bar of one billion plays on Spotify, queen of musical platforms.
When the album was released in 2003, 50 Cent was sitting on a tour bus when he was told he had sold 800,000 records in one week. “I started thinking I could have anything I wanted,” he recalls. This album, which has sold nearly 13 million copies, is a classic of gangsta rap, a genre irrigated by street violence. Experience for the one who, small, was enlisted as a dealer after the death of his mother and was close to death, hit by nine bullets in 2000 during a settlement of accounts. This bloody episode inspires Many Men (on Get Rich…) and 9 Shots (2015).
His alias comes from that of a gangster, who, it seems, was ready to kill for 50 cents. “Fiddy”, one of his nicknames, confesses to having plunged into the spiral of endless parties generated by the impact of “Get Rich…”. “If I had been diagnosed at the time, it would have been said that I was crazy,” he laughs.
50 Cent’s other big business, outside of rap and TV productions, is his liquor business. We saw it a few years ago in the cellars in Reims for champagne and in Cognac to soak up French know-how. “In the USA, a lot of what we think is good champagne, the French say ugh, it’s shit. I wanted to bring back something that would allow us to reach the next level and I did”.
The cognac brand Rémy Martin sued him for a time for plagiarizing a bottle shape. “They felt I was moving too fast, they pressured me, they picked the wrong guy: I’ve spent $23 million since Get Rich…in legal fees (all kinds).” Dispute now “settled”, 50 Cent praises his cognac in his own way: “Jesus would drink it”.
