Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson Has A New Book — And With It, A New Perspective On Life

BY LAURA SCHREFFLER

PHOTOGRAPHY SCOTT MCDERMOTT

STYLING SHALA ROTHENBERG

GROOMING AMY FARID

SHOT ON LOCATION AT LOTTE NEW YORK PALACE, NEW YORK, NY

“In life,” says Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, “you don’t get a second chance at a first impression.”

This Yoda-like truth bomb is what I’ve come to expect from the 49-year-old rapper, producer, and businessman over the past few years. He spits out sage, lyrical gangster-like advice in the same way he makes gleeful digs at his enemies. Since the start of his music career — when he debuted his first studio album Get Rich or Die Tryin’ in 2003 — he has never been anything other than his most authentic self.

As such, there’s a lot to love about Jackson. In my opinion, some of his most winning attributes are his unflinching honesty, inherent authenticity, willingness to take strategic risks, and the confidence in knowing that, career-wise, he can try whatever the hell he wants. The latter is the reason why I’m sitting down with him today. Jackson wanted to write a caper heist, so he wrote a caper heist. And that’s that.

Although the genre is new to him, he’s well-versed in the art of writing, with releases such as the 2012 workout book Formula 50; his 2011 YA novel Playground; the 2005 memoir From Pieces to Weight; and the accompanying 50 x 50: 50 Cent in His Own Words in 2007. In addition to co-authoring a number of novels for G-Unit Books, an imprint he launched in 2007 in partnership with MTV Books, he made the New York Times’ Best Seller list several times already for self-help books like 2009’s The 50^th Law: Overcoming Adversity Through Fearlessness, and 2020’s Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter. In both cases, he set out to learn something. For example, after meeting his The 50^th Law co-author Robert Greene in person, he discovered parallels between his current existence and the past, discovering that all humans are habit-forming and regimented. In having this epiphany, he felt like he had secured greater knowledge and, as we all know, knowledge is power. His most recent effort, Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter, taught him to bravely embrace the past by sharing personal life lessons and hard-earned advice on how to embrace change and achieve a comeback, as he himself did.

“It was difficult for me to wrap my head around the idea of self-help, because I think the people who make those books think they’re experts. It didn’t become a good idea to me until I could talk about the mistakes that I made. And then, I felt like it’d be cool, because I recovered from a lot of things that were easy for me. Some of the things I went through would be harder for other people to recover from, but for me, it was fine. It’s like a relationship: when you invest too many emotions in it, you can’t recover from it. It changes your whole trajectory — you become like Taylor Swift. And that’s most artists — we can make prolific music from painful experiences. Whether it’s a breakup or Kanye’s car crash, or me being shot nine times, there are things that stand out about that person and their experience that they can draw from to create things that feel special to the public,” he notes.

But what exactly did he learn from the experience of writing The Accomplice, his seventh official release and first adult fiction novel, written specifically with the intention of a big screen adaptation? The answer: that in writing anything, particularly adult fiction, first impressions really do count. This is why he enlisted the help of established mystery writer Aaron Philip Clark, the author of the International Thriller Writers Award-nominated Trevor Finnegan series.

Together, for the first of a two-book with Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins, the two joined forces to create what’s been described as a combination of S.A. Cosby’s “Southern Noir” crime fiction and Netflix’s high-octane, Emmy-winning series, Money Heist. The process was pretty painless and extremely simple for both: Jackson came up with the idea and Under Color of Law author Philip Clark executed it.

The results of that collaboration can be seen on September 3, when the pair introduce readers to New York-born, Texas-bred Nia Adams, the first Black female Texas Ranger, who encounters a major obstacle in Vietnam-vet-turned-thief Desmond Bell, a man who steals the secrets of the rich and powerful and blackmails them for millions. When Bell steals from the Duchamps, the wealthiest family in the country, Adams’ investigation into the robbery threatens to expose him and the criminal enterprise he works for, but their cat-and-mouse game turns deadly as the Duchamps decide to kill both in order to protect their family’s secrets.

The concept — which Jackson developed specifically because he felt the need to introduce a strong, Black, female lead — definitely has film adaptation written all over it, which was the intention all along. The treatment is already done, he discloses, and he’s now speaking to screenwriters to help develop it — so watch this space. [In the interim, he’s also currently working on a sequel to Hustle Smarter, Hustle Harder.]

“Whether in TV, film, music, and certainly in books, I have always surrounded myself with people who understand a genre and push to make it fresh and innovative. The best thing about working with a pro like Aaron is knowing he can deliver. In that regard, our work is super collaborative, in the best sense of the word,” he says now.
“Books,” he adds, “especially fiction, allow me to do things I can’t do anywhere else. [That said] I enjoy the art of storytelling and creating iconic characters and situations that will get people talking.”

Fiddy has never had a problem with that. He’s like Loki in a way, unintentionally (or is it intentional?) causing trouble and poking the proverbial bear, never shying away from sharing how he really feels about anything or anyone, having been part of a plethora of public feuds with fellow big-name artists. But more often than not, people are talking about him for the right reasons — his countless business endeavors, his street smarts, and, of course, his music. He’s sold over 30 million albums worldwide, and won several awards, including a Grammy, a Primetime Emmy Award, 13 Billboard Music Awards, six World Music Awards, and three American Music Awards. He was ranked number 17 by Billboard on their “50 Greatest Rappers” list in 2023, as well as the sixth top artist of the 2000s decade.

Although he recorded his “debut” album, Power of the Dollar, for Columbia Records, he was shot before its release, which was then cancelled; he was subsequently released from the label. But then: his 2002 mixtape Guess Who’s Back was discovered by Eminem that same year. He then signed with Shady Records, an imprint of Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records, and released his proper first studio album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, which received massive critical acclaim and had great commercial success, receiving nonuple platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It also birthed “In da Club,” one of the most recognizable tracks in music, full stop, to this day.  That same year, Interscope showed its faith in him by funding and distributing for his own label, G-Unit Records, namesake of the hip-hop group he formed two years prior; the label’s initial signees were its members, fellow East Coast rappers Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo, and Young Buck. So going back to first impressions, well, we know how Jackson made his.

“I think my first impression was big enough,” he says with a cheeky smile. “I had the largest debut hip-hop album in history as I came in. I sold 13 million records, and then the Em heated up. I was blessed to have him around, because while I’m selling 13 million records of Get Rich or Die Tryin’, he’s selling 23 million records of The Marshall Mathers LP.  There was always a possibility for growth, a way to tap into something that could be even bigger. When your head gets so big that it can’t even fit through the door, you have someone around that can help balance that because they’ve had even greater success. Like, we had Dr. Dre around, and he had even more success than both me and Em long before we came in, so it kept everybody in our crew level-headed.”

And that’s pretty much how he’s rolled ever since. There’s no sense of entitlement on his end — just a continuous thirst to keep achieving — both musically and otherwise. “Music is still my first love, but I enjoy the creative side of all things, personally,” he says.

It shows. In the last 20-plus years, he’s founded G-Unit Film & Television, which currently has over 40 projects set up at the top broadcast, cable, and streaming network platforms, including Black Mafia Family and Power for Starz and its plethora of spin-offs, as well as the scripted series Fightland, Queen Nzinga, and The Massacre. He’s made more than 10 feature films; announced a non-exclusive multi-project development deal with FOX; created a Nicki Minaj animated starring vehicle in Lady Danger for Amazon; the docuseries The Hunt for the Gilgo Beach Killer for Peacock; a Sean “Diddy” Combs docuseries for Netflix; and the animated superhero comedy Trill League at BET+. He expanded into the podcast space with his new G-Unit Audio banner; opened the G-Unit Studios Louisiana in Shreveport this year; founded Sire Spirits, which encompasses both Branson Cognac and Le Chemin du Roi (“The Kings Path”) champagne; diversified into the professional sports market by linking Sire Spirits to various teams across the MLB, the NHL, the NFL, and the NBA, including the Houston Astros, Vegas Golden Knights, Sacramento Kings, Indiana Pacers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Houston Texans, Houston Rockets, Orlando Magic, New Orleans Saints, and Washington Commanders; and founded his non-profit, the G-Unity Foundation, among other initiatives.

“I know what I’m saying and what I’m doing,” Jackson maintains, adding, “I also know where I’m at [in life]. I think as we get older, we take on certain things that stay with us. Let’s say when you start out, you have a glass of wine every night. Later, you’d have that in the privacy of your home. When you have success, there’s a wine cellar, or there’s a bar at your home, because we don’t necessarily want to go out and party with the kids, so you bring the party to you. At one point, I had a place that was 55,000 square feet — one of the largest homes on the East Coast. It was previously owned by Mike Tyson, and that was necessary for the time period that I was in. I stayed there for 14 years. It was necessary for me to have that, because I was always bringing everybody with me to the party — and partying doesn’t stop. You can have 18 bedrooms but you’re going to only sleep on one bed, right? So, you’ve got to have people there to make more sense. For you to be paying a mortgage of a property with 18 bedrooms, 55,000 square feet, and six kitchens, you need people there to entertain. You need people for the staff that’s there to cook and keep things in order, or it’s all unnecessary.”

Things have changed in a major way since those days. “I just don’t need the same things,” he insists. “I do things differently. Now, I know myself more. I know what I require, and I definitely don’t require 55,000 square feet. If I had 13 kids, maybe, they would fit comfortably in 18 rooms. Other than that, it’s just me. I really need three rooms total. A bedroom, an office, a guest bedroom. I would say this to people: we live once. If you want it, you should have it.”

He looks at me earnestly. “Do you know what I mean? That instant gratification is when we splurge on things. When you understand business even a little bit, you’ll look at things and realize that it would be hard for you to dress if you knew what the manufacturing cost was; you’d feel like you’re being beat out of your money. For me, now, I’m in a position where I’ll say, spend the same money, I don’t care, because if I don’t spend it, they’ll take it. I don’t want the IRS to have it… but do it in a different way. You fly private if you feel like you need to just be away from everything. The cost doesn’t matter, because you’re going to spend it anyway. But when you look at it and you say that shit looks good, and when I look good, I feel good? It’s worth it.”

See what I mean? Yoda.

WITH HIS 50TH BIRTHDAY JUST a year away, Curtis Jackson is doing a check-in. As this major milestone approaches, does he have everything he wants in life? Is he content? After some assessment, he seems happy: yes, he does have it all — outside of one thing, that is.

“I wish I had a daughter,” he admits during our June Zoom session, repeating the sentiment earnestly. “I do. I wish I had a daughter.”

He’s always regretted not having a little girl, though he is a father of two: his sons Marquise and Sire are, respectively, 28 and 12. “I wish I had that [father-daughter] relationship. For female children, their dad is the first man they fall in love with. Male children go to their mom; I’m a mama’s boy myself.”

It seems like Jackson started feeling broody after attending the May wedding of Eminem’s daughter, Hailie Jade, in Michigan, citing, in fact, the relationship between his longtime friend and his little girl as a recent trigger.

“It was unbelievable, the wildest thing for me, period. I was like, ‘Yo, bro, this is crazy. We’re getting old. Your baby is grown. What the fuck is going on?’ I was having a moment myself over there. I told Em, ‘You said it was OK to cry, because I’m crying.’ I couldn’t believe it went that fast.”

He explains that he’s been trying to get Eminem on tour for years, but the Detroit-born rapper was adamant that he couldn’t until Hailie had grown up. “That was the difference between my experience and Em’s. I could always go out on the road, but with Hailie, it was different. Like if she’s looking at you and she doesn’t want you to leave and you go ‘no, I’ve got to work.’ [And she says] But really, do you have to go?’ ‘OK, maybe I don’t have to go.’ If that was the case, things might have changed for me.”

Still, he says it felt like yesterday that he and Em discussed going on tour together, and his friend declined. “Em was saying that he didn’t want to go everywhere in the world where I went. I would say to him that people would pay a gazillion dollars to see us on tour together, all kinds of money to see him perform. And he still did not care about that, because the most expensive thing that we have is time, and he was conscious of being there for Hailie growing up.”
But now that she has officially fled the nest, it’s time. “We should be on the run now; [the kids are] grown,” he insists.
Although he’s still physically preparing for the next leg of his own existing tour — The Final Lap kicked off last July in Salt Lake City, Utah — he’s already thinking 10 steps ahead about what’s to come, as is in his nature. But given that his own tour has broken records and made history, it’s not a bad thing to focus on the present, either.

The 29-country Final Lap tour became only the fourth rap tour in history to ever cross the $100 million mark. There were 102 shows in 150 days, with over 1.2 million tickets sold.

This tour felt different for Jackson, though. “When I went to perform and looked in the crowd [it was mostly kids in their 20s]. I was like, damn, where are your moms? I’m just in a different place now, and I do get tired of touring,” he admits. “I only did the last tour because the television business was on strike; I probably wouldn’t have done it if everything stayed functional, if we weren’t on hiatus from film and television. [That being said] I had a ball.”

Film and television have been his main focus as of late, especially as his G-Unit Productions continues to develop and his deals start to increase. This is also why he’s been hemming and hawing about agreeing to a Las Vegas residency, despite the demand being there.

“How much of a residency can I commit to when I have multiple film projects coming? Not just the television stuff, but opportunities for me to star in feature films, too. I’m having success in film; my career in television mirrors my music career. My first television show [Power] is the largest show on the network; I’m able to develop spinoff shows and turn this into a 10-year anniversary, and it’s now the number one program in African American and Latino households. So, [now in particular] I have to seriously balance out and schedule things.”

I mention that many Las Vegas residencies are spaced out, months apart. He thinks about it. “That would actually be fun; that would work for me to do it that way,” he muses.

Maybe it will work out somewhere down the line, especially given that Sire Spirits is the presenting champagne sponsor of the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights, among the other aforementioned teams, a stealthy power move of which he says started in Houston with Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, carried over to fellow Texas-based team Houston Astros, and then, beyond.

“When the Astros won the World Series, that relationship opened up so many others. And at the same time, I [realized that I needed to do a deal] with the owners of the actual teams and make Branson the official cognac and Chemin de Roi the official champagne. It was a cool approach, and I ended up with 11 different professional teams. As I got with them too, I was like, I should have been at the sports book. I should have really been betting some money on this stuff because it was working. But, then, I had additional gratification from being correct,” he says with a cheeky grin. [Several times, in fact: in just the first year of launching said partnership program, five of his then-seven teams went to post-season, and two won championships.]

So where does Jackson go from here? The answer: anywhere the hell he wants. “I’ve already exceeded some of my personal goals, and what I’ve learned about myself is that I have to constantly recreate what my goals are, which is like running through an endless tunnel. I have this disease called ambition,” he admits, noting, “and you can contract it from not having anything. People who grow up über wealthy, born with a silver spoon, their task is not to figure out how to acquire or to develop generational wealth; their task is to figure out what’s cool, because everything is an option. It’s pretty tough to have ambition when you have so much from the beginning. So, from not having, I do want to do everything. I also want to leave things for my kids, and I think that’s the ultimate goal.”

Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson didn’t have much growing up, but he’s got everything he needs now, and he did it himself. Which is why, he feels, the album that best represents his current place in life is his 2007 self-named record, Curtis. “It symbolizes where I’m at; 50 Cent is only a portion of the experience. My grandmother’s baby is Curtis. [She] never stopped calling me that name, this whole journey. Now, I’m also trying to be the new version of the guy that was already out there.”

The guy who loves acting. The guy who admits when he’s wrong, doesn’t mind stirring the pot when he’s right (and even when he isn’t), the guy who wants to try new things and who refuses to stop learning or growing. The guy who wants to leave a legacy, and who will never give up on his first true love.

“I still love music — listening to it and performing it,” he shares, confessing, “When I’m about to go onstage to perform, I get butterflies. Every time, I have butterflies. But I think if you don’t get a little nervous before you do something you care about, you probably shouldn’t do it anymore. And I’m far from being done.” He pauses, and adds, “I’m going to give everyone even more reasons to remember me.”

I have no doubt — and can’t wait to see what he tries next.