The 50th Law - 50 Cent [91]
—Frederick Douglass
By the mid-1990s Curtis Jackson felt supremely dissatisfied with his life as a hustler. The only way up and out that he could see was music. He had some talent as a rapper, but that wouldn’t get him very far in this world. He felt somewhat confused about how to break into the business, and he was impatient to begin the process. Then one evening in 1996 all of that changed: at a Manhattan nightclub Curtis (now known as 50 Cent) met the famous rapper and producer Jam Master Jay. He could sense that this was his one opportunity, and he would have to make the best of it. He talked Jay into letting him visit his studio the following day to hear him rap. There he managed to impress him enough that Jay agreed to serve as his mentor. It seemed that everything now would fall into place.
Fifty had saved money to tide him over while he moved into this new career, but it wouldn’t last forever. Jay got him a few gigs, but they didn’t pay. On the streets near his home he would see his hustler friends doing well, while his funds were dwindling to nothing. What would he do when he ran out of money? He had already sold his car and jewelry. He had recently fathered a son with his girlfriend and he needed money to support the child. He started to feel more impatient than ever. After much persistence he got someone at Columbia Records to hear his music, and the label became interested in signing him to a deal. But to get out of a contract he had signed with Jay, he had to give him almost all of the advance money from Columbia. What was worse, at Columbia he now found himself lost amid all the other rappers signed to the label. His future looked more uncertain than ever.
With his savings almost gone, he would now have to return to hustling on the streets, and this made him feel bitter. His former colleagues were not too happy to see him again. Feeling like he needed money fast, he became more aggressive than usual and made some enemies on the streets who began to threaten him. He had been splitting his time between the record studio and hustling, and his first album at Columbia was about to come out, but the label was doing nothing to promote it. Everything in his life seemed to be unraveling at the same time.
Then one afternoon in May of 2000, as he got into the backseat of a friend’s car, a young man suddenly appeared at the car window brandishing a gun and began firing at him at close range. The bullets went all over, nine of them piercing his body, including one that opened a giant hole in his jaw. The assassin then hurried away to an awaiting car, certain he had done his job with the shot to Fifty’s head. Fifty’s friends quickly drove him to the nearest hospital. As it all unfolded, the event itself didn’t appear real to him. It was like a movie, something he had seen happen to others. But at one point, while he was being operated on, he sensed that he was close to death and suddenly it all seemed very real. A searing light flooded his eyes, and for a few seconds a shadow crept over it, while everything else came to a stop. It was an oddly calm moment; then it passed.
In the months to come he would stay in his grandparents’ house, recovering from the near mortal wounds he had suffered. As he regained his strength he could almost laugh at the whole thing. He had cheated death. Of course, for hustlers in the hood this was no big deal and nobody would feel sorry for him. He had to move on and not look back, while also keeping an eye on the killers who would be looking to finish the job. In the wake of the shooting, Columbia had canceled his album and dropped him from the label—he was surrounded by too much violence. Fifty would get his revenge—he would launch the kind of mix-tape campaign on the streets that would make him famous and those same executives would come back, begging to sign him.
As he geared up for action, however, he noticed that something had changed inside him. He found himself getting up earlier than usual in the morning and writing songs late