Rapper 50 Cent on music, violence - and violent music

Like a formation of geese ahead of an approaching cold front, an entourage arrives. It includes several hefty bodyguards with wires coiling from their ears and sunglasses shielding their eyes. Minutes later there is indeed a change in the atmosphere: a crackle of static. Then Curtis Jackson, 50 Cent or fifty, as I'm assured everyone calls him, nonchalantly ambles in, wearing his own brand baseball cap and a large diamond-encrusted cross around his neck. He slumps on the sofa in front of me in a London studio and gives a toothy grin. "Wass up?" he says. I was going to ask him the same thing. What was up in LA where he cancelled a gig? What happened? "Right, right. It was the new album. It was due for release then, but it wasn't how I wanted it. [The album Curtis will release later this month.] I had to go back and work on it. I'm very hands-on. I/m fine with failing, but only if it's my fault. I don't like putting my life into other people's hands." PLENTY OF FUEDS Hmmm. The list of his fueds is long, but his biggest have been with Ja Rule, The Game (a former protege), and the most fanous rapper-cum-entrepreneur of them all, P.Diddy. It's a dangerous game-- his mentor Jam Master Jay was shot dead, allegedly as part of a rap feud--and the bulletproof vest Fifty wears and the car he drives (a Humvee, naturally) are not just for show. How safe does he feel today? "Pretty safe. As safe as I'll ever be. Do you feel safe? You've got terrorist attacks going on here in London." That brings us naturally to the next question. Would it be fair to say that Fifty glamorises gun violence through his lyrics? "There is a difference between glamorising violence and creating a work of art that entertains on some level," he says. "Hip hop is a mirror. What I write is a reflection of the environment I grew up in. What I do is reporting. I thing it is clear to everyone that I am no living that life I describe, but I use terminology that they use in that environment, so that people there can relate to it. People say I should take out the cursing and I say, 'Sure, I'll change my standards if society changes its standards'." NOT TRIGGER-HAPPY A change of tack. Does it worry him that the young people who buy his albums might feel inspired to go around shooting people afterwards? "Anyone who could be influenced by music would have to be so distorted they could be influenced by pretty much anything," he says. "The kid that become violent because he listen to music is already crazy. People who can't seperate entertainment and reality are not mentally normail." Why does he suppose people are drawn to that which frightens them? "I think death in itself is entertaing to humans. I believe that is because it is everyone's fate. I'm going to die, you going to die, everyone is going to die. You see someone in a life-threatening situation and it is entertaing." --The Telegraph Group Limited , London 2007 BRAND FIFTY 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin album sold nearly 900,000 copies in the first four days of release. Nowadays he earns more than $50 million a year without even bringing out a record., thanks to the cross-branding business empire he has built up. As well as his own record label, there is a 50 Cent clothing line, a 50 Cent publishing arm, a 50 Cent film company, a 50 Cent sports watch line, a 50 Cent Playstation game and a bottled vitamin water line. Forbes magazine has called him a "masterful brand-builder and a shrewd businessman". In 2006 he earned $ 32 million, according to Forbes magazine's newly published "Hip-hop Cash Kings" list. NUMBER GAME 13 ______________________________________________ The number of days Fifty spent in hospital in 2000, after being shot nine times in his car outside his grandmother's house. He discharged himself while still unable to walk. 200,000 ______________________________________________ The number of dollars Fifty has spent on bullet-proofing his car since that shooting. "I'm actually disappointed nobody's shot me," he says." I spent a whole lot of money on that s***." 2 ______________________________________________ The number of parents only "spoilt" children grow up with, according to Fifty - he never new his father; his mother was murdered when he was eight. 25 ______________________________________________ The number of bathrooms in his Connecticut mansion, six of which have Jacuzzis. 3 ______________________________________________ The number of hours Fifty spent dealing drugs each weekday, as a teenager - his grandparents mistakenly thought he was doing "school activities" every afternoon from 3-6pm.