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Excerpt 1
It's the early '80s, Michael Jordan has yet to enter the NBA. America thinks the kid on the tube who says "Whatchutalkinbout, Willis?" is the most adorable character ever. Rap is just a cool little subgenre of music that the mainstream has barely been introduced to, and 50 Cent is an elementary school student figuring out that his mother might be a lesbian. Her sexual preference doesn't matter to young Curtis, though. In his eyes, she's strong, she's giving and she's proud — too proud to let her son get punked out by a bully. Here Fif tells about learning an early lesson from his mother: fight back with everything you've got. When you have nothing left, pick something up.
If you were a kid growing up in my neighborhood, it was weird for you to have both parents around. You either got one parent or you got grandparents. I had one parent and two grandparents. From what I could tell, I was actually ahead of the game. And when it came time to bring it — whether "it" was love, money, or authority — my mom would bring it. That's the only thing that mattered to me.
I remember seeing my mom hanging out with women more than she hung out with men. She had this one friend named Tammy who would always be around, so one time I asked my grandmother, "Why does Ma always come around with Tammy?" My grandmother said, "That's something you should ask your mother about." And then I dropped the subject. I was young, but I wasn't stupid. I learned early on that when it came to my mom, there were things you talked about and things that you didn't.
My mom was, in a word, hard. She was real aggressive. As a disciplinarian, she was stern. As a motivator, she was even harsher. She encouraged me to do things that I knew I couldn't do if she didn't have my back. Once, when I was about five years old, I came running into my grandmother's house, crying, because I had been fighting with some kids up the block.
Get 50 percent off 50's book when you preorder now, only on MTV.com.
Part 1:
We had been shooting marbles when this kid missed a really easy shot and I laughed at him. He must've been having a bad day because he got real upset and wanted to fight. Because he was much bigger than me, all the other kids got on his side to beat me up. I was like, You can't be serious. This kid was already bigger than the legal size for five-year-olds. He was so big that, on principle alone, he should have been eight or nine. If we were in a boxing league, he would have been at least three weight classes above me. It's not like he needed the help. So I did the only thing I could: I took my ass-whupping and went home to cry.
When I got home, my mom was pissed. She asked, "What the hell are you crying about?"
I explained it to her. "There was this boy," I told her, "he's as big as a whole block, maybe two. He beat me up and he wasn't quite finished with me when I ran, so if it's all the same to you, I'll be spending the rest of my fifth year in the house."
My mom asked where he was. I said, "He's still outside, blocking out the sun, most likely. You can't fight him, Ma." She looked at me like I had left my common sense on the street. I don't know if she was shocked that I thought she'd fight my battle for me or just disappointed in me for running. She said, "Go back out there and fight him again. If you get your ass beat again, you're gonna take it without crying."
I would have sworn that something was wrong with my ears. Or maybe hers. I said, "Ma, this kid is big. Like, big big."
"I don't care if he's bigger than you," she said. "You pick something up and hit him with it if you have to. But you're not going to come back in here crying."
It wasn't really a hard decision at that point. The worst the kid I was fighting could do was to kill me. But I was more scared of my mom at that moment. I went back out there, picked up a rock that I could barely hold in my hand, and I knocked the f--- out of that kid with it. It was the first time I ever hit someone hard enough to make him go down. He was curled up on the floor bleeding and saying that he was going to tell his mother on me. But I didn't care. His mom could only go and talk to my mom, and I had a strong feeling that any confrontation between our mothers would end up much like the one between him and me did. "So what?" I screamed. "Go tell your mother. She can get hit, too!" All the kids started egging the fight on. "Ooooh! He talked about your momma!" I told them to shut up or they could get hit, too. They shut up. And that kid never came back with his mother. In fact, he never bothered me again.
It's the early '80s, Michael Jordan has yet to enter the NBA. America thinks the kid on the tube who says "Whatchutalkinbout, Willis?" is the most adorable character ever. Rap is just a cool little subgenre of music that the mainstream has barely been introduced to, and 50 Cent is an elementary school student figuring out that his mother might be a lesbian. Her sexual preference doesn't matter to young Curtis, though. In his eyes, she's strong, she's giving and she's proud — too proud to let her son get punked out by a bully. Here Fif tells about learning an early lesson from his mother: fight back with everything you've got. When you have nothing left, pick something up.
If you were a kid growing up in my neighborhood, it was weird for you to have both parents around. You either got one parent or you got grandparents. I had one parent and two grandparents. From what I could tell, I was actually ahead of the game. And when it came time to bring it — whether "it" was love, money, or authority — my mom would bring it. That's the only thing that mattered to me.
I remember seeing my mom hanging out with women more than she hung out with men. She had this one friend named Tammy who would always be around, so one time I asked my grandmother, "Why does Ma always come around with Tammy?" My grandmother said, "That's something you should ask your mother about." And then I dropped the subject. I was young, but I wasn't stupid. I learned early on that when it came to my mom, there were things you talked about and things that you didn't.
My mom was, in a word, hard. She was real aggressive. As a disciplinarian, she was stern. As a motivator, she was even harsher. She encouraged me to do things that I knew I couldn't do if she didn't have my back. Once, when I was about five years old, I came running into my grandmother's house, crying, because I had been fighting with some kids up the block.
Get 50 percent off 50's book when you preorder now, only on MTV.com.
Part 1:
We had been shooting marbles when this kid missed a really easy shot and I laughed at him. He must've been having a bad day because he got real upset and wanted to fight. Because he was much bigger than me, all the other kids got on his side to beat me up. I was like, You can't be serious. This kid was already bigger than the legal size for five-year-olds. He was so big that, on principle alone, he should have been eight or nine. If we were in a boxing league, he would have been at least three weight classes above me. It's not like he needed the help. So I did the only thing I could: I took my ass-whupping and went home to cry.
When I got home, my mom was pissed. She asked, "What the hell are you crying about?"
I explained it to her. "There was this boy," I told her, "he's as big as a whole block, maybe two. He beat me up and he wasn't quite finished with me when I ran, so if it's all the same to you, I'll be spending the rest of my fifth year in the house."
My mom asked where he was. I said, "He's still outside, blocking out the sun, most likely. You can't fight him, Ma." She looked at me like I had left my common sense on the street. I don't know if she was shocked that I thought she'd fight my battle for me or just disappointed in me for running. She said, "Go back out there and fight him again. If you get your ass beat again, you're gonna take it without crying."
I would have sworn that something was wrong with my ears. Or maybe hers. I said, "Ma, this kid is big. Like, big big."
"I don't care if he's bigger than you," she said. "You pick something up and hit him with it if you have to. But you're not going to come back in here crying."
It wasn't really a hard decision at that point. The worst the kid I was fighting could do was to kill me. But I was more scared of my mom at that moment. I went back out there, picked up a rock that I could barely hold in my hand, and I knocked the f--- out of that kid with it. It was the first time I ever hit someone hard enough to make him go down. He was curled up on the floor bleeding and saying that he was going to tell his mother on me. But I didn't care. His mom could only go and talk to my mom, and I had a strong feeling that any confrontation between our mothers would end up much like the one between him and me did. "So what?" I screamed. "Go tell your mother. She can get hit, too!" All the kids started egging the fight on. "Ooooh! He talked about your momma!" I told them to shut up or they could get hit, too. They shut up. And that kid never came back with his mother. In fact, he never bothered me again.
Excerpt 2
It's still the early '80s, and 50 Cent the rapper is far from materializing. He's known by his family and in the neighborhood as "Boo-Boo." In a few years he'll be an established crack dealer, but his first experience with the cocaine trade is not going to come from outside the house; his aunts and uncles are going to send him to buy drugs for them. It's during these transactions that Boo-Boo would get to know Sincere, the local pusher who would change his life. In this excerpt, Fif relives getting turned on and turned out by being introduced to the money he could get from flipping Fat Alberts — and he's not talking about the leader of the Junkyard Band, either.
Back in the early half of the eighties, cocaine was a recreational drug. My aunts and uncles — Star, Johnny, and Jennie (who had come back worse off from the army than when Johnny had returned from the navy) — used coke. They'd get together with their friends, sniff some lines, and go out. When they came back, they'd hit a few more lines and drink till they went to sleep the next afternoon. I'd wake up in the morning from all the loud talking and find them in the living room with the same clothes they had on when I went to sleep. They'd be having such a good time that when they ran out of coke, no one would want to go get more, so they'd send me down the block to Brian's house for Fat Alberts. A Fat Albert was about a quarter gram of cocaine, wrapped in aluminum foil or a shred of a plastic bag, that sold for twenty-five dollars. Brian was only in high school. Actually, he was at the age when he should have been in high school, but I never saw him doing homework or carrying books. When I saw him, he was clean-cut and freshly dipped. He hung out with guys who were much older and drove a whitewall-tired Pontiac Bonneville. But like I said, even though he was my cousin, he never gave me anything.
One time, I had fifty dollars in my pocket and was picking up some Alberts from Brian. He had on a brand-new pair of sneakers, and about six or seven boxes of kicks he hadn't even worn yet were stacked in the bedroom. It was one of the craziest things I had ever seen. It looked like a corner in one of the sneaker stores Sincere took me to. I asked Brian if he would buy me a new pair of sneakers, because the ones I had were all worn out. I showed him the bottom of my Lottos. A torn sock and the head of my naked big toe were sticking out like, "Hello." This n---a Brian laughed at me, counted the money I had given him, handed me the two Alberts, and sent me on my way. I was like, f--- that. After that, I never went back to Brian to pick up anything. From then on, I went to see Sincere. But the time came when Sincere wouldn't buy clothes or sneakers for me, either. Sincere began to change. Mel and Jack, some of the older guys from the neighborhood, had kidnapped his grandfather for ransom money.
Sincere told me that I had to keep my mouth shut about things like this. He didn't even have to tell me that because I was freaked out by the whole thing. I was like, "What part of the game is this?" That sh-- made no sense to me. I asked Sincere how it happened, and he told me that someone had made the mistake of telling Mel and Jack that he kept cash in the house. Sincere wasn't absolutely positive who ran his mouth, but he was pretty sure that it was Gary. Gary was a kid from the neighborhood who had a habit of saying more than he was supposed to around the wrong people. Sincere had been hanging with Gary the day before everything went down — and that Mel was Gary's sister's baby's father. "I don't believe in no coincidence," he said. He only believed in things he could see. And he saw Mel and Jack even though they had worn masks. The robbers kidnapped his grandfather and shot the old man, just to let Sincere know that they were serious. They wanted money, and they were ready to put holes in people to prove it.
The story woke me up to what the game was really about. Up until that point, I had believed in some sort of honor among thieves. But that illusion left my mind that night. It was all about money, and everyone was out for himself.
"I don't understand that sh--, Boo-Boo, man," Sincere said. His eyes were shifting as if he expected Mel and Jack to come back at any minute. "It's like you can't even run a little business anymore," he said. "You gotta be careful around Gary."
It felt like Sincere was preparing me for something, but I wasn't sure what it was.
"Listen, if I give you a pair of sneakers, they're just gonna get dirty and I'ma have to buy you a new pair all over again, man," Sincere said. Then he pulled out a small wrapped bag of cocaine and told me that it contained a little bit over a gram of powder. He measured out the bag into five equal parts and wrapped them in foil. "There's five Alberts, man," he said. "Sell those to your uncles and bring me back a hundred dollars." I had the small balls in my hand, looking at what would become my first profitable drug transaction.
It's still the early '80s, and 50 Cent the rapper is far from materializing. He's known by his family and in the neighborhood as "Boo-Boo." In a few years he'll be an established crack dealer, but his first experience with the cocaine trade is not going to come from outside the house; his aunts and uncles are going to send him to buy drugs for them. It's during these transactions that Boo-Boo would get to know Sincere, the local pusher who would change his life. In this excerpt, Fif relives getting turned on and turned out by being introduced to the money he could get from flipping Fat Alberts — and he's not talking about the leader of the Junkyard Band, either.
Back in the early half of the eighties, cocaine was a recreational drug. My aunts and uncles — Star, Johnny, and Jennie (who had come back worse off from the army than when Johnny had returned from the navy) — used coke. They'd get together with their friends, sniff some lines, and go out. When they came back, they'd hit a few more lines and drink till they went to sleep the next afternoon. I'd wake up in the morning from all the loud talking and find them in the living room with the same clothes they had on when I went to sleep. They'd be having such a good time that when they ran out of coke, no one would want to go get more, so they'd send me down the block to Brian's house for Fat Alberts. A Fat Albert was about a quarter gram of cocaine, wrapped in aluminum foil or a shred of a plastic bag, that sold for twenty-five dollars. Brian was only in high school. Actually, he was at the age when he should have been in high school, but I never saw him doing homework or carrying books. When I saw him, he was clean-cut and freshly dipped. He hung out with guys who were much older and drove a whitewall-tired Pontiac Bonneville. But like I said, even though he was my cousin, he never gave me anything.
One time, I had fifty dollars in my pocket and was picking up some Alberts from Brian. He had on a brand-new pair of sneakers, and about six or seven boxes of kicks he hadn't even worn yet were stacked in the bedroom. It was one of the craziest things I had ever seen. It looked like a corner in one of the sneaker stores Sincere took me to. I asked Brian if he would buy me a new pair of sneakers, because the ones I had were all worn out. I showed him the bottom of my Lottos. A torn sock and the head of my naked big toe were sticking out like, "Hello." This n---a Brian laughed at me, counted the money I had given him, handed me the two Alberts, and sent me on my way. I was like, f--- that. After that, I never went back to Brian to pick up anything. From then on, I went to see Sincere. But the time came when Sincere wouldn't buy clothes or sneakers for me, either. Sincere began to change. Mel and Jack, some of the older guys from the neighborhood, had kidnapped his grandfather for ransom money.
Sincere told me that I had to keep my mouth shut about things like this. He didn't even have to tell me that because I was freaked out by the whole thing. I was like, "What part of the game is this?" That sh-- made no sense to me. I asked Sincere how it happened, and he told me that someone had made the mistake of telling Mel and Jack that he kept cash in the house. Sincere wasn't absolutely positive who ran his mouth, but he was pretty sure that it was Gary. Gary was a kid from the neighborhood who had a habit of saying more than he was supposed to around the wrong people. Sincere had been hanging with Gary the day before everything went down — and that Mel was Gary's sister's baby's father. "I don't believe in no coincidence," he said. He only believed in things he could see. And he saw Mel and Jack even though they had worn masks. The robbers kidnapped his grandfather and shot the old man, just to let Sincere know that they were serious. They wanted money, and they were ready to put holes in people to prove it.
The story woke me up to what the game was really about. Up until that point, I had believed in some sort of honor among thieves. But that illusion left my mind that night. It was all about money, and everyone was out for himself.
"I don't understand that sh--, Boo-Boo, man," Sincere said. His eyes were shifting as if he expected Mel and Jack to come back at any minute. "It's like you can't even run a little business anymore," he said. "You gotta be careful around Gary."
It felt like Sincere was preparing me for something, but I wasn't sure what it was.
"Listen, if I give you a pair of sneakers, they're just gonna get dirty and I'ma have to buy you a new pair all over again, man," Sincere said. Then he pulled out a small wrapped bag of cocaine and told me that it contained a little bit over a gram of powder. He measured out the bag into five equal parts and wrapped them in foil. "There's five Alberts, man," he said. "Sell those to your uncles and bring me back a hundred dollars." I had the small balls in my hand, looking at what would become my first profitable drug transaction.
Excerpt 3
50's descent into the world of illegal narcotics sales is well on its way and there's nothing pretty about it. He's lured by the money but at the same time feels conflicted about the violence that comes with it. He's been around the harshest of realities, and in this excerpt he remembers a tandem who were never shy about murder.
If anyone aside from Godfather knew their real names, he never told. We just knew them as Grits and Butter, which made sense because they were countrified and inseparable. Where you saw one, you saw the other; and where you saw both, you saw trouble. All anyone could ever really say about Grits and Butter was, "I'm glad they're on our side." And if Grits and Butter weren't on your side, there wasn't much to say about them because you'd never take them for silent killers.
They had come from North Carolina. Actually, they had been sent out of North Carolina — not quite chased out, not exactly banished, and not running. Definitely not running, because first and foremost, Grits and Butter ran from nothing. I don't even think those n---as knew how to run. According to them, it was totally their own decision to leave the only home they had ever known to journey north. The multiple life sentences they faced if the authorities picked them up? Oh, please. They chose not to face those charges, just like they chose to leave three men dead, one paralyzed, one child in a coma, and two women seriously wounded during what was supposed to be a routine cash pickup. The story was that the mayhem was the result of no more than ten bullets, despite the fact that all but one of the victims was running at the time of being shot.
When Godfather introduced Grits and Butter to me, he said that they were there to be enforcers. I couldn't detect anything especially "enforceful" about them. I figured the old man was either keeping tabs on me or practicing more nepotism, like he was doing with Derrick. Grits and Butter immediately took a liking to Markie because of his slick talk. They looked at his joking like, Markie don't give a f--- about no one. They had never spent much time around kids their own age, so to them there was no such thing as n---as cracking on each other — no "your mama" jokes, no dozens. It's like Grits and Butter weren't raised inasmuch as they were bred for destruction, like the top students in a mercenary training camp or something.
I didn't realize that Grits and Butter played by different rules until the day I was complaining about this kid Phil. Phil had owed me money for weeks, but I couldn't track him down. Either I had bad luck or Phil had radar, because I would run into people who had just been with Phil, who swore he was still just around the corner, who were expecting him any minute, or what have you — but I never ran into Phil. So I said, "When I find this n---a, I'm gonna kill him."
Grits and Butter were checking out the new set of guns Derrick had given them — twin P-Series 9mm Parabellum Rugers, stainless steel with black rubber grips, just like they had asked for. Me, Ray-Ray, and Markie were working in an assembly line: Ray-Ray was bagging the capsules into G-packs; Markie was in charge of stuffing the rocks into vials; and I was the first in line, slicing the coke cookies into pebble-size pieces. I was complaining about Phil when I cut my thumb with the razor. "F---in' Phil," I said. "You see what happens when I think about this motherf---er? I think about this motherf---er and I cut myself. I tell you, I'ma kill this motherf---er when I see him." Now, I'm just talking sh--. I meant kill figuratively. Plus, I was pissed because I had just chopped off a chunk of my finger. But Grits and Butter just didn't get it. If I had known how they were, I would have said, "Listen guys, I'm a little heated right now. I don't mean for you to go out and shoot Phil." But I didn't know how they were, so I didn't say anything and Phil was shot dead in his chest at point-blank range that night.
The next day, I was telling everyone that I heard Phil got killed. Even though it kind of f---ed me up, I was like, Good for his ass. But what really f---ed me up was that Markie was laughing when he told me that Grits and Butter killed Phil. That part scared me.
50's descent into the world of illegal narcotics sales is well on its way and there's nothing pretty about it. He's lured by the money but at the same time feels conflicted about the violence that comes with it. He's been around the harshest of realities, and in this excerpt he remembers a tandem who were never shy about murder.
If anyone aside from Godfather knew their real names, he never told. We just knew them as Grits and Butter, which made sense because they were countrified and inseparable. Where you saw one, you saw the other; and where you saw both, you saw trouble. All anyone could ever really say about Grits and Butter was, "I'm glad they're on our side." And if Grits and Butter weren't on your side, there wasn't much to say about them because you'd never take them for silent killers.
They had come from North Carolina. Actually, they had been sent out of North Carolina — not quite chased out, not exactly banished, and not running. Definitely not running, because first and foremost, Grits and Butter ran from nothing. I don't even think those n---as knew how to run. According to them, it was totally their own decision to leave the only home they had ever known to journey north. The multiple life sentences they faced if the authorities picked them up? Oh, please. They chose not to face those charges, just like they chose to leave three men dead, one paralyzed, one child in a coma, and two women seriously wounded during what was supposed to be a routine cash pickup. The story was that the mayhem was the result of no more than ten bullets, despite the fact that all but one of the victims was running at the time of being shot.
When Godfather introduced Grits and Butter to me, he said that they were there to be enforcers. I couldn't detect anything especially "enforceful" about them. I figured the old man was either keeping tabs on me or practicing more nepotism, like he was doing with Derrick. Grits and Butter immediately took a liking to Markie because of his slick talk. They looked at his joking like, Markie don't give a f--- about no one. They had never spent much time around kids their own age, so to them there was no such thing as n---as cracking on each other — no "your mama" jokes, no dozens. It's like Grits and Butter weren't raised inasmuch as they were bred for destruction, like the top students in a mercenary training camp or something.
I didn't realize that Grits and Butter played by different rules until the day I was complaining about this kid Phil. Phil had owed me money for weeks, but I couldn't track him down. Either I had bad luck or Phil had radar, because I would run into people who had just been with Phil, who swore he was still just around the corner, who were expecting him any minute, or what have you — but I never ran into Phil. So I said, "When I find this n---a, I'm gonna kill him."
Grits and Butter were checking out the new set of guns Derrick had given them — twin P-Series 9mm Parabellum Rugers, stainless steel with black rubber grips, just like they had asked for. Me, Ray-Ray, and Markie were working in an assembly line: Ray-Ray was bagging the capsules into G-packs; Markie was in charge of stuffing the rocks into vials; and I was the first in line, slicing the coke cookies into pebble-size pieces. I was complaining about Phil when I cut my thumb with the razor. "F---in' Phil," I said. "You see what happens when I think about this motherf---er? I think about this motherf---er and I cut myself. I tell you, I'ma kill this motherf---er when I see him." Now, I'm just talking sh--. I meant kill figuratively. Plus, I was pissed because I had just chopped off a chunk of my finger. But Grits and Butter just didn't get it. If I had known how they were, I would have said, "Listen guys, I'm a little heated right now. I don't mean for you to go out and shoot Phil." But I didn't know how they were, so I didn't say anything and Phil was shot dead in his chest at point-blank range that night.
The next day, I was telling everyone that I heard Phil got killed. Even though it kind of f---ed me up, I was like, Good for his ass. But what really f---ed me up was that Markie was laughing when he told me that Grits and Butter killed Phil. That part scared me.
Excerpt 4
The decade of decadence is a wrap and it's on to the '90s. Notorious B.I.G. is years away from authoring his classic record "Ten Crack Commandments," but Boo-Boo already knows them, and knows them well. He's had conflicts with fiends and fellow drug dealers, but the most omnipresent of his adversaries are the men in blue. With his "hustle hard" mentality, young Curtis Jackson was bound to get caught one day. Here, he's already survived getting arrested without doing any major time, but he's in the midst of another run-in with the cops.
Anyone who hustles hard is supposed to get locked up. He will get locked up — the odds just aren't in his favor. A bona fide hustler doesn't take any days off, which means that he commits a felony three hundred and sixty five days a year. If you're hustling hard, you'd easily rack up a couple of thousand felonies per year. It only takes one incident to get sent to jail. The day my odds ran out, I was out early in the morning, getting in some prework drug sales. Train conductors, office workers, teachers — these sorts of people have been known to bypass coffee and doughnuts for a hit of crack cocaine in order to jump-start their day. There's good money in the morning rush hour, so I was out there on a park bench. I had on headphones, and Tricia, this chick I was working with, sat a few feet away on a separate bench. We looked like kids waiting for the bus to go to school.
Some guy I had never seen before walked over to me and asked about copping some heroin. I had been through this once and wasn't going to get caught again. Most fiends aren't going to run up to some random person and ask him for drugs because they don't want everybody knowing they do drugs. They know who does what and they know where to go. So when this guy started asking me about drugs, I told him that I didn't know a thing about drugs or the people who sold them. I told him that I was just waiting for a friend to come by so we could go jogging.
The guy was like, "Well, um, you know, when I come through here I usually see this guy who, um, he's usually here riding a motorcycle." I thought, I ride a motorcycle and I hustle. As a matter of fact, I'm the only one around here who hustles and rides a motorcycle, so if you're talking about me and you don't know you're talking about me even though you're talking to me, then I definitely don't know you. I said, "I don't know what you're talking about."
The guy kept on and asked me if I was "working." I told him to leave me alone and waved him off. Instead of leaving, the guy walked over to Tricia and had the same conversation with her. But he switched it up and said that I had sent him over to her. Tricia didn't know what the guy and I had talked about. She just saw us talking and figured that I had given him clearance, so she sold him twenty-five dollars' worth of crack. Like five minutes later, three cars of undercover agents came to a stop in front of the benches and placed me under arrest. When they searched Tricia, they found thirty-six vials of crack and twelve packs of heroin in her underwear.
"Whose drugs are these?" the cop asked me. I ignored him, so they continued to ask the stupid type of questions that only cops ask when they're trying to get someone to talk to them. One of them looked at my ID and said, "Curtis Jackson? That's you? Are you Curtis Jackson?" Another looked at my Walkman and asked, "You just out here listening to music? What are you listening to?" The one looking at my ID said, "Where do you live, Curtis?" which made no sense, considering he was looking at my f---n' ID. Then the one who was interested in my music choices was like, "It's a bit early to be out, Curtis, isn't it?" The guy with the ID went back to the original question: "Whose drugs are these?"
Now, when being arrested by the cops, it's best not to say sh--. I should have kept this in mind, but my patience was running thin and I decided to answer the questions as stupidly as they were asking them. When they asked about my name, I was like, "Ain't that what it says?" When they asked if I was listening to music, I said, "Not right now. Right now I'm answering questions." When they noted that it was early, I told them that I wasn't sure because I couldn't see my watch with my hands cuffed behind my back. They asked where I lived, and I said, "In my house." When they asked me who the drugs belonged to, I said, "I don't know. Where'd you find them?"
In the precinct, they got to working on Tricia and told her that I had ratted her out. "You heard what he said when he was asked whose drugs they were," the cops told her. "He said, 'They're hers. Where'd you find them? In her drawers. They're hers.' "
Of course I never said, "They're hers," but after they got to working on her, that's what it turned into. So they told her, "We know these aren't your drugs. All you have to do is tell us whose drugs these are and you won't have to do any time. You'll get off with probation."
The decade of decadence is a wrap and it's on to the '90s. Notorious B.I.G. is years away from authoring his classic record "Ten Crack Commandments," but Boo-Boo already knows them, and knows them well. He's had conflicts with fiends and fellow drug dealers, but the most omnipresent of his adversaries are the men in blue. With his "hustle hard" mentality, young Curtis Jackson was bound to get caught one day. Here, he's already survived getting arrested without doing any major time, but he's in the midst of another run-in with the cops.
Anyone who hustles hard is supposed to get locked up. He will get locked up — the odds just aren't in his favor. A bona fide hustler doesn't take any days off, which means that he commits a felony three hundred and sixty five days a year. If you're hustling hard, you'd easily rack up a couple of thousand felonies per year. It only takes one incident to get sent to jail. The day my odds ran out, I was out early in the morning, getting in some prework drug sales. Train conductors, office workers, teachers — these sorts of people have been known to bypass coffee and doughnuts for a hit of crack cocaine in order to jump-start their day. There's good money in the morning rush hour, so I was out there on a park bench. I had on headphones, and Tricia, this chick I was working with, sat a few feet away on a separate bench. We looked like kids waiting for the bus to go to school.
Some guy I had never seen before walked over to me and asked about copping some heroin. I had been through this once and wasn't going to get caught again. Most fiends aren't going to run up to some random person and ask him for drugs because they don't want everybody knowing they do drugs. They know who does what and they know where to go. So when this guy started asking me about drugs, I told him that I didn't know a thing about drugs or the people who sold them. I told him that I was just waiting for a friend to come by so we could go jogging.
The guy was like, "Well, um, you know, when I come through here I usually see this guy who, um, he's usually here riding a motorcycle." I thought, I ride a motorcycle and I hustle. As a matter of fact, I'm the only one around here who hustles and rides a motorcycle, so if you're talking about me and you don't know you're talking about me even though you're talking to me, then I definitely don't know you. I said, "I don't know what you're talking about."
The guy kept on and asked me if I was "working." I told him to leave me alone and waved him off. Instead of leaving, the guy walked over to Tricia and had the same conversation with her. But he switched it up and said that I had sent him over to her. Tricia didn't know what the guy and I had talked about. She just saw us talking and figured that I had given him clearance, so she sold him twenty-five dollars' worth of crack. Like five minutes later, three cars of undercover agents came to a stop in front of the benches and placed me under arrest. When they searched Tricia, they found thirty-six vials of crack and twelve packs of heroin in her underwear.
"Whose drugs are these?" the cop asked me. I ignored him, so they continued to ask the stupid type of questions that only cops ask when they're trying to get someone to talk to them. One of them looked at my ID and said, "Curtis Jackson? That's you? Are you Curtis Jackson?" Another looked at my Walkman and asked, "You just out here listening to music? What are you listening to?" The one looking at my ID said, "Where do you live, Curtis?" which made no sense, considering he was looking at my f---n' ID. Then the one who was interested in my music choices was like, "It's a bit early to be out, Curtis, isn't it?" The guy with the ID went back to the original question: "Whose drugs are these?"
Now, when being arrested by the cops, it's best not to say sh--. I should have kept this in mind, but my patience was running thin and I decided to answer the questions as stupidly as they were asking them. When they asked about my name, I was like, "Ain't that what it says?" When they asked if I was listening to music, I said, "Not right now. Right now I'm answering questions." When they noted that it was early, I told them that I wasn't sure because I couldn't see my watch with my hands cuffed behind my back. They asked where I lived, and I said, "In my house." When they asked me who the drugs belonged to, I said, "I don't know. Where'd you find them?"
In the precinct, they got to working on Tricia and told her that I had ratted her out. "You heard what he said when he was asked whose drugs they were," the cops told her. "He said, 'They're hers. Where'd you find them? In her drawers. They're hers.' "
Of course I never said, "They're hers," but after they got to working on her, that's what it turned into. So they told her, "We know these aren't your drugs. All you have to do is tell us whose drugs these are and you won't have to do any time. You'll get off with probation."
Excerpt 5
It's only one more year until the new millennium comes. The king of New York rap, Notorious B.I.G., was killed in 1997, and in 1998 Jay-Z took the crown and had DMX right on his heels. East Coast hip-hop doesn't stop with those two, however — it is rich with new talent such as Cam'ron, Big Pun, the LOX, Wu-Tang and Redman, who are either just coming on the scene or in their prime. In 1999 Boo-Boo has put crack behind him — for now — and adopted the moniker 50 Cent. In the ultimate chess move, he would leapfrog from the "who's that?" list to the "who's who" list. All he needed was one song to do it with. After sitting on a major label's bench for eight months, 50 took his destiny into his own hands and released a song to the mixtape circuit called "How to Rob." There he would target everyone from Missy Elliott to Bobby Brown, fictitiously rapping about sticking them up. The people who got it the worst on the track were some of the kings of rap. With almost all the big names in the industry having an issue with him, why was 50 so elated to be dissed? This excerpt tells it all.
The Track Masters put me on hold for eight months. During that time, they transferred my contract to Columbia, the major label they were on, and I really got lost in the shuffle. That's when I got the idea to do "How to Rob." It wasn't a difficult song to write. I wrote it in about thirty minutes because it was what I was really feeling at the time. I was sitting back, broke, and watching all these MCs shine and show off their jewelry and cars. I was sitting back, thinking, I wish I could have that chain. And then I realized that I could have that chain if he comes to the 'hood and he ain't paying attention. The song just came out from there.
I knew that if I didn't make a record that made people ask, "Who is 50 Cent?" then I was wasting my time — the label wasn't going to do it for me. I had to make the kind of record that would make the entire music business say, "Who the f--- is this guy?" So I made the record, saying the name of everybody I wanted to rob. At that point, I was the only rapper who could have made "How to Rob," because I didn't have relationships with any of the MCs to the point where I'd have to get on the phone and explain myself. I wasn't calling anyone, because if I called one person, then I would have to call every single person on the record and clear it with them. I was like, It is what it is and if you got a problem with it, we can do whatever you want to do.
I got tired of the song real quick, but it really made its mark. Everybody who was somebody in the game had something to say about me. I saw that I was making my mark aggressively enough by the way people were acknowledging me immediately — not six months from the song, but right when the song came out. There were guys out with hit records no one was paying attention to. But all the top dogs had an issue with me, and I didn't even have an album out. The response to me helped put me in the game. The more they reacted, the bigger my name got. I couldn't pay for that kind of publicity — and my record label sure as hell wasn't going to.
I loved the guys who had something to say about me on a record. Big Pun, DMX, the Wu-Tang Clan. The best was Jay-Z when he responded at SummerJam. I saw him backstage and he said, "You know I'm about to go in on you, right?" I was like, What the f--- is he talking about? When he was performing, he stood in front of all of New York and dissed me: "I'm about a dollar, what the f--- is 50 Cent?" The next day I was on the radio station talking about the dis. A while later, I ran into Jay-Z at P. Diddy's restaurant, Justin's, and thanked him. He laughed at me. It probably tripped him out that I understood what was going on. I was thinking businesswise. I didn't give a f--- what he was saying. Say whatever you want, Mother----er. Just say my name. That's all I need.
It's only one more year until the new millennium comes. The king of New York rap, Notorious B.I.G., was killed in 1997, and in 1998 Jay-Z took the crown and had DMX right on his heels. East Coast hip-hop doesn't stop with those two, however — it is rich with new talent such as Cam'ron, Big Pun, the LOX, Wu-Tang and Redman, who are either just coming on the scene or in their prime. In 1999 Boo-Boo has put crack behind him — for now — and adopted the moniker 50 Cent. In the ultimate chess move, he would leapfrog from the "who's that?" list to the "who's who" list. All he needed was one song to do it with. After sitting on a major label's bench for eight months, 50 took his destiny into his own hands and released a song to the mixtape circuit called "How to Rob." There he would target everyone from Missy Elliott to Bobby Brown, fictitiously rapping about sticking them up. The people who got it the worst on the track were some of the kings of rap. With almost all the big names in the industry having an issue with him, why was 50 so elated to be dissed? This excerpt tells it all.
The Track Masters put me on hold for eight months. During that time, they transferred my contract to Columbia, the major label they were on, and I really got lost in the shuffle. That's when I got the idea to do "How to Rob." It wasn't a difficult song to write. I wrote it in about thirty minutes because it was what I was really feeling at the time. I was sitting back, broke, and watching all these MCs shine and show off their jewelry and cars. I was sitting back, thinking, I wish I could have that chain. And then I realized that I could have that chain if he comes to the 'hood and he ain't paying attention. The song just came out from there.
I knew that if I didn't make a record that made people ask, "Who is 50 Cent?" then I was wasting my time — the label wasn't going to do it for me. I had to make the kind of record that would make the entire music business say, "Who the f--- is this guy?" So I made the record, saying the name of everybody I wanted to rob. At that point, I was the only rapper who could have made "How to Rob," because I didn't have relationships with any of the MCs to the point where I'd have to get on the phone and explain myself. I wasn't calling anyone, because if I called one person, then I would have to call every single person on the record and clear it with them. I was like, It is what it is and if you got a problem with it, we can do whatever you want to do.
I got tired of the song real quick, but it really made its mark. Everybody who was somebody in the game had something to say about me. I saw that I was making my mark aggressively enough by the way people were acknowledging me immediately — not six months from the song, but right when the song came out. There were guys out with hit records no one was paying attention to. But all the top dogs had an issue with me, and I didn't even have an album out. The response to me helped put me in the game. The more they reacted, the bigger my name got. I couldn't pay for that kind of publicity — and my record label sure as hell wasn't going to.
I loved the guys who had something to say about me on a record. Big Pun, DMX, the Wu-Tang Clan. The best was Jay-Z when he responded at SummerJam. I saw him backstage and he said, "You know I'm about to go in on you, right?" I was like, What the f--- is he talking about? When he was performing, he stood in front of all of New York and dissed me: "I'm about a dollar, what the f--- is 50 Cent?" The next day I was on the radio station talking about the dis. A while later, I ran into Jay-Z at P. Diddy's restaurant, Justin's, and thanked him. He laughed at me. It probably tripped him out that I understood what was going on. I was thinking businesswise. I didn't give a f--- what he was saying. Say whatever you want, Mother----er. Just say my name. That's all I need.
