This past Saturday (April 21st) 50 Cent was in London as a guest on the
Tim Westwood’s radio show. Topics ran
wild from his new album (producers and guests), Eminem, Dr. Dre, Yayo, Young Buck and more.
50 starts off immediately
talking about C.U.R.T.I.S. (which
will be releasing June 26th in the U.S.). How he’s been in the studio
with Dre, Kanye West, Pharrell, Swizz Beatz, Polow Da Don, and will.i.am.
And how most will make the final cut, while some will be left off as the album
will be 18 tracks deep.
What’s the direction?
How did you make it happen?
This album feels like
Batman Begins. It feels like Get Rich or Die Trying. The punchlines, some of
them have a child’s innocence to them. The only record that reflects on my
financial state is Straight to the Bank, and that’s why I started that way.
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We’re in an era of
records not selling.
It needs people to put
stronger efforts to create full albums of quality material. When you have the material
being held to Dr. Dre, Eminem and my standards before we can actually release
it. That’s the formula to keeping the material good enough for everyone to enjoy
themselves,” 50 replied. “There’s artists in the U.S. that got a little
momentum going but there records aren’t selling. Like MIMS, Rich Boy. Because
there’s only one record in connection with them artists. … They didn’t give the
general public enough to make them happy with spending their money on the disc.
Eminem?
They also should be
looking forward to Em. Cause Em is working. Some people were under the
impression that that was his last record, ‘cause he called it Curtain Call. …
The return of Batman and Robin.
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The Cam’ron beef is
crazy.
That’s the competitive
nature of hip hop. It don’t come from anything in the street that would make it
turn into that. I already moved away from that. You can’t continue to beef with
someone that isn’t intelligent enough to know when they lost. What you’ll do
is, you’ll exhaust yourself on it and the general public on you talking about
it.
What’s the setup for
the album?
This record, I’m gonna
release four records before the actual album releases. This song that you should
look forward to hearing is called Come and Go, its produced by Dr. Dre. It’s
like In Da Club pt. 2. Another record I wanna release is called Follow My Lead,
it’s featuring Robin Thicke. And Amusement Park,” 50 answered. “I’m shooting a
video for all four of those records. Away from the television networks, I have
the opportunity to play four different music videos from 50 cent at the same
time. You can always go to YouTube on the internet and check it out at your
leisure. … I feel like people are ready to hear me and see me again.
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So what’s you take on
the Tony Yayo situation. (see: Shooting at Tony Yayo’s Mother’s Home)
People who shoot
houses aren’t really a big threat. People who shoot people are. [Laughs] Ain’t
nothing changed. When they talk about the house his mom lives in, that’s the
house we grew up in. And the music is a direct reflection of the environment we
come from. That where the aggressive content comes from. So sometimes they be
like ahh hip hop music this, hip hop music that. But, it’s actually real. There’s
always indications on some level that it’s actually going on.
Why does hip hop hate
woman?
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Hip hop loves women. I love women. If you look at what they
do. Women are twice as marketable as men. When you want to sell a magazine to a
woman, you put a woman on the cover. When you want to sell a magazine to a man,
you put a woman on the cover. We all want to see beautiful women. So when you
put a beautiful women in your music video, it becomes exciting [in these days
and times] for males AND women. … Hip hop didn’t make up the word ‘bitch’. That
word was there long before. We’ll utilize it, because there are women out there
that have an attitude. Countless amounts of times I’ve heard women call women bitches.
Don Imus?
It’s not the statement ‘nappy headed hos’ that got him
fired. It’s the advertisers pulling advertisements, that got him fired.
Virginia Tech
Tragedy?
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When Columbine
happened, they blamed it on Marilyn Manson. Virginia Tech, the guy just walked
in the school and killed 30 people. And he’s a big Led Zepplin fan. You got
Ozzy Ozzborne and his followers at that point that is totally getting overlooked.
Rock sales are actually increasing at this point. So I guess they would rather
they kids paint their fingernails black and worship Satan. I guess that’s what
you’d like over listenin’ to hip hop.
Are you mad at Young Buck?
Nah actually me and Buck
got off the phone earlier today. I spoke to him. What it is, people generally
make assumptions based on what they hearing in the music. And they got an
example of Buck being willing to handle a situation with Dr. Dre at the award
show. So he’s not that comfortable with everybody being kind of antsy or afraid
when he comes around. So he wanted to tell everybody there ain’t no problems.
In doing so, he kind of separates himself from me. Cause I’m not willing to reach
out to those people and tell them I don’t have a problem with them. Cause I didn’t
initiate the problem. To think that you can resolve a situation with someone
who actually created it from nowhere is not really smart.
Any tracks from Timbo
on the album?
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Yea, I got a song from
Timbaland featuring Justin Timberlake.
In your whole body of
work. What is the favorite joint that you’ve done?
Favorite song? Man, probably
In Da Club. That one was timeless. It’s a celebration of life. Everyday it’s
someone’s birthday. The song’s relevant all over everyday.
What was your
favorite moment of your career so far?
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When I found out my
first weeks sales. On the first album. On Get Rich or Die Trying. It was
unbelieveblae to me. Did like 822,000 the first week. And the second week was
really mind boggling cause I did another 800 something thousand. And you know
how you usually expect to do a 40/50 percent decrease. And I didn’t do nothing.
I didn’t decrease nothing.
Low moments?
It’s the sacrifices to
build other artist. When I did Best Friend I was doing that to keep Olivia
warm. When I could’a easily been doing I’ll Whip Ya Head Boy. I could’a been
doing Trick Get In My Car when I was doing the Outta Control Remix with Mobb
Deep. I always sacrifice, I always make decisions to go in different directions
to try and help people around me.
Be sure to check out the audio of the interview in HipHopDX’s
audio section! CLICK HERE.
