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Curtis Jackson the 3rd grew up in the neighborhood of Queens, New York City. He was born July 6th 1975. He was
raised without A father , his mother Sabrina Jackson gave birth to Curtis at the age of fifteen. She was A
cocaine dealer and was able to raise Curtis until the age of twelve, when she was murdered in 1988. After her
passing, Curtis moved in with aunts and uncles. After he realized she is not coming back, he started hanging
out in the streets and learning the ways of the drug dealing world.
At the age of fifteen, A local boxing school opened up in his neighborhood. “When I wasn’t killing time in school,
I was sparing in the gym or selling crack on the strip” Curtis says. While his aunts and uncles thought he was at
the gym or doing after school activities, he was really in the streets selling drugs. Anything from weed, cocaine,
or crack. While he was in the tenth grade, he got caught with A gun and drug money by walking thru A medal detector
at Andrew Jackson High School. After he got arrested, he stated “ I was embarrassed that I got arrested like that…
After I got arrested I stopped hiding it. I told my grandmother I was openly selling drugs”
On June 29th, 1994, Jackson was arrested for selling four vials of cocaine to A undercover police officer. He was
arrested again three weeks later when the police searched his home and found heroin, then ounces of cocaine, and
A 9mm pistol. He was sentenced to six to nine years in prison, but managed to serve six months in A shock
incarceration boot camp where he earned his GED. Jackson said he did no use the drugs himself, he only had the
drugs to strictly sell and make money.
After he was released from prison, he adopted the name “50 Cent” as A metaphor for “Change” The name was derived
from Kevin Martin, A 1980’s Brooklyn robber known as “50 Cent” Jackson chose the name “because it says
everything I want to say. Im the same kind of person 50 Cent was. I provide for myself by any means.”
A lot started happening for Jackson in 1996. He started rapping in A friends basement early in his career. He
used turn tables to record over instrumentals. A friend of Jackson’s introduced him to Jam Master Jay of
the hip hop group Run-DMC who was organizing his record label Jam Master Jay Records. In the midst of all
this, on October 13, 1997, Curtis Jackson has his first and only son, Marquise Jackson. He laid low for a
few months and then got back in the studio. He started hanging back out with Jam Master Jay, and he taught
Jackson many things, like how to count bars, write choruses, structure songs, and how to make a record.
Jackson’s first appearance on A song was titled, “React” with the group Onyx on their 1998 album Shut Em Down.
In 1999, Jackson left Jam Master Jay Records and signed withColumbia Records. They sent him to A studio in
New York City where he wrote thirty six songs in two weeks. Eighteen where included on his unofficially
released album, Power Of The Dollar, in 2000.
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