50 Cent
Mar 28, 2011
A two-minute trailer for 'Things Fall Apart', the movie rapper 50 Cent shed a reported 54 lbs for, has surfaced on the Internet. 50's film had its world premiere at the Miami International Film Festival, where it was reported that the crowd loved his movie.
In the flick, written by 50 and loosely based on the life of his childhood best friend, the rapper-turned-actor goes from a dread-locked NFL hopeful to an emaciated cancer victim. Already pegged the "most critically acclaimed role of 50's career," the film also stars Ray Liotta and is directed by Mario Van Peebles. The trailer also features Nelly's 'Just a Dream.'
50 Cent is, and has always been, an entrepreneur. Everything else, including his considerable talents for drug dealing and rap music, his autobiographical acting, his stock in Vitamin Water, and the G-Unit Clothing Company with matching Reebok sneakers, are functions of this. In 2003, the relatively unknown rapper vowed, with his major label debut, to Get Rich or Die Tryin'.
50 Cent has stayed at the top, and like any good CEO, has diversified his portfolio. In addition to staying a rap superstar, he has built a G-Unit empire, involving video games, a clothing line, shoes, films, an autobiography and a novel. He worked with Vitamin Water to make Formula 50, taking stock instead of a quick endorsement payout, and netting $100 million from the company's sale to Coca-Cola.
He has proven himself a social media wizard, with over four million followers on Twitter. He had a half-dozen adolescent and ongoing "feuds" with other rappers over the 2000s, but most of that is behind him. When Forbes magazine interviewed him for their Hip-Hop Cash Kings article in 2007, he confirmed, plainly, "I never got into it for the music. I got into it for the business."
