Dropping freestyles over Internet like everyday & now taking over the world on the cover of VIBE’s International issue. 50 is back. The mag debuts on newsstands April 5th. Read the excerpts.
ON DR. DRE’S REACTION TO HIS SLEEK HEADPHONES?:
I have a strong personality, a strong character. And I can be difficult to deal with at certain points because I’m vocal. If you upset Em, he’s just gonna not talk to you. You’re not going to get him in the next room you wanna get him in. With Dre, the same. He’s not comfortable with friction. That is, “Hey look, I’m here. Is everybody still paying attention?” So they go, “Why he say that? Why he say we mad?” Then the meeting happens.”
50 ON HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH CHELSEA HANDLER
“Chelsea is confident. I think confidence is the sexiest thing about a person. She’s the kind of person that if you’re blessed with the opportunity to hang out with her, you’ll enjoy it. I’m not sure you’ll look at her and actually want to jump over the table and fuck her, but you might. You would leave after talking with her feeling that she is a cool person.”
50 ON BEST NEW ARTIST GRAMMY RESULT
“I think Drake got robbed. He should have got artist of the year last year [ laughs], to be real with you… He did a lot, man. I don’t believe that Drake would have been as successful or his project would have been as successful if Lil’ Wayne was home. That point where Wayne had to sit down provided a complete focus on Drake.”
50 ON RAPPERS WITH FACE TATTOOS
“That’s the craziest thing. Not necessarily Gucci, but to tattoo your face says that there’s not a possibility that you can actually walk into a legitimate establishment without makeup covering your face every day. That does not work. It creates a separation. It says, “I’m an artist.” That’s it. That’s the statement you make when you go and tattoo your face…But know that the public will not have interest in you as an artist for life. You have to be phenomenal. Talk to the best that do it and they will tell you that it will take more than you being an artist. It takes marketing, maneuvering to generate for that long. When you got 40-year-old rappers in the game, those guys have maneuvered and survived.”
50 ON HIS INTERNATIONAL APPEAL
I did the groundwork. I traveled. To them I’m not a myth. I’m a real person. They’ve seen me live in performances in Croatia, Kosovo, India…The same way they feel about me in New York, they feel about me in Africa and they feel about me in India. You can spin the globe and stop it wherever you want and say 50 Cent, and they know exactly who you’re talking about and they know the material. It is what it is. I don’t have the trophy case to reflect that, but I can’t eat trophies.