50 Cent: Playboy Interview

All it took was nine bullets to make 50 Cent a legend.

On May 24, 2000 up-and-coming rapper 50 Cent was sitting in a car outside his grandmother's house in the Queens, New York neighborhood of Southside Jamaica when a gunman drove up and fired repeatedly. Initially the attempted murder wasn't good for 50's career: His label, Columbia, dropped him immediately. But the former drug dealer and boxer refused to abandon his music, putting out four albums' worth of "street mix" CDs, sold for cheap on street corners.

In a genre that prizes authenticity, nothing says "keepin' it real" like nine bullet holes. Eminem, the world's biggest rapper, heard 50's street mixes and signed him to a deal with Interscope, the industry's hottest label, in 2002. "There's a mystique about him," Eminem declared.

50 Cent, who is now 27, always had plenty of mystique. Born Curtis Jackson III (he was named after his grandfather), he never met his father and was often left alone by his mother, Sabrina, a low-level drug dealer in Queens. When Jackson was eight, his mother was killed at home by someone who drugged her drink and turned on a gas oven, leaving her to die. The murder didn't deter her criminal-minded son, who was first arrested for dealing in high school and then in 1994 was busted for possession of heroin, 10 ounces of crack and a starter pistol and sentenced to three to nine years.

Jackson loved rap, though, and saw it as his route to legit riches. Naming himself after a well-known New York street thug, he began working with Jam Master Jay, Run-DMC's legendary DJ. On an audacious 1999 single, "How to Rob," 50 threatened rap heavyweights with burglary, creating an image of himself as ruthless, fearless and calmly remorseless. When Jam Master Jay was murdered in 2002, police questioned 50, hoping he might know who'd killed his mentor.

In its first two weeks of release in February 2003, 50's debut, Get Rich or Die Tryin', sold a remarkable 1.6 million copies. With sales of 6.5 million in the U.S., it was the top-selling CD of the year. Although 50 Cent's appeal began with his illegal exploits and contentious behavior—including feuds with rapper Ja Rule, his Murder Inc. label chief Irv Gotti and jailed drug dealer Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, whom the government suspects of having funded Murder Inc. to launder drug money—it spread through the bravado of his witty rhymes and magnetic hooks, which turned gangsta stories into pop smashes, including "In Da Club" and "P.I.M.P." His album "seems to consist of nothing but hits," The New York Times wrote. "But it's a grim party: The casual jokes about death are his way of reminding us of the price he might have to pay for his success—and for our entertainment."

PLAYBOY sent Rob Tannenbaum to meet with 50 at the Interscope offices in Manhattan. Tannenbaum arrived unarmed.