That’s almost a quote for each time he’s been shot, are we right?
The famous American rapper has not only survived nine bullets but thrived through them with his major impact on the hip hop industry and current net worth estimated to be $20 million. His story is another great tale about a man who started from the bottom and worked his way to the top.
Born in Queens 1975, 50 Cent (aka Curtis Jackson) has become a well-known rapper, songwriter, actor, television producer, businessman and investor. He was discovered by Eminem in 2002 and signed by Shady Records, Aftermath Entertainment, and Interscope Records.
With the aid of Eminem and Dr. Dre, who produced his first major-label album, Get Rich or Die Tryin, Jackson became one of the world’s best-selling rappers and rose to prominence with East Coast hip hop group G-Unit.
Today, Jackson has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and won several awards, including a Grammy Award, thirteen Billboard Music Awards, six World Music Awards, three American Music Awards and four BET Awards.
Recently, Jackson has found success as an actor and TV producer, becoming an executive producer of Starz’s Power and ABC’s For Life.
These quotes will inspire you to work hard and make your dreams a reality as you get your hustle on.
1. Hustling was my internship.
2. Sleep is for those who are broke.
3. I don’t sleep. I got an opportunity to make a dream become a reality.
4. Behind me is infinite power. Before me is endless possibility, around me is boundless opportunity. My strength is mental, physical and spiritual.
5. If it ain’t making me money, making me better or making me happy… ain’t making time for it.
6. Don’t wait for them to tell you. Tell them.
7. I love you like a fat kid loves cake.
8. People who actually have money don’t want to talk about it. They want to talk about everything else.
9. I had to overcome challenge after challenge in order to take my life from nothing to living my dreams.
10. If you die in an elevator, make sure you press the up button.
11. Get rich or die tryin
12. I’ve spent four years being what people call “successful,” and all the rest of my life not having it. And maybe because of that, the painful moments are more visible in my memory. If I’m writing about the environment I grew up in, then guns are gonna be goin’ off.
13. It's Fifty, not Fiddy.
14. Money is freedom. Money is a private plane. Money is no metal detection.
15. I started hustling at 12, my mother hustled ahead of me. I was only allowed to because they knew me.
16. Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality.
17. Have the maturity to know sometimes silence is more powerful than having the last word.
18. I just feel really good about my accomplishments. I haven’t had, like, a party because a deal goes through or something like that. I don’t know. I need to develop that – I need to have something that I do when things go right.
19. Just be confident. I think confidence is the most attractive part of a person.
20. Concentrate on your money. try to hold your paper. It takes money to make money, so save your money, opportunities come.
21. In my neighborhood… they view the police as someone who comes to take their loved ones away.
22. Only one I can have a problem with is myself. It’s probably why my only competition is myself.
23. I’m the type to swallow my blood before I swallow my pride.
24. People often say I have so much energy, that I never stop; but that’s what it takes to accomplish your goals.
25. For me, there was no Plan B. I absolutely had to be a success in music. The only thing positive in my life was music.
26. When I’m actually creating music, I try not to listen to the hip-hop records that are going on, because I think, subconsciously, we steal from each other.
27. What I think scares people about me is that I was shot nine times, and I'm okay with that. I accepted it and moved on, and it didn't slow me down. Being shot wasn't the most painful experience for me, anyway. The most painful experience was not knowing what I was going to do with my life after my record company didn't accept my phone calls anymore.
28. I don’t necessarily view death as something negative. Death gives meaning to life. Living in fear of death is living in denial. Actually, it’s not really living at all, because there is no life without death.
29. The importance of Dream School is monumental. Helping to inspire these students to reach their potential is personally gratifying.
30. Eating well was something I learned as I started to be successful and had to travel and perform concerts, which are an intense cardio workout.
31. Always have bail money.
32. Every morning I wake up in a home where Mike Tyson previously laid in the bed and he earned over $500 million his career. It makes me conscious.
33. Hip-hop – it’s the safari: it allows people who aren’t under those circumstances to come closer to inner-city life, to explore it without actually being in danger. It’s something kids in middle America indulge in to be rebellious.
34. Some people are born with very little; some are fortunate enough to have it all. When I grew up, we didn’t have much. I had to hustle to get what I wanted… but I had that hunger for more. I didn’t always make the right choices, but I learned from my mistakes.
35. You learn a lot about yourself when you have success for a while. Like, a lot of things that you think are really important aren’t. But you need that process.
36. I like generals. I like Napoleon. I like strategy. The majority of them are praised for mass destruction, but it’s exciting to see how it comes to the mind mentally.
37. I hate a liar more than I hate a thief. A thief is only after my salary, a liar is after my reality.
38. I like to sort through music and see whatever pops out to me or inspires me. If I could have a production team going and kind of mix records with me, that would be cool; to take the records and have them sound the way I want them to sound. But I’d rather sort though music to find them things.
39. I have an issue with anyone who's trying to keep someone who I deem my enemy in a good position. Where I'm from, if you have an issue with one guy and someone keeps standing next to them, just hit him too.
40. I don’t display emotions. I have every feeling that everyone else has, but I’ve developed ways to suppress them. Anger is one of my most comfortable feelings.
41. I’m not sensitive, I give people things exactly the way they are, and if they’re ready to absorb it, they will, and if they aren’t, they won’t.
42. I’m not trying to save the world. As a musician and artist, it just ain’t me.
43. Wise men listen and laugh, while fools talk.
44. I don’t care about losing people that don’t wanna be in my life anymore. I’ve lost people that meant the world to me and I’m still doing just fine.
45. You shouldn’t throw stones if you live in a glass house, and if you got a glass jaw, you should watch your mouth.
46. To hear my mom tell it, when she was fifteen years old -- on July 6, 1975, to be exact -- the impossible happened, and she gave birth to me via immaculate conception, just like Mary did with Jesus. She named me Curtis James Jackson III, in honor of her father, but called me Boo-Boo (the one and only true Curtis Jackson was and still remains my grandfather; even Curtis Jr., my uncle, had to take to being called Star). Whenever I asked my mom about my dad, she would say, "You don't have a father. I'm your mama AND your daddy
47. My music is a soundtrack. The film is my life. My music matches things I’ve experienced or felt. Even if the whole thing is made up.
48. Love your enemies and hate your friends. Your enemies remain the same, friends always change.
49. I think I’ll be going to Heaven, because I had good intentions. But my actions are another thing.
50. The greatest fear people have is that of being themselves. They want to be 50 Cent or someone else. They do what everyone else does even if it doesn’t fit where and who they are. But you get nowhere that way; Your energy is weak and no one pays attention to you. You’re running away from the one thing that you own – what makes you different.
51. Out of frustration, I say things. Now, people listen to me so much I can say it under my breath and everybody hears me… I said in the past that I’m a work in progress, and I feel like I’m progressing.
52. Different day, same s***. Ain’t nothing good in the hood. I’d run away from this bitch and never come back if I could.
53. My grandmother, she’s been the positive portion of my life the entire time. She raised us Baptist, and when I got old enough to say I didn’t want to go to church, she didn’t force me. She was cool.
54. Every negative is a positive. The bad things that happen to me, I somehow make them good. That means you can’t do anything to hurt me.
55. When you’ve been in life-threatening situations, you become aware that life is not forever.
56. I read all of the stories that people write about me. The ones that are really interesting are the ones where they actually write their take on me as opposed to just printing what I said, because they’re asking similar questions so often, sometimes it just sounds like I’m answering the questions different intentionally.
57. I’ll have long, straight hair, like down to my back, when I go to Heaven. And I’m not even going to work out, but I’ll be in shape. It’s a whole new program up there.
58. I don’t think it makes me a role model. I think it makes me inspiring. Cause I’m from the bottom I think they look at me and go, well, if he made it, I can make it.
59. When I put out my first mixtape, ’50 Cent is the Future,’ it was the first tape where an artist did the entire tape in song format.
60. Death gotta be easy, ’cause life is hard. It’ll leave you physically, mentally and emotionally scarred.
61. The new artist is meeting the general public before they meet the record company. They’re able to put the material on YouTube and have a million views before they even meet an executive at a record company, and get the deal based on that.
62. Power’s an aphrodisiac.
63. I like the story writing process. I usually use someone who has been trained for structure to take the story that I actually want, place those elements in the right places.
64. Eating well is something I learned as I started to be successful.
65. Because hip-hop has no requirements, you deal with people that have the least intelligence on the planet. Some of the people that compare themselves to me, compare themselves to me because they rap and I rap. They can’t even read the contracts that they sign to be a rapper, to do the deal.
66. Once I squeeze the first shot. No I aint stopping till my clip is empty
67. I think either you’re creative or you’re not. In general, I don’t think you need to be in pain to actually be creative unless you’re writing love songs. Then you might need to have some ups and downs within your emotions to start to capture that.
68. I can’t be more than me, but you can make me out to be what you want me to be.
69. Because hip-hop has no requirements, you deal with people that have the least intelligence on the planet. Some of the people that compare themselves to me, compare themselves to me because they rap and I rap. They can’t even read the contracts that they sign to be a rapper, to do the deal.
70. Sunny days wouldn’t be so special if it wasn’t for rain. Joy wouldn’t feel so good if it wasn’t for pain.
71. It’s Fifty, not Fiddy.
72. You have to challenge yourself and your muscles. When you are really regimented, it’s the same over and over and you start to get comfortable. Switching up the style of training works your muscles differently.
73. I think it’s easier for the general public to embrace me in a negative way. You have people who already have a perception of me that says I’m a bad person.
74. I want the finer things in my life, so I hustle.
75. I’m a track star running through life chasing my dream.