After launching his own mineral water, trainers and video game, the biggest and probably most controversial man in rap is turning his attention towards the multiplexes. Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ tells the rags-to-bling story of 50 Cent, one gangsta rapper who has truly lived the experience. As a teenager he slung crack rocks on the streets of New York and robbed liquor stores; in 2000 he was shot nine times as he waited outside his grandmother’s house.
After checking with his people how to address him (‘50’ — good; ‘Mr. Cent’ — bad; ‘28 pence adjusted’ — potentially disastrous), we sat down with the man himself to discuss the movie. Get Rich Or Die Tryin’s obvious precedent, 8 Mile, starred 50’s mentor, Eminem, and was a similarly fictionalised account of the rapper’s formative years. 50, however, insists his film is not just a carbon copy.
“The similarity between myself and Eminem is that we’re both really successful rappers. It’s impossible to escape that. But the movies are about our lifestyles before we had the opportunity to write music for a living.” He pauses to reflect and smiles. “And my lifestyle was a little different.”
50 continues to grin as he remembers Eminem’s ‘advice’ for him before the shoot. “The first time I spoke to him he wasn’t positive about it at all. He sighed and said, ‘I don’t know why you let them trick you into doing a movie. You gonna be on set 20 hours a day, waiting and going crazy, and they gonna be asking you, ’50, where’s the soundtrack?’’ I got a little worried, but then he calls me up after I been on the set for three or four days. I told him I thought it was actually alright. He goes, ‘Yo, I knew you was gonna like it, I just wanted to make you nervous.’ Em is crazy, you know?”
Any pre-shoot nerves have clearly been dispelled a long, long time ago, with the rapper ebulliently claiming that “this film is going to be huge… My performance is going to exceed everyone’s expectations.” And with In The Name Of The Father director Jim Sheridan and The Sopranos writer Terry Winter behind the camera, he should have good cause to feel confident.
Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ is out on January 20. The full transcript of the interview will be posted prior to the week of release.