THE COIN OF LIFE

Why not?

Curtis Jackson, known as 50 Cent, is a hip hop artist and businessman who became famous for his streetwise raps and rag-to-riches life story.

Curtis James Jackson III was born on the 6th July in 1975 in South Jamaica in New York.  He was raised by a single mother in a broken home family. His mom worked as a drug dealer and she was shot died by an unknown suspect when Jackson was only 8 years old; after the death of his mom he moved to his grandmother’s.  He had a boyhood aspiration to be a boxer, and fought at junior level, but began selling drugs when he was 12 years old. At the age of 19 an undercover police officer arrested Jackson for selling four vials of cocaine; three weeks later the apartment was raided by police where they found crack and heroin. At first he was sentenced to three-to-nine years, but he went to a bootcamp and got his G.E.D. in prison. When he got out of prison 

he stopped selling drug thanks to a friend and he started to write his own songs.

He got his first important contact with the New York hip hop scene when he met Jam Master Jay from the group Run DMC. Jay was impressed by Jackson’s rapping ability and produced and album for him, but it never came out. Jackson also made a false start with the Columbia label, recording an album that was shelved before its release. That album was “Power of the Dollar”.

In 2000 Jackson was victim of a severe shooting incident that left him with multiple injuries. He returned to music after his recovery and made several low-budget recordings with his friends

Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo, as a crew called G-unit. In 2003 he became famous thanks to his first song with Eminem and another one whose title is “Get Rich Or Die Tryin”.

We chose to write about 50 cent's life because he is a model for all teenagers around the world today, who deal drugs to earn their living. 50 cent's life, instead, teach us to follow our dream to become someone important and to be successful.

GLOSSARY

Broken home: a family in which the parents are divorced or separated.

Drug Dealer: a person who sells illegal drugs.

Boyhood: it is a period of a male person's life during which he is a boy.

Undercover: a work that involves getting confidential or secret information

Raided: past participle of “to raid”; if the police raid a building they enter it suddenly and by force in order to look for dangerous criminals or for evidence of something illegal, such as drugs or weapons.

Sentence: it is a punishment that people receive after they have been found guilty of a crime.

Shelved: put aside; it’s when they decide not to continue a Plan or project, either for a while or permanently.

Bootcamp: a centre for young offenders, run in military lines.

G.E.D.: General Educational Development, the G.E.D. is an educational certificate awarded in the United States and Canada which certifies that the recipient has met the minimum requirements necessary to graduate high school.