 After getting shot nine times!
by Nadira Gunatilleke
Go....go....go....go....Go
shawty it’s your birthday.....We gon’ party like it’s your birthday....
He sings like a teenager and dances like a crazy kid but he isn’t
either a teenager or a kid. He is 50 Cent! He caught the attention of
hip hop lovers all over the world within one night after his single `In
da club’.
‘In da club’ became 50 Cent’s first number one single and was one of
2003’s most popular songs after reaching number one in the United
States. It peaked in top five on a majority of the European record
charts it entered. At the 46th Grammy Awards, it was nominated for Best
Male Rap Solo Performance and Best Rap Song.
 The song’s music video won the Best Rap Video and the Best New
Artiste at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. In 2009 the single was named
the 24th most successful song of the 2000s, on the Billboard Hot 100
Songs of the year.
50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) was born on July 6, 1975 in South Jamaica,
Queens. He is an American rapper and actor. He rose to fame with the
release of his albums `Get rich or die tryin’ (2003) and `The massacre’
(2005). Both albums achieved multi- platinum success, selling more than
twenty-six million copies combined. There are many other songs to his
credit such as `Candy shop’, `Window shopper’ and `Many men’. He became
the first solo artiste to have three singles on the Billboard top five
in the same week.
An assailant shot at 50 with a 9mm handgun nine times at close range.
He was shot in the hand (a round hit his right thumb and came out of his
little finger), arm, hip, both legs, chest, and left cheek.
The face wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom
tooth, and a small slur in his voice. He was driven to the hospital
where Jackson spent thirteen days and recovered. The movie `Get rich or
die tryin’ shows how he struggled and survived after this incident.
Unfortunately....here in Sri Lanka our talented local hip hop
artistes are in `Die trying’ situation while searching for our own hip
hop music and hip hop culture. Many of them are very fond of just
copying the exact (unique) creations of 50 and other similar
international hip hop artistes than creating their own stuff. If you
watch a locally made hip hop music video, you can pinpoint what song or
parts of a song they have copied! What we want is Sri Lankan hip hop
with an identity. Not locally made American hip hop!
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