_50 Cent's PlayBook : From the Streets to Success.

 

50 Cent's mother was a drug dealer.

She was also addicted to her own product. When Curtis Jackson was 8 years old she was murdered. He never found out who did it.

His grandmother took him in. South Jamaica, Queens — one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in New York. By age 12 he was selling crack cocaine. By his mid-teens he was running a local drug operation pulling in $5,000 a day.

At 25 someone put nine bullets in him.

He survived. Nine bullet wounds. His jaw. His hand. His legs. Doctors said he was lucky to be alive.

Three weeks after being shot he was back recording music.

Eminem heard a mixtape and couldn't believe what he was hearing. He signed 50 Cent immediately. Dr. Dre came on board. They worked together for months building Get Rich or Die Tryin' — named after 50's own life.

The album sold over 800,000 copies in its first week. One of the fastest selling debuts in history.

The money poured in. He bought Mike Tyson's old Connecticut mansion. Cars. Jewelry. The full image.

Then he made a quiet move most people missed.

He took an equity stake in a small drinks company called Vitaminwater. Not cash — equity. A piece of the company.

In 2007 Coca-Cola bought Vitaminwater for $4.1 billion.

50 Cent walked away with somewhere between $100-150 million from a drink he didn't create.

Second richest rapper in the world behind Jay-Z according to Forbes.

Then in 2015 he filed for bankruptcy.

The headlines screamed he was broke. But here's what actually happened — he was facing $23 million in court judgments including $5 million for leaking a private sex tape. Instead of paying, he used bankruptcy law to restructure. While the media mocked him he kept filming Power, his Starz TV series.

Power became one of the most watched shows on cable television. Then came Power Book II. Power Book III. Power Book IV. A whole universe of shows. All executive produced by 50 Cent.

He also posted on Instagram — the same week he filed bankruptcy — photos of himself swimming in cash.

To remind everyone exactly who he was dealing with.

Today his net worth is back to $60 million and climbing. Shot nine times. Mother murdered. Raised by his grandmother in Queens. Filed bankruptcy as a strategic chess move.

Curtis Jackson didn't survive the streets to be stopped by a courtroom.