50 Cent

50 Cent’s legacy as an entertainment icon was launched through the art form of rap. Growing up, the Queens, New York native started to experiment with music outside of regular hobbies. Around 1996, he aligned himself in Run-D.M.C.’s Jam Master Jay, who essentially taught 50 how to structure a record and more specifically, lace hooks. He eventually landed a deal with Columbia Records and went on to create his debut album, Power of the Dollar, in 2000. On the effort is a record called “How To Rob,” which tells a fictional story about then-popular rappers getting their pockets run. The track came out and bolted 50 into popularity, though the album didn’t.

Around that time, 50 Cent was ambushed outside of his grandmother’s house, where he was shot nine times. He was dropped by Columbia, but continued to work with his G-Unit collective cooking up music. He infiltrated the mixtape market with efforts like Guess Who’s Back? (2002), releasing his own iterations of popular rap songs at the moment. Soon after that, Eminem was put onto 50 as an artist and signed him to Shady Records through Dr. Dre’s Aftermath label. Fif’s label debut, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, a project led by singles like “In Da Club,” “Many Men (Wish Death)” and “21 Questions.” The chart-topping project nearly went platinum in the first week, solidifying Fif as a superstar. A respective movie and video game proved that as well.

He continued to grind through the 2000s, releasing multiplatinum-selling projects like The Massacre, which spent over a month at the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s 200 chart, radio dominant singles like “Candy Shop” and “How We Do” and stretching his solo and G-Unit brand’s reach to video game, fashion and TV spaces. Moving onto the 2010s, his music releases slowed down, but his business ventures shot up with minted endeavors with Branson Cognac, Le Chemin du Roi, Effen Vodka (previously) and of course his television takeover through his production company Green Light that aligned him with networks like Starz.

These days, Fif is rising the ranks as an entertainment role by overseeing some of the most popular shows on TV with BMF and Power, plus he has everything from movies to cartoons coming out in the near future. His music career was more than successful, as he’s accumulated a room full of plaques that are near diamond, and made rap history for dropping some of the most successful and respected rap songs/albums to date. His track record in the TV space should be just as interesting when it’s all said and done.