This cover story is part of Hip-Hop Is Life, a series of profiles and features that revisit key moments in the intersection of hip-hop and Black men’s health over the last 50 years. Read the rest of the stories here.
FOR CURTIS “50 CENT” Jackson, the treadmill scene in his now iconic “In Da Club” video is symbolic. Before he got there, he’d been famously shot nine times in 2000. Nerve damage prevented him from walking unassisted. He relocated to the Poconos from the Jamaica, Queens, neighborhood of New York City, where he was raised and nearly killed. Eventually, he skipped the grueling four-hour round trips to Jamaica Hospital to get (free) physical therapy in favor of a personal treadmill regimen. Two years later, the entire world saw his chiseled triumph in all its shirtless glory, jogging to a Dr. Dre beat while on the verge of releasing a debut album that would go on to sell 12 million records. “I put the gym in the middle of the video because, to me, that’s where I looked the coolest,” says Jackson. “That’s where I learned strong is not all muscle; it’s about being mentally and physically strong.”
Ironically, the attempt on 50’s life was the tipping point for him becoming the 200-pound (plus six percent body fat) herculean MC who bullied music artists and the charts for much of the aughts. One of those nine bullets pierced his jaw, placing him on a liquid diet for six weeks. He shed nearly 54 pounds off a frame that had been stocky since he began boxing at age 12. “[As a kid] I didn’t do well in team sports,” he says mid-reflection. “I would always identify with why we lost. So it was perfect to get into boxing, because there was no one to blame anything on. Boxing gave me a discipline that gives you an advantage.”
That discipline was necessitated by tragedy. After the murder of his mother, he became an orphan at age eight. This led to his role models and father figures primarily being neighborhood criminals who occupied public-housing projects and went by Five Percenter monikers like “Allah” and “Understanding.” For better or worse, these hustlers took young “Boo Boo” (a childhood nickname given to him by his aunt Geraldine) under their wings and landed him in the ring. “I learned from people who didn’t have excuses,” he says. “They looked at it like, ‘Curtis, if you would’ve [trained] like you was supposed to, you wouldn’t have gotten tired in that last round.’ So you can figure it out or go home punch-drunk. I’d rather do the work.”
While being shot several times is unequivocally traumatic, unfortunately, it’s also common in underserved communities like South Jamaica, Queens. But 50 refused to let an attempt on his life kill his dreams. The weight loss caused by his assault gifted the MC two observations that would forever change him: For the first time in Fif’s life, he could see the muscle constellation his weight had hidden throughout his years. “When you slim down, you see everything,” he says before identifying the paranoia in his initial fitness journey. “I’m also working out to get myself stronger, ’cause who’s to say you’re not gonna get hit again?”
