50 Cent has had a lot of success in his career, though both music and various business ventures. The Queens rapper has made quite a name for himself, but has also managed to put other rappers on in the process. Fif spoke with HardKnockTV at SXSW recently, revealing his approach to giving his crew some exposure, how it went wrong, and his upcoming animated series.
50 explained that he wanted to avoid G-Unit taking a backseat role to his fame, as many crews do. "A lot of people here may not know every member of D-12 by name or every member of the St. Lunatics," he said. "But chances are, they recognize who was a part of G-Unit. It's because I was so conscious of the people around me that, after the first record took off - and Interscope Records really didn't want - Why do you want a G-Unit record when you can have a 50 Cent record when that one is the largest debuting Hip Hop album? You want another 50 Cent record. So I was adamant about positioning them properly because those crews, D-12 and St. Lunatics, had people that spearheaded them like Eminem and Nelly that had so much success, those projects would take two years before they would finish. They would come out and be such a huge success that they're traveling and touring with so much going on that their crew would be there and they would turn into those guys that are just in the background...I didn't want that to happen so I made the G-Unit project at that point and it offered them different things."
Fif then expressed that while his approach was initially successful, his crew-members ended up gaining too much of a dependence on him, with little appreciation for his efforts. "[I got] to the point where I was writing the music,"he said. "Helping them with their albums, putting the right choruses and production around them so they could make the album right. I think that there are certain things you do where you enable people and they feel like you are supposed to do that. This is how we do it, versus they appreciate you actually doing it. So, I made that mistake also."
The rapper also revealed some details surrounding his upcoming FOX cartoon, based off of his book. "A lot of the times, my childhood experiences help me with projects that I create now," said 50. "Like, I created 'Playground.' It was a book based on bullying. My son was was telling me a story about something someone next to him was experiencing at school. I found myself explaining it from a perspective where I realized I was the bully. I was like, 'Damn. How you gonna teach him and you're tellin' him...' So, I wanted to create a book where I made the audience like the bully before I made them realize that his own actions was comin' from something internal that had nothing to do with those situations...That book was a successful book. And now it has been picked up to become an animated television show on FOX. So, you'll see it soon."
Watch the full interview below.