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50 Cent Reveals Shocking $21 Million Legal Battle and the Secret Behind His Power Success · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: People.
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  Speaker 2: Obviously we know you from your music career, legendary get Richard,
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: I try and we heard the music aggressive in nature, right,
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: but Curtis Jackson right, the businessman. Are some of the
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: same characteristics that you translate as the artists, do they
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: carry over to you as the business icon that you became.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Do you need to be aggressive? Do you need to
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  Speaker 2: be start? Like, what are some of those things that transfer?
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  Speaker 3: I think when you have when you're aggressive, did you
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: have a if people ever had even a little bit
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  Speaker 3: of fear of you? You had a second career at
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  Speaker 3: making them laugh?
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  Speaker 1: You know.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: So you watch guys like Mike Tyson, like I am Mike.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Then you see him and hangover, you see him in
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  Speaker 3: a comedy film and it connects because they go.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Look, he's great. I met Mike. He was great. He
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: didn't even bite my fucking ear. You know.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Like, if it's like because they expect the worst from you,
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: then when they have an experience in this the experience
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: would be a pure normalcy or did it feel like
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: a lot more at that point? And for me, the
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: aggression when I end up in the business setting, it's
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: a lot easier to.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Deal with me. I do struggle with one thing, right,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I do struggle with.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: The growing up in a different environment. Like sometimes I
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: deal with attorneys, and a lot of the times I'm
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: dealing with attorneys. Right, I've spent over twenty twenty one
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: million dollars in legal fees.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Since you sent me.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: I spent a million dollars a year in legal fees
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: now as I have general counselor I have people that
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: is just around. The more that they talk about you
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: being a billionaire, the more you better put your ass
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: in the house. Are you find to get sued? They
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: trip over some shit all fifty Why did you do
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: that on purpose?
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: What the fuck did I do? Now? It's a little different,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Like you know, I.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: Watched the like like having opportunities at different points.
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  Speaker 1: Because I started off versus the music.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: It connects, It works, and it allows me the popularity
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: and the ability to financially invest in different things.
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  Speaker 1: Right, and.
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  Speaker 3: I'm a better on the things that I know. I
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: can influence myself if I know the momentum and the
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: music was there. So I was betting on new artists
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: and developing the artist's career, and then sometimes they couldn't
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: come up with the right stuff. So I was writing
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: they form because I could do it myself like at
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: that point. But then I still wanted to do different
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: things and I went with to the film projects early.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I had I started.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: I did the biggest straight to DVD movie deal ever.
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  Speaker 3: I thought I was making movies because we're gonna put
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: them in the theater, and it was just going straight
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: to DVD.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: But there was straight to DVD. Now it was straight
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: to Freeman.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: So it's straight to your Netflix, it's straight to your Hulu,
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: it's straight to your you know, like when it was
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Will Smith, when Will did the movie directly with Netflix.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: It changed how people perceived those those projects. Yep, there's
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: the Monster film and there's a I watched it and
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: because there's a there used to be a line, a
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  Speaker 3: clear line between television and.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Film production and.
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  Speaker 3: Actors that were successful on TV the film actors wouldn't
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: go near them like they would stay away from it
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: because they felt like it was a higher grade equality
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: that they wanted to stay more cachet to you be
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: in a movie star than you be in a television star.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: But now we're producing premium projects that allow uc Forrest
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Whittaker and Godfather Harlem. You see Academy Award winning actors
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: choosing television because it builds a consistency and they can
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: pay out the money. They keep the talent happy with
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: staying there. But you do need to know with power.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Everybody told me no. I pitched that show to all
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: of the networks and they were like nope. And I
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: wanted to make the projects so bad that I went
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: and I recorded.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Eight songs.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: Because the last place they spend money in television production
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: is music in it. It's just the last the director
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: or put together his dream sequence of music. This is
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: under it, and you watch his version of it, and
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: then the music supervisor will come in and change it
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: to something it feels the same, that doesn't cost anything.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: And you know, if it wouldn't sell on iTunes, I
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: really don't.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I don't want the shit in my project.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: That's why I made the theme music for the projects,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: because I said it has to be good enough for
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: them to feel something when it comes on, like I
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: felt when you know, we had television shows like Good Times.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: When that came on, you felt something good Times temporary
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: re lay off.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm thinking about it. It's pretty powerful, right
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: because we come from an era where like even now
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: you go into a club and they might be playing
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: the Fresh Prince theme song, but now I'm watching you
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: perform the Power theme song. Talk about the intentionality of
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: defying the no, right, because you could have just said,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: all right, well maybe this is.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Not for me. Right.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: You had some success in film, but television wasn't that
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: talk about defining the odds and say all I'm gonna
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: film this thing anyway.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Power. Yeah. When they're telling me no, I'm like, why
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: do you keep telling me no? Like? I want to.
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  Speaker 1: I want to do it, like because because like music
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: is like we can make it at home.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: We can go get a track for YouTube the producer
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: recorded on your laptop, put it on iTunes, on YouTube,
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: and it can go Like the film projects, there was
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: the resistance that I didn't I wasn't accustomed to feeling that, Like,
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  Speaker 3: and when I came back with the music and we
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: pitched it and I was playing and I was talking
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: to Chris Albert because at the time, Chris I always
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: recognized him because he's an innovative thinker.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: He's one of those guys that could see it, Like
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: when I he gave me the green light on the project, right, and.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: It was I only was getting seventeen thousand dollars to
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: pay a reoccurring character, the Canan character to be the
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: executive producer, and damn they'd be the music supervisor for
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: the project and they wouldn't accept the cast of Power.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: For three seasons. Good Morning America.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Like I was at the nightclub last night, and they'd
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: be like, yo, if he doesn't come, you don't even
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: want to.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I just came from the nightclub.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: It's like Good Morning America's it's like four thirty five
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: o'clock in the morning. So I was like, all right,
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: just give me a suit. Put the suit on. I
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: was a little agitated. If you look back at those interviews.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: I didn't want to answer those questions. I'm like, bro,
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: don't why am I doing this? Like they pay me
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: more to go to the nightclub, just to just go