In the past couple of years, Queens rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson has turned into the ultimate businessman. From establishing his own record label G-Unit Records to the G-Unit clothing line, sneaker deal with Reebok and of course Vitamin Water, 50 has proven that he is not only an entertainer but also an entrepreneur.
50 Cent’s long time manager, Chris Lighty, sat down with Billboard.com to talk about 50’s upcoming projects and business ventures.
50 recently announced a new project with UberMedia, who is mostly known for their Blackberry based Twitter Application, UberSocial. This customized Twitter theme will be called “Uber50.”
“It was during the period that Uber got locked out of Twitter and got fined. He [50] had to use a different app,” explained Lighty. “He was one of them [going crazy] and one of the more vocal [ones.] Uber saw that and contacted us.”
“Uber50” is not it for the hip hop mogul as 50 plans on diving into nutritional products again.
“We’re working on a new supplement company. We’re going to build new supplements cause it’s a big opportunity like Vitamin Water was. We want to market and promote it when we put out 50’s album. There are different options of penetration for supplements through music; like going to GNC [for] protein shakes, vitamins, [etc.]. No beverage. When you go to a vitamin shop, there’s no one of pop culture [representing], it’s mostly muscle heads. We’ll cut through the clutter with 50 in the store saying, ‘You want to be 10% of me so take what I’m taking’,” Lighty told Billboard.
There has also been talk of 50 possibly signing Pauly D from MTV’s “Jersey Shore” to G-Unit for a three–album deal. 50 and Lighty also recently launched a site on which artists can submit their music directly to A&Rs handpicked by Lighty titled Please Listen to My Demo.
With 50 undertaking so many things he is still hard at work on his fifth studio album, which has not yet been titled.
