“My flow, my show brought me the dough that bought me all my fancy things,” divulged 50 Cent some 18 years ago. “My crib, my cars, my pools, my jewels…” Let’s concentrate on the second, shall we?
As befits a titan of rap, 50 Cent owns a fleet of Rolls and Lambos. He’s even got a one-off fighter jet-inspired toy in the garage, along with the most advanced hypercar ever built. He’s never been short of assets to namecheck. “I’m in the Benz on Monday, the BM on Tuesday, Range on Wednesday, Thursday I’m in the hooptay, Porsche on Friday, I do things my way; Vipe or ‘Vette, I tear up the highway.” Sounds like Craig David has competition in the diary stakes.
Curtis Jackson III’s New York City upbringing is the stuff of hip-hop legend. His mother was a drug dealer who died in a fire when he was eight. His father was absent and he was raised by his grandmother in Queens’ South Jamaica neighbourhood. As a teenager, he was an amateur boxer and street purveyor of crack, heroin and cocaine. In 1994, aged 18, he was caught with drugs and guns and sentenced to three-to-nine years in prison, but only served six months in a boot camp, where he earned his GED educational diploma. That’s when he adopted the name 50 Cent, as a metaphor for change.
“Fiddy” started to rap and, upon his release, was introduced to Run DMC’s Jam Master Jay, who taught him how to write songs and make records. Come 1999, he had his first record deal. In May 2000, he was shot – allegedly by Mike Tyson’s bodyguard – outside his grandmother’s home, with nine bullets passing through his hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest and left cheek. It’s suspected his 1999 track “Ghetto Qur’an” had prompted the attempted murder, as it details the history of 1980s New York crime syndicate The Supreme Team.
Fiddy overcame all this and signed a million-dollar record deal with Eminem and Dr Dre in 2002. His debut album, Get Rich Or Die Tryin’, sold more than ten million copies and its lead single, “In Da Club”, became the most listened-to song in radio history within just one week. That album and the subsequent The Massacre, collaborations with Eminem and side project G-Unit made him one of the top five biggest rap stars of the 2000s. He also began a successful acting career. “I’m the boss,” he declared on 2009’s “Do You Think About Me”, “Bentley or the Porsche?”
Album sales dried up, though, and 50 filed for bankruptcy protection in 2015. He bounced back with his own Starz network drama series, Power, which he exec produced and starred in, and invested in Vitamin Water, which was sold to Coca-Cola for £3 billion (“I took quarter water, sold it in bottles for two bucks; Coca-Cola came and bought it for billions, what the fuck?”), netting him over £72m after taxes. His other ventures include real estate, footwear, apparel, headphones, mattresses, video games, mobile apps, boxing promotion, fragrances, book publishing, vodka, cognac and Le Chemin Du Roi champagne.
So, the champagne lifestyle is truly back on (despite being teetotal) and with it a garage full of Italian supercars and British lux-o-barges. The rapper turned businessman is 46 today and has a history of gifting himself motors to celebrate his birthday. As he’s already bought a Bugatti Chiron, just imagine what he’s got lined up for his 50th.
Toyota Land Cruiser (1994)
Fiddy’s “Hustler’s Ambition” was sown in a Land Cruiser. It was his first car, aged 18, for which he paid £33,000. The 80 series Toyota was painted dark emerald pearl with bull bars, tinted windows and a bike rack. Trouble was, a local gangster had one in the same colour and 50 worried he might be mistakenly targeted as a result. He traded it in after a couple of months for a white Mercedes 400SEL with bullet-proof windows, just to be on the safe side.
Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster (2005)
50 Cent purchased the first of two topless Murcielagos in 2005 to celebrate the release of his second chart-topping album. The 2005-spec supercar produced 572bhp from its naturally aspirated 6.2-litre V12. It made a bit of an impression in the neighbourhood, as he described on “Position Of Power”: “I come through your hood, stunting in my yellow Lam’ Murcielago, top down n***a, damn.”
Maserati MC12 (2005)
Now this is a very special car. Maserati built just 50 road-going MC12s, as homologation specials for the FIA GT Championship. It’s based on the Ferrari Enzo, but for our money the £1m Maser has aged much, much better. Is there a purer-looking hypercar from the decade? 50 Cent didn’t actually own the 621bhp Italian stallion, but he borrowed a “Fuji White” one to cruise around Monte Carlo in the video for “Window Shopper”.
Chevrolet Impala (1965)
Legendary Hot 97 DJ Funkmaster Flex is a big-hitter in US hip-hop’s automotive subculture and agreed to build 50 an Impala. The rapper got the custom 1965 ragtop in fuchsia red with a cream and red interior and peanut butter hood. Flex swapped out the 5.3 V8 for a 5.7 crate motor. The total job came to over £70,000. Maybe this inspired the title of 50 Cent’s MTV reality show The Money And The Power, which was a bit like The Apprentice with Tourette’s. 50’s boardroom scenes ended with the immortal words “Get the fuck outta here.” It made Donald Trump’s catchphrase, “You’re fired”, sound meek. Fiddy ended up giving the Chevy to actor Val Kilmer, having starred together in direct-to-video movie Streets Of Blood.
Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead (2009)
Rolls-Royce absolutely nailed it with this long and uber-exclusive land yacht. 50 Cent felt he’d really arrived when he took delivery of his. “I was a real bum. Now I’m really rich, kid,” he relayed on “I Got Swag”. “I come through the hood in some really, really sick shit. The Rolls; the roof gone. Your flows; they’re lukewarm.”
Ferrari FF (2011)
HYM56C Three-quarter front view of a 2012, Ferrari FF, in the International Pit Lane during the 2017 Silverstone Classic Media DayJohn Gaffen / Alamy Stock Photo
In 2011, 50 Cent released a track called “Old 2003 Ferrari”. In reality, his Maranello ride was nothing of the sort; he had a brand-new FF. The second “F” stands for four. This was Ferrari’s first production four-wheel drive, a hugely innovative and patented system that uses two gearboxes, providing power to the individual wheels and weighing 50 per cent less than a conventional unit. The shooting brake styling was controversial, but we really like it. It’s a fantastic all-round do-anything GT.
The Parker Brothers’ White Lightning (2012)
As part of the SyFy series Dream Machines, 50 Cent designed his own car in collaboration with the Parker Brothers. His direction to the South Carolina car builders was pretty simple: make it a cross between a Formula One car and a fighter jet. It reportedly cost a gob-smacking £1.12m. Not sure he’ll get much of that back upon resale.
Suzuki Kizashi Sport (2012)
EF6EBG 2010 Suzuki Kizashi SE 2 03 13 2010
It’s not uncommon for A-list celebrities to keep something completely nondescript in the garage so that no one will discern it’s them stuck in traffic (see Justin Timberlake and his VW Jetta). 50 Cent’s undercover car is a Suzuki Kizashi. It’s not actually that slow, hitting 60mph in 8.7 seconds thanks to a 2.4 VVT engine that pumps out 175bhp, and car reviewers in 2012 were fairly kind about it. Still, 50’s ownership does leave us with at least “21 Questions”.
Mercedes G500 (2018)
“So much chrome on my Benz, you see your face in my rims; if your bitch wanna roll, I’ma let her get in,” rapped Fiddy on “Get In My Car”. Surely, it’s a given that the frontman of G-Unit owns a G-G-G-G-G-Wagon. The G in the band stands for guerrilla, while the Puch/Mercedes 4×4 was christened Geländewagen, or “terrain vehicle”. He bought his latest G500 to celebrate his 43rd birthday. Wonder what he’s toasting his 46th with today…
Rolls-Royce Cullinan (2018)
The MVP of rapmobiles right now, Fiddy’s Cully stands out in matte orange. He’s had a few Rollers over the years, including a Wraith and a Phantom. His line from “Gunz Come Out” could apply to any of them: “In that new Rolls with the suicide doors; 22-inch chrome, a n***a money long.”
Lamborghini Aventador S Roadster (2019)
Another favourite among his peers, including Kanye West, the Aventador remains one of the wildest looking and feral-sounding automobiles on the planet. Lambo’s colour palette is straight out of a “Candy Shop”. 50 Cent, though, decided to have his wrapped in a custom blue and gold Versace design. It does make recovering it easier. He once left the keys in it at a concert and discovered after the show it had been stolen… by Snoop Dogg.
Bentley Mulsanne (2019)
Having described himself as a “Bentley Mulsanne-type n***a”, Fiddy bought his second a couple of years ago, making it one of the last off the Crewe production line. He ordered it in reflective gold to make it extra “PIMP”. According to “Roll That Shit”, it matches his nautical accessories: “Got that Bentley Mulsanne to match that boat. Beige leather seats in it; they match that dope.”
Bugatti Chiron (2019)
2BP6EJX BERLIN – MAY 11, 2019: A sports car Bugatti Chiron, 2017. 32th Berlin-Brandenburg Oldtimer Day.Panther Media GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo
As per the 50 Cent track “The Enforcer”: “Ferrari, Lambo, I race it; Bugatti, I chase it.” He caught the Molsheim monster in 2019 for Christmas and what a machine it is. Named after Monegasque grand prix driver Louis Chiron, it’s thrusted by an 8.0-litre quad-turbocharged W16, producing 1,479bhp. Top speed is electronically limited to 261mph and prices start at £2.5m. It appears 50 really relates to this car, comparing himself with Jay-Z on the track “I’m On It”. “I’m chin chillin’, crystal spillin’, hip-hop’s villain ‘cause I’m making a killin’. N****s wanna try me, I’m strapped with the lammy; If Jay’s illuminati what am I, a Bugatti?” There are certainly worse things.
