Today AskMen.com revealed it’s Mega list of men giving back Great Men Give – 49 Men Who Are Changing The World You Live In. The list celebrates 49 Men Who Made A Difference, the list includes many of our favorites: Don Cheadle, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Kendrick Lamar, John Legend, Russell Simmons and 50 Cent to name a few of the elite 49; Check out the full list here.
50 Cent took some time to tell the world that giving back is a core part of who he is… There’s Way More To 50 Cent Than Just Rap – This Will Make You See Another Side To Him.
AskMen (AM): How did you first get involved with charity?
Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson (50): It was with the G-Unity foundation in 2005. I was running into a lot of people that were having difficulty getting into the local college. Because I did a lot of performances – the college kids were like the first round of touring. They would ask, too – in the neighborhood I don’t think that they assessed that you really have to be someone to work for college. But they’re imagination allows them to go, it just leads them to places that they tell themselves, ‘Well, you can do anything.’ So, they would come and ask about the school and the opportunity. I didn’t feel like it was bad because you’re asking me to go to school. Like, there are so many other things that you could ask for that could be negative – car, money or something specific. And, we started making donations to other not-for-profit organizations that had academic (goals). They all focused on trying to provide scholarships and to develop after-school programs and stuff like that. It’s just to create a distraction for these kids so that they don’t fall into the things that are right there in front of them and the environmental influences that would encourage you to try to follow your instant gratification, take you down the wrong road.AM: How does your background affect how you decide which causes to be involved in?
50: It affected me by being conscious of — not just the A student, but the guy that’s a C student, but that has extra potential. The A students don’t necessarily become successful in the real world, in the workplace. Because a lot of the students that are C and B-level students are being distracted by their own interests, their interests away from school itself. But it gives them instincts in the workplace because they already kind of have a what you would say is a ‘gut feeling’ that allows them to make great decisions. If you just took the information that was coming from the book, it doesn’t give you an advantage or the ability to be better because it doesn’t give you instincts.
AM: That’s how it was for you.
50: Yeah, and I mean, totally that. Like, you gotta be involved and kind of feel people out. I think being successful is being a good judge of character. You know what I mean? The most successful business people, the top of Fortune 500 companies right now, if you look close, some of their biggest losses have come in their investment in friendship because they got married and divorced, had to pay out bigger amounts in divorce than they would have in losses in business.AM: Speaking of which, a lot of your business endeavors give back. At what point were you like, “OK, if I’m going to do this, this has to benefit other people too”?
50: Yeah, it actually came following the experience I had right when I started getting money and experiencing fame. I watched people around me and saw how they were handling and spending their money, in the middle of recession too. After witnessing that I went into promoting conscious capitalism with Street King. This is when I decided that for every energy drink we sold, we would provide a meal to the United Nations World Food Programme. I had a wonderful experience with them, I went to Somalia to see first hand how it was affecting people.The second was with SMS Audio – we started giving the proceeds to Feeding America with the goal of feeding a million people.
AM: Your manager apparently called you the hip-hop Bono — what is the difference between you and him, as philanthropists?
50: In our case, we’re sort of an invisible partner to charity. It’s like, the people who have had to work hard in their life for what they have are the people who know how to make a difference.AM: What have you learned from these different endeavors (your show Dream School, and so on)?
50: In our culture, we stick to aggressive culture — shows like CSI, with cops — as a template for what we do. For me, Dream School made so much sense with G-Unity because of (how it aligned) with the educational aspect. I did a charitable event where the proceeds went overseas and ran into a girl who was on Dream School and saw how she had been directly affected by the show. We’re so often desensitized — you put change in someone’s cup on the corner and you’re not sure where it goes. It’s a hustle. But this was a confirmation that it wasn’t, that it was worth it.AM: That’s something you strive for.
50: Yeah, you’d be surprised by how much people have trouble seeing who I am in my personal life versus the image that’s expected of me. It’s almost a process to get myself into their headspace (laughs). And, I’m constantly working, too.
