Hustle and hype
Iwas a 14-year-old schoolboy when the rapper 50 Cent released Get Rich or Die Tryin’. The most precocious kids in class declared the debut hip-hop album an instant classic and hailed the rapper’s legend: “He’s been shot nine times, you know?” The failed attempt on 50 Cent’s life was at the centre of his sales pitch as the bulletproof king of gangsta rap. My friends and I were easily sold. His debut was the bestselling album of 2003, selling 12m copies worldwide. Curtis Jackson may have been born black and poor in New York but, as 50 Cent, he was now worth $30m.
There are few things we find more compelling than a fable of overcoming the odds and achieving self-made success. Everyone loves an outsider, because deep down most of us believe we are one, and each generation has its own version for inspiration. For me, it was the constant reinvention of the hustler made good in hip-hop that stuck.
I grew up in Tottenham, north London, a multiracial area between the city and the Hertfordshire suburbs with a character defined by its then underperforming football club and its Caribbean, Ghanaian and Turkish Cypriot communities. My whole life, this corner of the city has been notorious for the anti-police riots that broke out in the 1980s. A Jamaican-born mother had died after her home was raided by police officers, a policeman was killed in the ensuing revolt, and the tension between the residents and the authorities has festered ever since.
By 2003, much of the area could have slipped with ease into the background of a rap video in Queens. My friends and I wore American hip-hop streetwear: baggy Akademiks jeans, Fubu tops and Timberland boots. New-Era baseball caps felt like part of our school uniform. My school had a high intake of students poor enough to qualify for free school meals, but even the poor kids wore luxury streetwear. In the year I completed my GCSEs, 75% of my fellow students failed to get the five A*-C grades necessary to go on to further education. It is unsurprising that the hustler was an inspiration to a student body of underdogs.
