50 Cent’s ‘Pieces’ focuses on his years before music

Rapper 50 Cent has been shaking up the music industry for the past two years with explosive record sales, chart-topping singles and ire-raising remarks about his hip-hop colleagues.

So it wouldn’t have been out of character for him to drop a few new bombshells in his autobiography, “From Pieces to Weight.” But instead, he fills in the details of the life he rhymes about in his songs.

Fans who hope to get some inside scoop on his lyrical beefs with the likes of Jadakiss, Fat Joe, Nas, Lil’ Kim or The Game will have to wait for the remix.

He talks about Ja Rule but dismisses their rivalry. He also tells of how he thanked Jay-Z for famously dissing him – “I’m about the dollar, what … is 50 Cent” – because of the publicity it brought him.

Still, rap and the music industry don’t even come up for the first two-thirds of the book, which is more focused on telling the story of Curtis Jackson III than celebrating the celebrity of 50 Cent. As he puts it: “There are many more memories trying to get rich than there are of being rich.”

His narrative of his formative years neither glorifies nor apologizes for the life he led. But it reveals how he developed the hustler’s mind-set he has used to quickly build his G-Unit brand into one of rap’s most successful empires.

He explains that “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” the name of his multiplatinum 2003 debut album, was not simply a title, but also a mission that has driven him through his life as a crack-cocaine dealer and an artist/entrepreneur. Most rappers wax nostalgic about going back to the ‘hood; 50 makes the case for getting out.

He was born 30 years ago to a 15-year-old mother who sold drugs and had the curious habit – to him – of hanging out with women far more than with men. Still, she was his primary source of love, money and discipline.

She never told him who his father was, and he was raised by his maternal grandparents along with eight uncles and aunts – all of whom either dealt or were addicted to drugs.

After his mother was murdered when he was 8, he had plenty of older relatives but little supervision. He eventually took to peddling small amounts of crack (pieces) before eventually graduating to distributing larger amounts (weight) to other dealers.

Run-ins with the law and on the street kept him in and out of jail and probationary programs before Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay helped him find an alternative career.

He started using the name 50 Cent, which he saw as a metaphor for change and something that was catchy. He figured that if he was going to name himself after a gangster – the real 50 Cent had been a Brooklyn thug who jacked rappers – it might as well be one he could relate to as opposed to the Italian mobsters who inspired other artists.

He eventually signed to Columbia Records and made a name for himself with the humorous (though not everybody took it that way) “How to Rob,” on which he mused about sticking up an A-list of hip-hop stars. But the drug game caught up with him in 2000, and he was shot nine times.

Columbia dropped him, and he hit the mixtape circuit hard, attracting the attention of Eminem and Dr. Dre, who collaborated with him on his first album. He has been moving musical weight ever since.