50 Cent.Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty
50 Centmay have dominated hip hop with seven No. 1 singles in the 2000s, but nowadays he is looking to climb the charts of a different kind — with his podcast.
The “In Da Club” rapper recently spoke to PEOPLE about his growing interest in true crime and his latest project,hisSurviving El Chapopodcast.
“I like true crime, period, the entire genre,” says 50 Cent (born Curtis Jackson). “If you don’t read the news, if you’re not in the current events, [then you should]. I do.”
In recent years, Jackson, 47, has put making new music on the back burner while expanding his profile as an actor and producer. Jackson found success acting on the Starz seriesPowerfrom 2014 until 2020 and has a role inThe Expendables 4next year. As a television producer, he helped bring the crime dramaBlack Mafia Familyto life and saw hisHip Hop Homicidesseriespremiere on AMC earlier this month.
But his new podcast — about El Chapo and the Chicago twins who helped bring him down — is his latest passion. The series focuses on twins Pedro and Margarito Flores, who grew up in the drug business and went on to become two of the most powerful traffickers in Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera’s hierarchy. To avoid extensive jail time, the twins flipped on Guzman in 2008. Their testimony and secretly taped conversations with El Chapo helped authorities slam a life sentence on the cartel kingpin.
50 Cent.Burak Cingi/Redferns
The twins still received 15 years in prison,accordingtoThe Chicago Sun-Times, which was considered a very lenient sentence for smuggling roughly 71 tons of cocaine and heroin into the country. The twins are nowreportedlyon supervised release from prison, but not without risk: A judge warned the brothers to be on the lookout for Guzman’s hitmen. Both Jackson and co-host Charlie Webster tell PEOPLE thatSurviving El Chapoproducers went through intricate steps to get the brothers in the same room for interviews, hosting their talks in a discreet “safe house” with security posted outside.
Says Webster: “We also wanted to tell the reality of what so many young kids get brought up in and how it can turn out.”
50 Cent.Jamie McCarthy/Getty
True crime storytelling, Jackson says, is stirring up new ideas for the rapper-turned-podcaster. “This is just the first one for me and Charlie,” he vows. “You’re going to see more.”
“I mean, I really enjoy the music,” Jackson says, “But the audience is changing. My core audience was in college in 2003. They’re grown now and they may have the drink that you would have in the nightclub in the privacy of their home now. They are my television viewership now. That’s who’s watching.”
source: people.com
