O2 Launch 50 Cent Headphones

O2 are preparing to launch a new range of 50 Cent headphones - and you could get yours signed by the man himself.

A good pair of headphones will never let you down. After all, there's no point in building and developing an immaculate music collection if you don't have a right headphones.

Thankfully, O2 are on hand to supply something different. The technology brand have teamed up with American rap star 50 Cent to add SMS Audio Headphones to their range.

First, the technie bit. O2 are currently selling three different types of headphones: STREET by 50 in-ear (£99.95), STREET by 50 over-ear (£199.95) and SYNC by 50 (£299.95).

STREET by 50 in-ear headphones are on sale from O2 for £99.95 and contain use professionally-tuned drivers and gold-plated connectors to deliver high quality sound. STREET by 50 over-ear headphones are on sale from O2 for £199.95 and use professionally-tuned 40mm drivers to deliver crisp sound and enhanced bass.

SYNC by 50 headphones, meanwhile, are on sale from O2 for £299.95, with their Kleer technology giving Sync by 50 16-bit digital sound and boasts longer battery life, less interference and no feedback.

Each are on sale now, but O2 have supplied a little surprise for early adaptors.

If you buy a pair of SMS Audio Headphones before Thursday (July 12th) then you will be invited along to the O2 to get yours signed by 50 Cent.

The rapper will be appearing at the O2 on Thursday (July 12th) and will be meeting and greeting fans. There’ll also be headphones on sale in the O2 store on the night however stocks will be limited.

If you can't make the event then don't fret - 50 Cent will still be on Twitter. The rapper will be taking questions from fans, so if you would like to ask 50 a question can tweet it @O2 using #50questions and it may get a video response from 50 himself.

50 Cent Is Not Happy About The "New York Times" Bankruptcy Article! (PICS)

50 Cent is famous for posting pics with rants on social media and taking them down so let's see how long this one stays up!  50 posted this pic and a caption of displeasure about the latest New York Times article about his bankruptcy case...


He posted this pic on social media about an hour after a New York Times article was posted with the latest update in his bankruptcy case.  The caption reads: "The New York Times is full of shit. I would never disrespect the court system. The judge never told me what I could or couldn't post on social networks. Then you edit the caption under my picture, to make it what you want it to be. SMH".



The bankruptcy court judge has been “concerned about allegations of nondisclosure and a lack of transparency” since some of the Instagram pics of him posing with cash were brought to the attention of the judge by 50 Cent's "creditors who said in a court document that the pictures were, 'at a minimum, openly contemptuous' of the bankruptcy process." (Think back to him spelling out "BROKE" in cash)

Court documents filed by 50 Cent claim the cash in the photos was "prop money" and went on to say that, "Just because I am photographed in or next to a certain vehicle, wearing an article of clothing, holding a product, sitting next to what appears to be large sums of money or modeling expensive pieces of jewelry does not meant that I own everything in those photos.”

At the end of the New York Times  article, they linked to a pic that 50 Cent posted on Twitter shortly after his court appearance yesterday (that has since been deleted) but is still on his Facebook page (at the time I'm posting this, anyway) with more CASH (real or fake, who knows) in his waistband with the caption: "For some reason people love me. I went to court today and all I felt was love. They asked me about money I said I ain't got none, but if you want some m&m's here ya go."

If you laughed when 50 Cent went bankrupt, you don’t understand hip-hop

 

‘50 Cent was selling crack on the streets by the age of 12, carrying a gun by 15.’ Photograph: Startraks Photo/REX Shutterstock

When a rapper with as high a profile as 50 Cent declares bankruptcy, you could power a small nation with the schadenfreude. Twitter wags – inevitably – weighed in, with various puns on Curtis Jackson’s chosen alias, while others laboured to make jokes about the EU bailing him out. Newspapers printed pictures of him festooned with gold and captions advising him to visit the nearest branch of Cash Converters. There were few well-wishers, or people organising volunteers to run “a mile for Fiddy”.

On the face of it, this gleeful celebration of misfortune is hardly surprising. The setback follows hard on the heels of a jury ordering Jackson to pay $5m in an invasion of privacy case that saw him delivering a tasteless and unfunny narration over a sex tape. 50 Cent’s larger than life approach – encompassing a hugely successful rap career (2003’s album Get Rich or Die Tryin’ sold over 12m copies that year alone), high-profile business ventures (his stake in Vitaminwater is rumoured to have made him $100m), spats with other rap stars such as The Game and Rick Ross, and acting (he plays the trainer in the recent Jake Gyllenhaalfilm Southpaw) – was bound to have commentators chiding him for his hubris when he hit a bump in the road. Despite the fact that he’s only filed forchapter 11 bankruptcy, actually seen by many financial experts as a wise move to protect assets and investments, the nuances of his financial situation have hardly stemmed the tide of hatred and smirks.

It’s a cliche that the first things rappers buy when they get a deal are a gold chain and a house for their mother

Why do people love to hate 50 Cent so much? Perhaps for the same reasons they laugh at Diddy, line up to lambast Kanye West or delight in the ups and downs of Lil Wayne: they simply don’t understand the hip-hop mindset. If you wanted to be simplistic, you could level accusations of racism. These people are delighting in the downfall of a black man who rose from nowhere to have his wings burned like Icarus. They want him back in his place. And undoubtedly some feel that way. But the majority of people warming their souls on 50 Cent’s “downfall” aren’t really racists, they just don’t understand what drives him and many rappers-turned-entrepreneurs like him.

The privileged few prize what they see as “authenticity” in music, and they don’t think commercially successful rappers provide that. In their view they’re churning out mush for the clubs and the masses, rather than making difficult material that only connoisseurs can appreciate. And they’re not just making hit records, they’re wearing jewellery and being all brash and arrogant about it. Couldn’t they do with a reality check?

Of course, as anyone who has grown up with hip-hop will tell you, this is par for the course. (Largely) white critics and commentators have always loved telling us what “real” hip-hop should be: it should be intelligent, fierce, political and, it goes without saying, friendly to liberals. But what about “actual” hip-hop? The stuff that (largely) black people actually buy in their millions, the stuff they dance and listen to? Stuff like 50 Cent, Diddy, Kanye, Young Thug, Future, 2 Chainz? The real stars of hip-hop are seen as gaudy figures of fun to these critics, rather than what they are: the true leaders of a still restlessly inventive music form.

Hip-hop’s roots in the abject, drug-ruined poverty of New York’s South Bronx in the late 1970s aren’t just a historical fact, they have shaped its aspirational worldview. What many of its detractors don’t recognise is that these millionaire rappers they instinctively hate largely grew up in that world – one of absent fathers, crack cocaine, racist policing and hustling to survive. It’s a hip-hop cliche that the first two things rappers buy when they get a record deal are a gold chain and a house for their mother. It’s also instructive – the first is to show you’ve made it against the odds, the second is to reward and protect the key figure in your life.

In 50 Cent’s case, he couldn’t buy a house for his mother – she was murdered when he was a boy, in the tough New York neighbourhood of South Jamaica, Queens, and his father was nowhere to be seen. Raised, along with nine others, by his grandmother, he was selling crack on the streets by the age of 12, carrying a gun by 15. If he hadn’t been mentored by Run DMC’s Jam Master Jay, he’d probably have died on those very streets. When a rap career offers the promise of freedom from that life, you grab it and you make everything of it as quickly as you can. After all, rap is no country for old men.

Money and success is important to black US rappers because not so long ago they were legally second-class citizens, and as recent events in Ferguson andCharleston have shown, life for young black men can be short and brutal. For 50 Cent and his generation, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ isn’t just an album title, it’s a mantra born of a struggle. One that people slinging puns on Twitter just don’t understand.

Down to his last 50 Cent? Rapper files for bankruptcy

Rapper and actor files for bankruptcy protection three days after he is ordered to pay $5m to a woman whose sex tape he posted online

After losing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, rapper 50 Cent has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

In papers filed with the US bankruptcy court in Hartford, Connecticut, on Monday, 50 Cent, real name Curtis Jackson, reported assets and debts in the $10m to $50m range. According to the petition, 50 Cent holds primarily consumer debts, which are debts “incurred by an individual primarily for a personal, family or household purpose”.

The bankruptcy report arrives three days after a jury ordered the rapper to pay$5m to Lastonia Leviston, of Pembroke Pines, Florida, for buying her sex tape, editing it with his own narration and posting it online without her permission.

50 Cent narrated the 13-minute video as a wig-wearing character named Pimpin’ Curly, and made explicit remarks about Leviston and rapper Rick Ross, who has a daughter with Leviston but did not appear in the video. He acquired the video in 2008 from Leviston’s then boyfriend, and it appeared online in 2009. At the time, Ross and 50 Cent were engaged in a fairly public feud.

Leviston said she was horrified and humiliated at the online release of the video, testifying at the trial that it was put online against her will.

50 Cent did not testify at the trial. He said the Pimpin’ Curly character was “joking” when he referred to Leviston as a “porn star” during a sworn pre-trial questioning that was played for the jury.

Attorneys for 50 Cent at Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors said in a statement that filing for bankruptcy “allows Mr Jackson to reorganise his financial affairs, as he addresses various professional liabilities and takes steps to position the future of his various business interests.”

According to the statement, 50 Cent’s “business interests will continue unaffected in the ordinary course” as the case is pending.

50 Cent, now 40, is best known for his 2003 debut album Get Rich or Die Tryin’, and made millions as a spokesman for sport beverage company Vitaminwater. He has also starred in 21 films, the most recent of which is Southpaw, which also stars Jake Gyllenhaal.

50 Cent Creditors File Repayment Proposal

                                   

 In a Tuesday, July 21, 2015, file photo, rapper Curtis Jackson, also known as 50 Cent, leaves court. Creditors of the rapper filed a repayment proposal this week. Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press

Impatient for their money, the woman who won $7 million from rapper 50 Cent in a sex-tape dispute and partners in a failed headphone deal have teamed up to take his personal bankruptcy into their own hands.

In court papers filed Thursday, the unpaid groups asked a bankruptcy judge to put a Connecticut lawyer named Richard M unblocked school. Coan in charge of the 40-year-old entertainer’s business affairs, giving him the power to pay off the debts over the next five years.

With the title of trustee, Mr. Coan would sell off property owned by 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis James Jackson III, and oversee the entertainer’s recording contracts, endorsement deals and other pursuits, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Hartford, Conn.

The 37-page repayment proposal didn’t say how much Lastonia Leviston, the woman behind the sex-tape dispute, or the headphone partners would ultimately collect from Mr. Jackson over the repayment period.

Mr. Jackson filed for chapter 11 protection on July 13, shortly before jurors were scheduled to determine whether he should pay additional damages in the sex-tape lawsuit filed in 2010 by Ms. Leviston, rapper Rick Ross’s ex-girlfriend.

The verdict in the sex-tape lawsuit, which accused Mr. Jackson of posting the video on his website in 2009 as part of a “rap war” between himself and Mr. Ross, came as Mr. Jackson lost a dispute over a broken business deal to develop headphones. Mr. Jackson owes $18 million in that dispute, according to court papers.

In that business venture, an entity called Sleek Audio LLC made a deal with G-Unit Brands, Mr. Jackson’s licensing company, to allow Sleek to use Mr. Jackson’s trademarks. The deal fell apart when “Sleek failed to have the headphones ready for commercial production by the February 15, 2011, deadline,” Mr. Jackson’s bankruptcy lawyers said. Sleek Audio’s lawyers later filed an arbitration proceeding against Mr. Jackson, accusing him of stealing the design of the “Sleek by 50” headphones.

Mr. Jackson’s lawyers called Thursday’s plan “nothing more than a bad faith litigation tactic aimed at denying Mr. Jackson his rights” under bankruptcy law.

“The plan cannot be confirmed as a matter of law,” his lawyers said Thursday.

Judge Ann Nevins agreed to look over the proposal at a Feb. 18 hearing.

In the proposal, lawyers for Ms. Leviston and Sleek Audio noted that Mr. Jackson has been posting photos of himself on Instagram with stacks of cash and boasting about property purchases—none of which appear to be assets reflected in court papers. In November, he posted a photo on Instagram of stacks of money in his refrigerator, while another picture several weeks later has the rapper sitting on a bed with piles of money covering his legs.

In September, he also claimed to buy a house in Africa unblocked games online.

People who file for bankruptcy have to list in court documents all of the valuable items they own. If Mr. Coan is appointed, he would “be charged with the duty of reviewing and examining” the posts, according to court papers.

“A further review of [Mr. Jackson’s] social media accounts reveal other similar photos posted post-petition revealing [his] appearance at numerous and varied entertainment related events,” lawyers who wrote the plan said. “The [plan] proponents believe it is commonplace in the [his] industry for appearance fees and other remuneration to be received by [Mr. Jackson] in connection with such appearances.”

Mr. Jackson appeared on the music scene in 2003 with hit rap song “In Da Club.” He has sold more than 22 million albums and acted in films, including the recent boxing drama “Southpaw.”

His Farmington, Conn., mansion, once owned by boxer Mike Tyson, is reported to have 21 bedrooms, a racquetball court, a home movie theater and an eight-car garage.

50 Cent Biography

Curtis Jackson, known as 50 Cent, is a hip-hop artist and businessman who became famous for his streetwise raps and rags-to-riches life story.

“I come from the bottom and I have risen up and I have changed but I have never forgotten.”
—50 Cent

Synopsis
Curtis James Jackson III, known as 50 Cent, was born on July 6, 1975, in New York City. After an early life of crime, drugs and violence, he turned to a career as a rapper, rocketing to stardom with the release of the album Get Rich or Die Tryin' in 2003. One of the major figures in early 21st century "gangsta" rap, 50 Cent has since branched out to become a successful actor and businessman.

Childhood in New York
Curtis James Jackson III, now known by his rap name 50 Cent, was born on July 6, 1975, in the borough of Queens in New York City. He was raised in a broken home in the rough neighborhood of Jamaica. His single mother worked as a drug dealer and was murdered when Jackson was only 8 years old; after her death, he was raised by his grandparents. He had boyhood aspirations to be a boxer, but he began selling drugs when he was a teenager. He also began to rap during his high school years.

Breaking Into the Hip-Hop World
50 Cent's first important contact with the New York hip-hop scene was an introduction to Jam Master Jay from the group Run-D.M.C. Jay was impressed by 50 Cent's rapping ability and produced an album for him; however, it was never released. 50 Cent also made a false start with the Columbia label, recording an album that was shelved before its release.

In 2000, 50 Cent was the victim of a severe shooting incident that left him with multiple wounds and injuries. After his recovery, he began rapping again and made low-budget recordings with his friends Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo, as a crew called G-Unit. Their efforts were noticed by the hip-hop stars Eminem and Dr. Dre, who promoted 50 Cent as a solo act and signed him jointly to their record labels.

Crossover Stardom
50 Cent's debut release, Get Rich or Die Tryin', was produced by Eminem and Dre. It was a massive success that eventually reached sales of 9 million units. Its singles, including "Wanksta" and "In Da Club," were crossover hits on the pop charts, since 50 Cent's gritty lyrics were backed by catchy musical hooks that appealed to audiences beyond the hip-hop scene. His personal appearance—muscled and tattooed, wearing a bulletproof vest and toting a handgun—was also a strong factor in his appeal, as was the fact that his rap lyrics were based on real-life experiences.

Get Rich was followed by another hit album, 2005's The Massacre, on which 50 Cent continued to rap about drugs, crime and sex on tracks like "Candy Shop" and "Just a Lil Bit." Later releases, including Curtis in 2007 and Before I Self-Destruct in 2009, didn't achieve the same sales figures. However, 50 Cent's personal history as a "gangsta," a criminal and a survivor of drugs, violence and poverty who had lived to tell the tale, had made him an influential figure in hip-hop culture.

Financial Successes and Problems
Following in the tracks of hip-hop moguls such as Dre and Jay-Z, 50 Cent successfully expanded his brand to other markets. He promoted and invested in Vitaminwater, a partnership that reportedly netted him $100 million when the company was sold to Coca-Cola in 2007. 50 Cent also founded the successful SMS Audio headphones line, and scored prominent roles in the films Escape Plan (2013), Spy (2015) and Southpaw (2015). Meanwhile, he ensured he remained a relevant name in the hip-hop industry with the release of the album Animal Ambition in 2014.

However, legal and financial problems mounted when he was sued by a girlfriend of rival hip-hop artist Rick Ross for releasing a sex tape without her permission. A jury found 50 Cent liable for $7 million in damages in July 2015, prompting the rapper-businessman to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

'Bankrupt' rapper 50 Cent has a 24-bathroom house with a nightclub in it

The rapper 50 Cent's recent bankruptcy filing has drawn attention to a court hearing last month where a lawyer for a woman who sued him grilled about his notoriously flashy lifestyle.

50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after he lost a lawsuit brought by a woman named Lastonia Leviston whose sex tape he published on the internet.

The rapper was ordered to pay $5 million, and an attorney for Leviston has suggested he only filed for bankruptcy to avoid paying up in the lawsuit. During a hearing in Manhattan earlier this month, attorney Philip Freidin pressed 50 Cent repeatedly about his assets, earning opportunities, and showy lifestyle.

50 Cent admitted that he had a home with the following amenities:
His own personal nightclub (in the house)
21 bedrooms
24 bathrooms
Movie theater
Basketball court
Swimming pool
Grotto (It's not clear what "grotto" means in this instance, but it's generally a word used to refer to a cave.)
17 acres of land

                                                                      

  ZillowAnother image from a home with the address 50 Cent listed. This could be the grotto.

Here's the exchange about 50 Cent's house from the court transcript, which Business Insider has obtained:

Lawyer: What about your home, let's talk about your home. That home has 17 acres?

50 Cent: Right.

Lawyer: Twenty-one bedrooms?

50 Cent: Yeah.

Lawyer: You own that home, right?

                                                                              

 ZillowHere's another shot of the address 50 Cent listed as his. This appears to be a home movie theater.

50 Cent: Yes.

Lawyer: And it has 24 bathrooms?

50 Cent: Yes.

Lawyer: Tennis court?

50 Cent: Yes.

Lawyer: Basketball court?

50 Cent: No tennis court.

                                                                        

ZillowThis appears to be a dining area.

Lawyer: No tennis court?

50 Cent: No.

Lawyer: Are you sure?

50 Cent: Yeah.

Lawyer: Basketball court?

50 Cent: Yes.

Lawyer: Your own personal nightclub?

50 Cent: Yes.

Lawyer: In the house, right?

                                                                        

  ZillowAnd here's a bedroom with a spiral staircase.

50 Cent: Yes.

Lawyer: You've got a movie theater in the house?

50 Cent: Yes.

Lawyer: You've got a large swimming pool?

50 Cent: There is a swimming pool.

Lawyer: And a grotto?

50 Cent: Yep.

We reached out to a representative for 50 Cent for comment on this exchange, and we will update the post if we hear back.