Saturday, August 11, 2007

50 Cent places big bet on the record


Friday, August 10th 2007, 4:00 AM


50 Cent is betting his entire rap future that he'll beat Kanye West on Sept. 11 - the day both artists drop hotly anticipated albums.The two have long competed, but Fitty upped the ante yesterday when he swore to hang up his mike if his CD "Curtis" didn't outsell West's "Graduation."Fitty blasted it out over sohh.com, knowing the hip-hop site gets 4.5 million visitors monthly - many of them teen record buyers."Let's raise the stakes," said the Queens-born rapper, whose given name is Curtis Jackson 3rd. "If Kanye West sells more records than 50 Cent on September 11, I'll no longer [perform] music. I'll write music and work with my other artists, but I won't put out any more solo albums."West knows how to make hits: His last CD, "Late Registration," has sold 2.8 million to date - but 50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Tryin'?" has sold nearly 8 million."They would like to see Kanye West give me a problem," Fitty mused to sohh's Carl Chery, "because I've worked myself into a space where I've become the favorite. Everybody roots [for] the underdog when he goes against the favorite. "And I bet this: When Kanye West's sales come in, he's gonna have a 70% decrease cause Def Jam is gonna buy records [the first week] to keep him closer to 50 Cent. So watch the first week and then watch the second week. Watch his a - drop off the planet."He added: "I didn't get one trophy for ‘The Massacre.' ... I don't get trophies, I get checks. He gets the trophies. ... And I'll be sitting here like, ‘It's cool 'cause I get the check.'?" Last week, Fitty - who has his own label, G-Unit Records - accepted an offer from BET of a debate with Kanye to be televised on the network; in it, the two would decide which had the better-produced record. "I accept the challenge," Fitty said on BET's "106 & Park." "Kanye, he's not going to want to show up." "What am I going to debate about?" West asked reporters at the MTV Video Music Award nominations Tuesday. "I thought [the debate] was the stupidest thing. When my album drops and Fifty's album drops, you're going to get a lot of good music at the same time."He didn't comment on Fitty's challenge by deadline.

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