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Rapper 50 Cent is known as New York’s own bad guy or a bully in the rap game, but he’s actually a man with enough courage to feed a billion Africans. 

Yes, a billion. With the sales of his Street King energy drink, 50 Cent has pledged to feed a billion people with a billion meals. 

Most recently, 50 upped the ante for his pledge by utilizing Facebook’s “like” button. If a million fans “liked” 50’s Street King pledge within a week, 50 promised to double his donation. 

GlobalGrind caught up with 50 to talk about his charity work, his forthcoming bully book and of course, his music. 

Check out 50’s pledge to feed Africa in the exclusive interview below!

GlobalGrind: You’re modifying your pledge to feed a billion Africans. Originally you were going to donate a meal for every purchase of Street King energy drink. Now you’re donating a meal for every Facebook like.

50 Cent: I’m not changing it. I don’t want you to be confused. I want to feed a billion people people in Africa. I want to provide a billion meals. But I just created a new challenge to get people actively involved and aware of what I’m doing with Street King, where if they’re on Facebook, they can go to the Street King Facebook page and click “Like.” That way, they’d be actually donating a meal themselves, because when they reach over a million likes on the Facebook page, I’ll match a million meals to the likes in honor of the U.N.’s World Hunger Week.

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We heard that you were also promising to double your donation if you get a million “likes” within a week.

Right. If it does it within a week, I would double it. If you look and see the “likes,” that’s the representation of how many meals I’ll provide based on the likes. But I’ll double it. If it can make it to a million throughout the week, I’ll double it. Right now it’s at four hundred and forty something thousand. So at the end of the week, if it’s at a million, I’ll provide those meals and then provide a million more meals to match it.

What made you want to feed a million Africans?

I was touring in Africa and the circumstances I grew up in, I thought they were harsh, and in the past I make references to my experiences, as I’m from the bottom. And then when you get there, you see people under far harder circumstances. It even makes you look at yourself and some of the decisions you made based on being in the position that I was in at that point. It made me reevaluate my own experiences. It’s easier to see someone else’s imperfections then it is to see your own. That was my initial reasoning for going the route that I went. There was nothing there, I got nothing to lose. When you see people in far worse circumstances… I mean, I grew up without money, but not being hungry.

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You always had something to eat at night.

Yeah, I’ve never been under the circumstances where there’s nothing to eat. Imagine being a mom, having two children and having to make a decision which one you’re going to take with you. You gotta leave one. It’s beyond any challenges that I’ve had to experience. So it makes me want to be a part of changing it or doing something different. According to World Bank numbers, one percent of business alleviates all extreme poverty.

I think that with all the major corporations and many majority shareholders, that one percent wouldn’t change one percent of their life. You can’t ask those people to do that now, but if you lead by example and create companies like Street King, when they’re successful, you can lead by influence. I can influence my peer group, meaning the artist community, to have charitable components implemented in the deals that they do and other professional athletes and other new, young entrepreneurs. Google is only ten years old, if that was a part of this actual business model, it would’ve wiped out a whole lot of issues that we have right now.

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You’re always coming out with new business ventures, which are really great ways to make yourself stay relevant outside of music. 

This is how to sustain a longer career. Because hip-hop culture has a little attention span. So, forget what you’ve done in the past. It’s, what have you done for me lately? I got an album that’s coming out.

When can we expect that? We’ve seriously been waiting.

It’s on schedule now for the fourth quarter. So I’m ready to get it together.

November? Early December?

Early December.