50 Cent

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

• hottest
• rapper
• blowing up
• storytelling

• took to the streets
• drug dealer
• change his ways
• most sought after

• buzz
• dope
• phenomenon

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

50 Cent is the hottest name in the music business. The New York rapper just released his first album, and it’s absolutely blowing up. Get Rich or Die Tryin is the #1 album in the U.S. and sold close to a million copies in less than one week.
Read on to learn more about 50 Cent.

Dialog

1. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Hip-hop music is really very much like storytelling. 50 Cent is so popular because he’s got lots of great stories to tell. Born in Jamaica, Queens, New York 26 years ago, he’s had a rough life. He never knew his father and his mother died before he was a teenager. His grandparents took care of him, but he was poor and he took to the streets to make money. He was a drug dealer when he was only 12 years old.
50 lived a bad, violent life for many years, until the birth of his son made him change his ways. He realized that he should try to do something better. He decided to start making music. Unfortunately, some people from his past didn’t want him to be successful. In April of 2000, 50 was shot 9 times, including a bullet to the face, in front of his grandmother’s house in Queens.
He spent the next few months in recovery, but 50 didn’t give up. He kept making music as soon as he could speak. Soon after that, Eminem heard some of 50’s songs, and within a week Em was saying, “50 Cent is my favorite rapper right now.”
50 signed with Eminem and Dr. Dre’s record company and has become the most sought after newcomer in almost a decade. Not since the summer of ‘94, when the Notorious B.I.G. was very popular, has hip-hop seen a buzz like this.

 

Quizzes

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Lesson MP3

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