The $3.2 billion dollar buyout of the Beats By Dre brand by Apple was without a doubt a historic moment for hip-hop, and 50 Cent wants everyone to know that the seed of the record breaking deal was planted by him way back in 2003.
That’s right! The G-Unit head honcho says he is partly responsible for the deal that made Dr. Dre hip-hop’s first billionaire.
In a recent interview with XXL, 50 tells of how his product placement deal with Apple more than 10 years ago served as the bridge between Apple and Dr. Dre’s Beats business partner Jimmy Iovine:
We were selling sneakers and the idea was to sell speakers. Dre was going to follow and sell sneakers. G-Unit shoes made $80 million in that time frame. After he seen it, he was like, “You doing what selling sneakers?” I sat in a meeting with Jimmy [Iovine] and Steve Jobs. Was there for about 10 minutes and we were talking. I told them, “You think you could sell like that — an iPod, I can sell an iPod, are you kidding me?” [Jobs] looked at Jimmy, and Jimmy was like, “Strangely enough, the kid is telling the truth.” At the time, I’m the first person to do Apple product placement with the iPod inside a music video or anything that they spent money on at that point. That dude gave me $175,000 that went against recouping the budget for “P.I.M.P.” The remix, me and Snoop, you see me get up with the girls with the white hats, the iPod is there. That’s the first time they ever did that and they did it because I convinced them that I could sell an iPod. From there, Jimmy and Steve built a good relationship.
Is it just us or does it sound like 50 thinks he deserves for Dr. Dre to cut him a check?
