With an online comedy show, a production company and his historic deal with Vitamin Water, 50 Cent is becoming the premier hip-hop mogul of his generation. And now the G-Unit chief has two new potentially lucrative business deals under his belt; his own BlackBerry application called Uber50 and the formation of a vitamin supplement company.
In a recent interview with billboard.com’s The Juice, 50 Cent’s manager Chris Lighty, founder and CEO of Violator and Brand Asset Group, shared details about how 50 Cent struck the deal with UberMedia to create the customized Twitter theme for their BlackBerry application, UberSocial.
“[The deal between 50 and UberMedia] was [struck] during the period that Uber got locked out of Twitter and got fined,” Lighty said. “[50] had to use a different app. He was one of [the users going crazy] and one of the more vocal [ones.] Uber saw that and contacted us.”
Lighty also discussed 50 Cent’s plans to break into the health food market with his vitamin supplement company.
“We’re working on a new supplement company,” he said. “We’re going to build new supplements cause it’s a big opportunity like Vitamin Water was. We want to market and promote it when we put out 50’s album. There are different options of penetration for supplements through music; like going to GNC [for] protein shakes, vitamins, [etc.]. No beverage. When you go to a vitamin shop, there’s no one of pop culture [representing], it’s mostly muscle heads. We’ll cut through the clutter with 50 in the store saying, ‘You want to be 10 percent of me, so take what I’m taking.’ ”
What do you think of 50 Cent’s new business deals? –nicholas robinson
