50 Cent credits the late Jam Master Jay with teaching him about song structure
50 Cent met Jam Master Jay in 1996. The late Jay had his own label (JMJ Records), where he would help develop and mold young talent. Among those talents, was Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson.
“I didn't have any song structure,” 50 spoke about in a 2014 interview with Vulture. “I didn't know how to count bars. I knew a chorus was supposed to be on a song, so I put that area where it was repetitive, but there wasn't a four-bar chorus or an eight-bar chorus that would have things that you would remember.”
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It was Jay's boot camp that would help groom 50 into the artist many have come to know today. Could you imagine songs like “P.I.M.P.,” “Many Men,” “Hate It Or Love It” having no direct song structure?
“It gave me the habit as a writer to up with more than one melody for the record,” 50 said. “So on “P.I.M.P.,” you'll hear the chorus area, and then you'll hear an area that feels like a bridge on the record, but that's out of the habit that I write two or three melodies on every song. It's like what Jay would say to me, “That's good, but if it is what we think it is, you need another one.”
