by 50 Cent
At a club in Manhattan, Fifty was talking with a friend from the neighborhood when he saw the rapper Ja Rule staring in his direction. Several weeks before, Fifty’s friend had robbed Ja Rule of some jewelry in broad daylight; Fifty expected Ja to come over and cause some trouble. Instead he looked away and decided to ignore them. This was rather shocking. Ja Rule was then one of the hottest rappers in the business; he had built his reputation on being a gangsta from Southside Queens, his lyrics reflecting his tough-guy image. He and his record label, Murder Inc., had allied themselves with Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff, former head of the Supreme Team, a gang that had dominated the New York drug business in the 1980s with its ruthless tactics. Supreme gave them street credibility, and Murder Inc. gave Supreme an entrée into the music business, something legitimate to distance himself from his dark past.
No real hustler or gangsta would ever ignore the man who had robbed him so brazenly. What this meant to Fifty was that Ja was fake, his lyrics and image all a show to make money. He was arrogant yet insecure. As he contemplated this, the idea for a masterful setup took shape in his mind, one that would draw attention and help catapult him past all of those who stood in his way.
In the weeks to come Fifty began releasing diss tracks that took aim at Ja Rule, painting him as a studio gangsta who rapped about things that he had never experienced. Ja must have been annoyed but he did not respond to Fifty’s taunts. He was clearly too big to concern himself with small fry. Fifty’s next move, however, could not be ignored. He released a song that detailed the activities of the most notorious gang leaders (including Supreme) in Southside Queens in the 1980s. As the song became popular on the streets, it brought Supreme the kind of attention he was trying to avoid, now that he was going legitimate. This made him angry and suspicious—what might Fifty do next? He pressured Ja Rule to go after and destroy this upstart before he went too far.
Ja was now forced into going after him. He tried whatever he could to shut Fifty up: he spread nasty rumors about Fifty’s past and attempted to block any record deals he might have; at one point, finding Fifty in the same recording studio he was at, Ja and his cohorts started a brawl. Ja wanted to intimidate Fifty with his muscle and reputation, but this only made Fifty increase the pace of diss tracks that he released. He wanted to push all of Ja’s buttons—make him angry and insecure, burning for revenge. He’d stay cool and strategic, while Ja would lose control. To this purpose, he called Ja a “wanksta,” a wannabe gangsta. He parodied his singing style, his lyrics, everything about his supposed tough-guy image. The songs were hard driving, biting, and humorous.
Slowly but surely, Ja became more and more furious as these songs made it to the radio and journalists peppered him with questions about Fifty. He had to prove his toughness, that he was no wanksta, so he released his own diss tracks. These songs were not witty, however, only violent and vicious. Without realizing it, he had become defensive and not very entertaining.
Fifty’s first record came out at about the same time as one of Ja’s, and its sales far eclipsed those of his rival’s. Now he was the star and Ja began to fade from the scene. Befitting his new role, Fifty stopped the attacks, almost out of pity for his former rival. Ja had served his purpose and it was better to leave him to oblivion.
The Fearless Approach
THE WAY I LEARNED IT, THE KID IN THE SCHOOL YARD WHO DOESN’T WANT TO FIGHT ALWAYS LEAVES WITH A BLACK EYE. IF YOU INDICATE YOU’LL DO ANYTHING TO AVOID TROUBLE, THAT’S WHEN YOU GET TROUBLE.
—50 Cent
Life involves constant battle and confrontation. This comes on two levels. On one level, we have desires and needs, our own interests that we wish to advance. In a highly competitive world, this means we must assert ourselves and even occasionally push people out of position to get our way. On the other level, there are always people who are more aggressive than we are. At some point they cross our path and try to block or harm us. On both levels, playing offense and defense, we have to manage people’s resistance and hostility. This has been the human drama since the beginning of history and no amount of progress will alter this dynamic. The only thing that has changed is how we handle these inevitable moments of friction in our lives.
In the past, people had a greater taste for battle. We can read signs of this in all kinds of social behavior. At the theater, for instance, it was common practice for nineteenth-century audiences in Europe and America to verbally express their disapproval of the actors or the play, yelling, hissing, or throwing things onto the stage. Fights would often break out in the theater over differences of opinion; it was not cause for concern but part of the appeal. In political campaigns, it was accepted as normal that partisans of various parties would confront each other in the streets over their divergent interests. Democracy was considered vibrant by allowing such public disagreements, a kind of safety valve for human aggression.
Now we tend to find the opposite. We are generally much more skittish when it comes to confrontation. We often take it personally if someone overtly disagrees with us or expresses an opinion contrary to our own. We are also more afraid of saying something that could possibly offend those around us, as if their egos were too fragile. The culture tends to elevate as its ideal a spirit of cooperation; being democratic and fair means getting along with others, fitting in, and not ruffling feathers. Conflict and friction are almost evil; we are encouraged to be deferential and agreeable. Nevertheless, the human animal retains its aggressive impulses and all that happens is that many people channel this energy into passive-aggressive behavior, which makes everything more complicated.
In such an atmosphere, we all pay a price. When it comes to the offensive side of power, in which we are required to take forceful and necessary action to advance our interests, we are often hesitant and uncertain. When dealing with the aggressors and passive aggressors around us we can be quite naive; we want to believe that people are basically peaceful and desire the same things as ourselves. We often learn too late that this is not the case. This inability to deal with what is inevitable in life is the cause of so many problems. We work to postpone or avoid conflicts, and when they reach a point where we can no longer play such a passive game, we lack the experience and the habit of meeting them head on.
The first step in overcoming this is to realize that the ability to deal with conflict is a function of inner strength versus fear, and that it has nothing to do with goodness or badness. When you feel weak and afraid, you have the sense that you cannot handle any kind of confrontation. You might fall apart or lose control or get hurt. Better to keep everything smooth and even. Your main goal then is to be liked, which becomes a kind of defensive shield. (So much of what passes for good and nice behavior is really a reflection of deep fears.)
What you want instead is to feel secure and strong from within. You are willing to occasionally displease people and you are comfortable in taking on those who stand against your interests. From such a position of strength, you are able to handle friction in an effective manner, being bad when it is appropriate.
This inner strength, however, does not come naturally. What is required is some experience. This means that in your daily life you must assert yourself more than usual—you take on an aggressor instead of avoiding him; you strategize and push for something you want instead of waiting for someone to give it to you. You will generally notice that your fears have exaggerated the consequences of this kind of behavior. You are sending signals to others that you have limits they cannot cross, that you have interests you are willing to defend or advance. You will find yourself getting rid of this constant anxiety about confronting people. You are no longer tied to this false niceness that wears on your nerves. The next battle will be easier. Your confidence in handling such moments of friction will grow with each encounter.
In the hood, people don’t have the luxury of worrying about whether people like them. Resources are limited; everyone is angling for power and trying to get what they can. It is a rough g
ame and there is no room for being naive or waiting for good things to happen. You learn to take what you need and feel no guilt about it. If you have dreams and ambitions, you know that to realize them you have to get active, make some noise, bruise a few people in your path. And you expect others to do the same to you. It is human nature, and instead of complaining you simply must get better at protecting yourself.
We all face a similar competitive dynamic—people all around us are struggling to advance their interests. But because our fights are more subtle and veiled, we tend to lose sight of the harsh aspects of the game. We are often too trusting—in others, in a future that will bring good things. We could use some of the toughness and realism that people who grow up in pressurized environments have. A simple line can be drawn—we all have ambitions and large goals for ourselves. We are either waiting for some perfect moment to realize them, or we are taking action in the present. This action requires some aggressive energy channeled in a smart manner and the willingness to displease a person or two who gets in our way. If we are waiting and settling for what we have, it is not because we are good and nice but because we are fearful. We need to get rid of the fear and guilt we might have for asserting ourselves. It serves no purpose except to keep us down.
The fearless types in history have often had to face a lot of hostility in their lives, and in doing so they invariably discover the critical role that one’s attitude plays in thwarting people’s aggression. Look at Richard Wright, the first bestselling African American writer in U.S. history. His father abandoned his mother shortly after Wright’s birth in 1908, and Wright knew only poverty and starvation as a child. His uncle, with whom they lived, was lynched by a white mob, and his family (Wright and his mother and brother) was forced to flee from Arkansas and wander across the South. When his mother fell ill and became an invalid, he was shunted from family to family, even spending time in an orphanage. The family members who took him in, themselves poor and frustrated, beat him incessantly. His classmates at school, sensing he was different (he liked to read books and was shy), taunted and ostracized him. At work, his white employers subjected him to endless indignities, such as beatings and dismissals from the job for no apparent reason.
These experiences created in him intricate layers of fear. But as he read more books about the wider world and thought more deeply, a different spirit rose inside of him—a need to rebel and not accept the status quo. When an uncle threatened to beat him over a triviality, he decided he had had enough. Although just a child, he clutched two razor blades in his hands and told the uncle he was prepared to go down fighting. He was never bothered by that uncle again. Seeing the power he had with such an attitude, he now made it something more calculated and under control. When conditions at work became impossible, he would leave the job—a sign of impertinence to the white employers, who spread word of this around town. He didn’t care if people thought he was different—he was proud of it. Feeling like he was going to be trapped in Jackson, Mississippi, for the rest of his life and yearning to escape to the North, he became a criminal for the first and last time in his life, stealing enough to pay his way out of town. He felt more than justified in doing this.
This spirit permeated his life to the very end. As a successful writer now living in Chicago, he felt that his novels were being misread by the white public—they invariably found a way to soften his message about racial prejudices, to see what they wanted to see in his work. He realized he had been holding back, tailoring his words to appeal to them. He had to rise again above this fear of pleasing others and write a book that could not be misread, that would be as bleak as the life he had known. This became Native Son, his most famous and successful novel.
What Wright had discovered was simple: when you submit in spirit to aggressors or to an unjust and impossible situation, you do not buy yourself any real peace. You encourage people to go further, to take more from you, to use you for their own purposes. They sense your lack of self-respect and they feel justified in mistreating you. When you are humble, you reap the wages of humility. You must develop the opposite—a fighting stance that comes from deep within and cannot be shaken. You force some respect.
This is how it is in life for everyone: people will take from you what they can. If they sense that you are the type of person who accepts and submits, they will push and push until they have established an exploitative relationship with you. Some will do this overtly; others are more slippery and passive aggressive. You must demonstrate to them that there are lines that cannot be crossed; they will pay a price for trying to push you around. This comes from your attitude—fearless and always prepared to fight. It radiates outward and can be read in your manner without you having to speak a word. By a paradoxical law of human nature, trying to please people less will make them more likely in the long run to respect and treat you better.
Keys to Fearlessness
[F]OR HOW WE LIVE IS SO FAR REMOVED FROM HOW WE OUGHT TO LIVE, THAT HE WHO ABANDONS WHAT IS DONE FOR WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE, WILL RATHER LEARN TO BRING ABOUT HIS OWN RUIN THAN HIS PRESERVATION. A MAN WHO WISHES TO MAKE A PROFESSION OF GOODNESS IN EVERYTHING MUST NECESSARILY COME TO GRIEF AMONG SO MANY WHO ARE NOT GOOD. THEREFORE IT IS NECESSARY FOR A PRINCE, WHO WISHES TO MAINTAIN HIMSELF, TO LEARN HOW NOT TO BE GOOD, AND TO USE THIS KNOWLEDGE AND NOT USE IT, ACCORDING TO THE NECESSITY OF THE CASE.
—Niccolò Machiavelli
When it comes to morality, almost all of us experience a split in our consciousness. On one hand, we understand the need to follow certain basic codes of behavior that have been in place for centuries. We try our best to live by them. On the other hand, we also sense that the world has become infinitely more competitive than anything our parents or grandparents have known. To get ahead in this world we must be willing to occasionally bend that moral code, to play with appearances, to hedge the truth and make ourselves look better, to manipulate a person or two to secure our position. The culture at large reflects this division. It emphasizes values of cooperation and decency, while titillating us constantly in the media with endless stories of those who have risen to the top by being bad and ruthless. We are both drawn to and repulsed by these stories.
This split creates an ambivalence and awkwardness in our actions. We are not very good at being either good or bad. When we do the manipulative acts that are necessary, it is with half a heart and some guilt. We are not sure how to operate in this way—when to play the more aggressive role, or how far to go.
The great sixteenth-century Florentine writer Niccolò Machiavelli noticed a similar phenomenon in his day, on a different level. Italy had splintered into several city-states that were constantly intriguing for power. It was a dangerous, complicated environment for a leader. In facing a rival state, a prince had to be extremely careful. He knew that these rivals would do anything to advance their interests, including cutting deals with others to isolate or destroy him. He had to be ready to attempt any kind of maneuver to protect his state. At the same time he was imbued with Christian values. He had to juggle two codes of behavior—one for private life and another for the game of power. This made for awkwardness. Nobody really defined the moral parameters for how to defend and advance his state. If he became too aggressive, he would look bad on the world stage and suffer for it. If he was too good and gentle, his state could be overrun by a rival, bringing misery for his citizenry.
For Machiavelli, the problem wasn’t a leader adjusting his morality to the circumstance—everyone does that. It was that he did not do it well. Too often he would be aggressive when he needed to be cunning, or vice versa. He would not recognize in time the once friendly state that was now plotting against him, and his response would be too desperate. When a venture succeeds, people tend to overlook some of the nasty tactics you were forced to use; when a venture fails, those same tactics become scrutinized and condemned.
A prince or leader must first and foremost be effective in his actions and to do so he must master the art of knowing when
and how to be bad. This requires some fearlessness and flexibility. When the situation calls for it, he must be the lion—aggressive and direct in protecting his state, or grabbing something to secure its interests. At other times, he has to be the fox—getting his way through crafty maneuvers that disguise his aggression. And often he must play the lamb—the meek, deferential, and good creature exalted in culture. He is bad in the right way, calibrated to the situation, and careful to make his actions look justified to the public, reserving his nastier tactics for behind the scenes. If he masters the art of being bad, he uses it sparingly and he creates more peace and power for his citizens than the awkward prince who tries to be too good.
This should be the model for us as well. We are all now princes competing with thousands of rival “states.” We have our aggressive impulses, our desires for power. These impulses are dangerous. If we act upon them unconsciously or awkwardly, we can create endless problems for ourselves. We must learn to recognize the situations that require assertive (yet controlled) actions, and which mode of attack (fox or lion) is suitable.
The following are the most common foes and scenarios that you will encounter in which some form of badness is required to defend or advance yourself.
AGGRESSORS
By 1935, there were some on the left in the United States who had grown discontented with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s reforms, known as the New Deal. They believed these reforms were not working fast enough. They decided to band together to form what would later be known as the Union Party, to galvanize this discontent. They were going to run against FDR in 1936, and the threat was very real that they would gain enough support to throw the election to the Republicans. Within this group was Huey Long, the great populist senator from Louisiana, and Father Charles Coughlin, the Catholic priest who had a popular radio program. Their ideas were vaguely socialistic and appealed to many who felt disenfranchised during the Great Depression. Their attacks on FDR began to have effect; his poll numbers went down. Feeling emboldened, they became even more aggressive and relentless in their campaign.