Born in Curtis Jackson, Queens, New York, 50 Cent began his music career in 2003 with his first album Get Rich or Die Tryin, which was a top-seller, its popularity boosted by the hit song “In Da Club” in addition to much support from numerous hip-hop superstars such as Eminem and Dr. Dre. Before his mainstream breakthrough he was reputable in clubs and on the streets, thanks to locally distributed tapes. Although it did not get national airplay, his Power of a Dollar (1999) was an underground hit, as was his earlier single "Thug Love." Since his debut in 2003, he has made his mark on the American hip-hop music scene, writing and performing music that originated from and inspired by his unfortunate and violent past, being raised on the streets of New York. He has released several hit CD’s since his debut, and is considered one of the greatest artists of the hip-hop music industry. His second album, The Massacre, was released on March 8, 2005. It eventually reached the number one on the U.S. Billboard that same year. The album sold 1.15 million copies in its first four days of release, according to the figures from Nielsen Sound Scan, making it the sixth fastest selling album since Sound Scan began tracking sales date in 1991. All in all, 4.85 million copies were sold just in 2005 and the album was nominated for Best Rap Album at the Grammy Award. The unbelievable success of his second album was indeed largely aided by the popularity of “Candy Shop,” a song produced by Scott Storch and featured by Olivia with its much sexual innuendo. The song was played repeatedly on many different radio stations, television and last but not least, in many clubs. T.W. Adorno, member of the Frankfurt School, was a famous German sociologist, philosopher, musicologist, and composer; though he is most renowned for being the first and most invigorating radical critics of the popular culture. Adorno in fact elaborated a critical methodology to analyze popular music in his essay “On Popular Music.” In this essay, he illustrates that there are two different spheres of music, one being “popular” and the other being “serious.” Comparing these two types of music, he reached to the definition of structure of popular music using elements such as standardization, imitation, pseudo-individualism, pre-digestion, plugging, repetition, glamour, baby talk and so on. He even goes as far as stating that “the listener can supply the “framework” automatically, since it is a mere musical automatism itself.”(Adorno, 19) Although his theories on popular music were advanced in the 1930’s and 1940’s, most of his arguments still seem to be legitimate to this date. Yet, there indeed are some elements in his theory that is no longer applicable for our society now has distinctive trends and issues being recognized by the public from those in the 1930’s and 40’s. Applying Adorno’s suppositions of popular music, plugging, repetition, glamour and standardization in particular, on 50cent’s “Candy Shop,” an extraordinarily popular song of this generation released in 2005, can depict how accurate Adorno was in portraying the characteristics of popular music. Music is one of the biggest parts of our lives perhaps because it is implemented constantly to us through radio, television and even internet, which Adorno describe as plugging. During this process of receiving music from media, the participant unconsciously is forced to follow the “popular” trend. Then, how is that “popular” trend set? Though many refuse to admit, the so-called popular music is predetermined by the big names in music industry such as prominent producers or influential Record labels such as Sony Music, Universal Music Group, EMI, BMG, and Warner Music Group. With their power, “the process of translation of the unique into the norm is already planned and, to a certain extent, achieved within the composition itself” (Adorno 22). The songs put on the radio stations and televisions are usually calculated beforehand by those who have necessary power. The public listening to these songs, since songs are on repetitively; soon grow to be keen on them resulting in the profit for these companies. 50cent, also, benefited enormously from this “plugging” system. “Candy Shop” was on radio all over the country on various radio stations not to mention his music video which was truly an eye candy. The success of “Candy Shop” was reasonable in that 50 cent and his manager actually found a record label called G-Unit Records through Interscope Records, having much influence on the music industry. Because his status in the industry, he was able to manipulate the public into “liking” his music by “plugging” “Candy Shop” into every possible source of media. The basis of “plugging” system lies in repetition. When a song is repeated abundantly on media, it becomes arduous not to be acquainted with that song. The more one is aware of a song, the more chance the song gets to become “popular.” Moreover, many people assume that when a song is played enough times on the radio, then it must be musically remarkable and successful. On the other hand, however, repetition could be also used within the song to emphasize the significance of repeated lyrics which improves the ability to remember it in the future. In “Candy Shop,” 50 cent and Olivia each repeats their chorus 4 times. Both their chorus lines start with “I’ll take you to the candy shop” and though some words are slightly different, the overall idea is very much the same making it uncomplicated for those who listen. On the whole, anybody who knows the language of English can pretty much sing along after just one hearing of the song. Repetition -whether it was repetition of the song itself or repetition within the song is, just as Adorno mentioned, a psychological tactic that guarantees the success of a song, which is determined by the amount of profit it brings. In spite of the manipulative plugging and repetition, there are more conditions that need to be met for a song to be popular. One of them that apply to this particular case is “glamour.” Glamour is, in Adorno’s words, something that is meant to distinguish a song from the others for “boredom has become so great that only the brightest colors[meaning embellishment to the song itself to glamorize it] have any chance of being lifted out of the general drabness.”(Adorno, 29) For “Candy Shop,” its glamorous music video with half-naked gorgeous girls dancing accomplished this task rather perfectly. Also, “glamour” could also mean to be used in “advertising as a business as well as with the commercialization of entertainment.”(Adorno, 28) 50cent cleverly used this mechanism in achieving the popularity of “Candy shop” and his successful career as a whole. He somehow cleverly brainwashed the public with his tough and dangerous image (after all, he survived from 9 gunshots, one of them hitting his chin then a fragment of it splashing into his tongue affecting his speaking style into being slow and ugly) and established coolness out of real gangsters from the streets. “This process therefore takes the focus of the creative object itself and puts it onto the artist, creating an environment in which the image of the artist becomes far more important than the songs that he or she produces.”(Miles, 122) In conclusion, 50cent flawlessly utilized glamour as a tool of his success. Despite all the evidences, shown in past paragraphs, demonstrating the possibility of Adorno’s definition of popular music still being valid, there are some blind spots he failed to foresee. He had a strong view that there was a set standard that manipulates the music to make it effortless for listeners to accept it. He defined this standardization with a few prerequisites of “the chorus to consist of thirty two bars, the range to be limited to one octave and one note, … [and the certain]; “characters” such as mother songs, home songs, nonsense or “novelty” songs, pseudo-nursery rhymes, laments for a lost girl…”(Adorno, 18) However, 50cents’ “Candy Shop” hardly satisfies these conditions; it’s a song focused on the topic of sexual activities and its structure is far from the standard form; only 16 bars make up the chorus and the range is not exactly in between less than one octave and one note. Public nowadays have grown smarter musically due to mass production of music that’s being supplied to them and are able to accept more wide range of music often outside of Adorno’s definition of standard popular songs. Nonetheless, Adorno’s theory of standardization is still applicable in that there are a certain standards that need to be met in order for a song to be popular yet his argued features for standardization is out-dated and inapplicable for songs today. Even though Adorno fell short on predicting the rules for standardization, other than that, his theory is impressive. 50cents’ “Candy Shop” also fulfills these requirements of a popular song such as plugging, repetition and glamour eventually resulted in sales of approximately 20 million copies of The Massacre, his 2nd album containing “Candy Shop,” worldwide and further he earned total of approximately 41 million dollars just in the year 2005. Producing “popular music” could bring promising financial benefit with Adorno’s theory applied and some fortunate miracle followed. However, no perfect theory in producing a popular song could ever be found because luck would be still required to succeed in an industry such as music industry.  Though Popular Culture intervenes with almost every aspect of our lives, its superficiality cannot be denied. For that reason, searching for the true definition of popular culture would be contradictory for there can’t be the right answer. While Adorno does come close in making valid arguments about what popular music truly is and how it should be defined, it is crucial to notice that he is addressing to the society that existed back in 1930’s and 40’s. Each generation and each society has its own definition of what popular culture is within its boundaries and the learning of incorporation between the generations and societies is essential for our future.

Jackson has engaged in feuds with other rappers including Ja Rule, Nas, Fat Joe, Jadakiss, Cam'ron, Puff Daddy, Rick Ross, and former G-Unit members The Game and Young Buck. He has also pursued an acting career, appearing in the semi-autobiographical film Get Rich or Die Tryin' in 2005, the Iraq War film Home of the Brave in 2006, and Righteous Kill in 2008. 50 Cent was ranked as the sixth best artist of the 2000s by Billboard magazine. The magazine also ranked him as the fourth top male artist and as the third top rapper behind Eminem and Nelly. Billboard magazine also ranked him as the sixth best and most successful Hot 100 Artist of the 2000s and as the number one rap artist of the 2000s.Billboard ranked his album Get Rich or Die Tryin' as the twelfth best album of the 2000s and his album The Massacre as the 37th best album of the 2000s. As of September 2011, 50 Cent is working on his yet-to-be-titled fifth studio album, which is set to be released in December 2011.