The Other Stuff Unheard - II issue

...reporting the news as they very nearly were! (manifesto)

50 Cent pens a children’s book

Who is the literary genius then? The new wave of celebrity writers has now become quite an institution, with hard-on, full-on and not- yet -universally-recognised buffoon rapper 50 Cent publishing his first ever children’s title – The Diary of a Penitent Pussy.

The book has been widely lauded as the cutting-edge of literariness and his mastery of prose has been littered with frantic applause. The faithful citizens of Queens Borough, New York City, have all praised the book as ‘a subtle tour de force, depicting with egregious sophistication and a touch of sickeningly well wrought sensuality, the real life of a pussy whose love conquests rival even that of Felix that Cat or Tom from Tom & Jerry’. Queens Borough, New York City, is in fact that birthplace of the rapper-turned-writer.

‘I think it’s about the relationship between animals and stuff’, 50 Cent was available to comment. And indeed, it is hardly surprising that given his stylish videos and the plaudits they have received in recent years, the rapper (real name Curtis Jackson) should settle down and write about the life of animals – a natural progression from the subjects portrayed and themes explored in his music videos.

The New York Times has likewise rated the book among its top-ten reads of the summer, calling it ‘the most profound piece of lyrical writing since UB40’s great hit – Rat in Me Kitchen’.

Celebrities-turned-writers have certainly done well out of their literary endeavours, with the most recent example being ex-Spice Girls diva Geri Halliwell whose series of children’s novels, Ugenia Lavender, have all but outsold giants in children’s fiction such as Roald Dahl and Beatrix Potter. The same phenomenal success is likewise expected from 50’s evidently painstaking efforts to promote his new book, for in the UK, the sanguinary debacle between the two rivalling publishers, Penguin Books and Oxford World’s Classics, as to which one of those would have the privilege of owning the rights of 50 Cent’s work, is a hotly-debated topic the progress of which The Economist has since been closely following.

In response to the question as to what inspired him to write a children’s novel, the rapper faithfully adhered to his trademark humility and had only this to say:
‘It was an urge, you know, quite unexpected. It seemed the natural thing to do, in the end. But I ain’t answering those sort of questions anyway. I’m just in it for the benefit of the doubt. You know I thought, well if a cat has nine lives as they say, and I got shot nine times, then something there matches up, and that’s how I came up with the title.’

Talks are already underway of 50’s next album, which is rumoured to be titled - Get Rich or Die Broke in Your Publisher’s Car. We understand that it will be a concept album, describing the events surrounding the rapper’s rise and fall in the literary business.

The Diary of a Penitent Pussy has also been nominated for the Public Toilet Literature Prize 2008, and is now available in bookshops throughout the world... and beyond.