50 Cent has a theory about why everyone suddenly treats Reasonable Doubt like scripture, and it has nothing to do with the music.
“Bro, the album showed up number 23 on the chart when it debuted,” he said. “It was not a fucking big deal then. Why is it a big deal now? It’s great marketing.”
The comments came during an Interview Magazine conversation with his Street Fighter castmate Andrew Schulz, published Friday (October 9).
The pair were talking about power and influence when Fif steered things toward Hov, starting with the rapper’s much discussed “Basquiat haircut.
“That’s how we see the person’s personality after they settle in,” 50 said. “After they’ve been there for a while, you see who they actually are. And if not, we see the gimmicks.
We see things like the Basquiat hair. When that comes, you go, ‘No, it was intentionally grown out for a Tiffany ad.'”
He didn’t stop there. Unprompted, 50 argued that strong ties with touring companies open doors other artists never see, and he brought Beyoncé into it.
“If you have a strong enough relationship with the tour companies, they’ll do a touring deal with you because they’re securing the tour deal with Beyoncé,” he said.
Then he went back to 2010, when Jay and Eminem teamed up for The Home & Home Tour, playing each other’s hometowns of New York and Detroit. “Him and Em[inem], they matched him up with the biggest rapper in the world like they’re the same,” 50 said.
“We do your hometown and then my hometown. That’s just to change perception and make him appear as big as Eminem.”
There’s a factual core to the chart jab. Reasonable Doubt didn’t light up sales on its 1996 release, and its reputation as a classic built slowly over the years that followed.
The counterpoint is obvious, though, plenty of albums now treated as essential started modestly, and fans would argue the record’s staying power is exactly why it earned a 30th birthday party.
And what a party it was. Roc Nation spent months marking 30 years of Reasonable Doubt and 25 years of The Blueprint under the JAŸ-Z30 banner, with subway ads, a Spotify takeover of the J and Z trains, custom transit maps and commemorative Brooklyn Public Library cards.
Pop-ups in Manhattan and Brooklyn drew lines of fans hunting exclusive merch. Target carried limited white vinyl plus anniversary CDs and cassettes, while the official store listed a roughly $1,500 collector’s crate holding 13 Jay-Z albums, a $300 cassette box and $400 Yankees jerseys from a joint run with the team.
An eight part HBO docuseries, three concerts at Yankee Stadium and several European shows rounded out the push. That scale is precisely what 50 is pointing at, and precisely what Jay’s camp would call a celebration a generation of listeners asked for.
So far, Jay hasn’t responded publicly. Given 50’s long history of trolling his peers, few would bet on this being the last word.
