Rapper 50 Cent loses to author Chinua Achebe
I love this story. Super tough rapper 50 Cent has just had his candy ass handed to him by 80-year-old Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe. It appears 50 Cent had not read Things Fall Apart, Achebe’s ground-breaking novel from 1958, or even knew of its existence, and he spent much of 2010 making a movie with the same title.
Achebe had a word in his shell-like (that means ear) and now the movie, about a football player diagnosed with cancer, has been renamed. This Guardian story says 50 Cent offered the author $1 million in order to use the title, Things Fall Apart, but Achebe said no.
Chinua Achebe is my hero for today. Imagine turning down $1 million?
I’d love to see more rapper versus author fights. Next up…Eminem versus Jonathan Franzen with an undercard of Ol’ Dirty Bastard from the Wu-Tang Clan versus Margaret Atwood. I’d pay to see James Frey against Snoop Dog because Snoop would blow him up although Frey would do a lot of trash talking.
I bet Yeats would have accepted that 1 mil.
but … ODB is dead!
WTF? Why does everyone wanna hate on 50?
Why would anyone who writes or love books like that?
This script was near and dear to 50′s heart..
He was trying to do the right thing by offering the man the money,
after he discovered the title issue.
Even out of the rap industry, you people are just too damn whack with the Curtis Jackson hate.. What the hell? You mad he made something out of the shitty life he was dealt?!
But not forgotten.
I’d have accepted $1 million.