50 Cent Owes Career To Jam Master Jay

The In Da Club hitmaker is currently promoting his documentary The Life And Death Of Jam Master Jay, about the Run DMC star, which is one of the first projects produced by his new production company Cheetah Vision.

And the star - real name Curtis Jackson - maintains he wouldn't have been able to launch the new film venture if Jam Master Jay, who was shot to death in 2002, hadn't taught him his trade.

50 Cent initially struggled to land a record deal because album labels were intimidated by his past as a drug dealer - but Jay, real name Jason William Mizell, signed him to his own label and taught him to "count bars, write choruses (and about) song structure".

He tells the New York Daily News, "Jay was a mentor. He's the first person I went into the studio with (having) the intention of producing a song for an album, which was never released because Jay's touring schedule was so hectic he wasn't able to focus on it.

"After Jay, I went to Columbia Records, but that didn't work... Columbia Records was too scared to even talk to me.

"So I learned to market myself, like Jay had done. A lot of the major labels and companies were ignoring me because they were only looking at my street life.

"It makes me rub it in now. Right in their faces. I want to go into their offices and say, 'I remember you. Didn't they fire you yet?'"