I first met 50 Cent in the winter of 2006. He had been a fan of my book *The 48* *Laws of Power*, and he was interested in collaborating on a book project. In the meeting, we talked about war, terrorism, the music business. What struck me most was that we had a remarkably similar way of looking at the world, one that transcended the great differences in our backgrounds. For instance, in discussing the power games he was experiencing at that time in the music business, we both looked past people’s benign explanations for their behavior and tried to figure out what they were really up to. He developed this way of thinking on the dangerous streets of Southside Queens where it was a necessary life skill; I came to it by reading a lot of history and observing the crafty maneuvers of various people in Hollywood, where I worked for many years. The perspective, however, is the same.
We left the meeting that day with an open-ended idea about a future project. As I pondered the possible theme of this book over the following months, I became increasingly intrigued by the idea of bringing our two worlds together. What excites me about America is its social mobility, people continually rising from the bottom to the top and altering the culture in the process. On another level, however, we remain a nation that lives in social ghettos.
Celebrities generally congregate around other celebrities; academics and intellectuals are cloistered in their worlds; people like to associate with those of their kind. If we leave these narrow worlds, it is usually as an observer or tourist of another way of life. What seemed an interesting possibility here was to ignore our surface differences as much as possible and collaborate on the level of ideas— illuminating some truths about human nature that go beyond class or ethnicity. With an open mind and the idea of figuring out what this book could be, I hung out with Fifty throughout much of 2007. I was given almost complete access to his world. I followed him on numerous high-powered business meetings, sitting quietly in a corner and observing him in action. One day I witnessed a raucous fistfight in his office between two of his employees, with Fifty having to personally break it up. I observed a fake crisis that he manufactured for the press for publicity purposes. I followed him as he mingled with other stars, friends from the hood, European royalty, and political.
In the beginning, fear was a basic, simple emotion for the human animal. We confronted something overwhelming—the imminent threat of death in the form of wars, plagues, and natural disasters—and we felt fear. As for any animal, this emotion had a protective function—it allowed us to take notice of a danger and retreat in time. For us humans, it served an additional, positive purpose—we could remember the source of the threat and protect ourselves better the next time. Civilization depended on this ability to foresee and forestall dangers from the environment. Out of fear, we also developed religion and various belief systems to comfort us. Fear is the oldest and strongest emotion known to man, something deeply inscribed in our nervous system and subconscious.
Fear is not designed for such a purpose. Its function is to stimulate powerful physical responses, allowing an animal to retreat in time. After the event, it is supposed to go away. An animal that cannot let go of its fears once the threat is gone will find it hard to eat and sleep. We are the animal that cannot get rid of its fears and when so many of them lay inside of us, these fears tend to color how we view the world. We shift from feeling fear because of some threat, to having a fearful attitude towards life itself. We come to see almost every event in terms of risk. We exaggerate the dangers and our vulnerability. We instantly focus on the adversity that is always possible. We are generally unaware of this phenomenon because we accept it as normal. In times of prosperity, we have the luxury of fretting over things. But in times of trouble, this fearful attitude becomes particularly pernicious. Such moments are when we need to solve problems, deal with reality, and move forward, but fear is a call to retreat and retrench.
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