50 Cent in Chile

As luck would have it I ended up at a 50 Cent press conference (no, I'm being serious here).

I'll admit I don't have any of his music in my iTunes, but you can't deny that he is a big name so it was interesting to be right in front of him. I was expecting someone a lot more aggresive, but in person he seemed pretty laid back and interested to be in Chile.

He's performing in Chile and Colombia, which he said were the two countries in Latin America he hasn't been to yet or had any of his albums go gold or platnum. There was a good show out of tabloid press, TVN, CQC, etc. The Chilean press seemed very fascinated with some of his eccentric requests. What I heard there (before his entry) was that he needed 20 black and 20 white towels....he asked for lots of mirrors in his room? He ate his chicken with no skin on it? It was a very strange voyage into the curiousities of the farandula focused media in Chile.

Then he talked. He doesn't really understand what they are saying in most reggaetone songs, but he understands the rythms. He came to Chile because he wants to say he has been everywhere. He writes his lyrics about the violence, the streets because expressing the experience through music is a peaceful way of dealing with it. That's the kind of statement I would say bullshit if I read it but hearing someone say it and mean it was something different. The guy next to him had an Obama hat on, which got a bit of attention as well, and 50 said he wanted a president white, black, just a president that is a good president, but the other guy was all about Obama.

I asked him if he liked Chilean girls. He said he hadn't seen any that would scare him away.

There were some other questions, there was a sort of hesitation but interest between the Chilean press and the three man group. Then Caiga Quien Caiga, which if you've ever seen the show you know how they are, gave him some gift and asked him for one in return (a T-shirt or something), but they were so serious. It was very weird of them to be like that, maybe I just didn't get the joke. That's happened before.