Death: Oct. 24, 1987
Original 50 Cent was a thug - and he's buried here
Sunday, June 04, 2006
By DAVID V. JOHNSON
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE
Watch Infamous Times - The Original 50 Cent Kelvin Martin Documentary in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Kelvin Martin was known as '50 Cent' because he was very short and would rob anyone, no matter how much money they had in their pocket. He was a very small guy at 5 foot 2 and 120 pounds however he made up for it with his talent at robbery, if he wanted something he would often just take it..
Friends estimate that, throughout his life, Martin had sustained at least 30 bullet wounds and murdered at least 45 people. Ultimately, gunshot wounds were his cause of death. He was shot on October 20, 1987 on the stairway of his girlfriend's project building, dying in Kings County Hospital four days later. Julio "Wemo" Acevedo was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to a minimum of eight years in prison for Martin's killing.
Visitors to Silver Mount Cemetery often wander to a conspicuous gravestone just off the service road on the left: A red Indian-granite marker, circular like a half-dollar coin, with fresh gold-chrome lettering that reads 50.
The sight puzzles passersby. Did the deceased idolize 50 Cent, the rap megastar Curtis Jackson from Jamaica, Queens?
The name and dates are engraved at the base: Kelvin Darnell Martin, July 24, 1964-Oct. 24, 1987. He couldn't have been a 50-Cent fan; Martin died 13 years before 50 Cent's first album. And if he was buried in 1987, why does he have a new gravestone?
As it turns out, Jackson is a fan of the deceased. Martin owned the moniker 50 Cent long before Jackson picked up a microphone. Martin was the original 50 Cent, an infamous thug from Fort Greene, Brooklyn, who terrorized the neighborhood during the height of the 1980s crack epidemic.
"He's a legend in the five boroughs," said Melvin Campbell, groundskeeper of the West Brighton cemetery, about Martin. "Any old-school guy who's from the streets knows who 50 Cent is."
Jackson took the nickname from Martin to pay homage and to gain the credibility necessary to spit his gangsta-rap lyrics.
How Martin came to be buried in Staten Island with a flashy new headstone and a cult following involves a complicated story of street violence, urban poverty and hip-hop notoriety.
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