50 Cent faced some growing pains when launching his series “Power.”

While speaking on the podcast “Earn Your Leisure,” he notes a time when there was a clear division between television and film production. When he was looking to introduce “Power,” he felt there was major pushback.

“Actors that were successful on TV, the film actors wouldn’t go near them, like they would stay away from it because they felt like it was a higher grade of quality, that they wanted to stay with more cachet with you being a movie star than you being a television star,” he recalled. “Now we’re producing premium projects that allow Forest Whitaker and “Godfather of Harlem.” You see Academy-Award-winning actors choosing television ’cause it builds a consistency, and they can pay out the money that keeps the talent happy with staying there, but you do need to know with ‘Power’ everybody told me no. I pitched that show to all of the networks, and they were like ‘No,’ and I wanted to make the project so bad.”

50 Cent even went the extra mile to create the theme music for the show, recording eight songs, he says. Ultimately, “Power” would make its way to cable television in 2014, after being approved by Chris Albrecht, the former Starz CEO.
50 Cent claims he was paid $17,000 to be the executive producer and play the character Kanan Stark. He also notes it took several seasons for the cast to be accepted by broader media.
“When I came back with the music and we pitched it and I was playing and I was talking to Chris Albrecht, because at the time with Chris I always recognize him because he’s an innovative thinker,” 50 Cent said. “He’s one of those guys that could see it. He gave me the green light on the project right, and I only was getting $17,000 to play a reoccurring character, the Kanan character, to be the executive producer, and d-mn near be the music supervisor for the project, and they wouldn’t accept the cast of ‘Power’ for three seasons.”
50 Cent recalls being called himself to promote the series on talk shows including “Good Morning America” because the cast wasn’t recognizable yet. Eventually his faith in the series was reflected in the numbers as it went on for six seasons and became one of the most watched series on cable television, Andscape mentions.
“If you look back at those interviews I didn’t want to answer those questions. I’m like ‘Why am I doing this, like they pay me more to go to the nightclub just to just go,'” he commented. “So, I just wanted to do it, and I kind of got them pregnant with the idea. You see what it turned into it — turned into four shows and in the universe, and it’s been No. 1 in African-American and Latino household for 10 years.”