Words & Pic by Derek Beres

The 1985 “We Are the World” campaign successfully implanted the idea of feeding “starving Africans” into the American consciousness. Over the past quarter-century, feeding the peoples of the African continent has been a celebrity cause du jour, a GMO company’s marketing nightmare, and for a few non-profit organizations, a daily struggle. Hip-hop emcee 50 Cent recently became the latest icon to make a bold humanitarian declaration concerning this plight, tweeting that he’s going to feed one billion Africans over the next five years.

The initial revelation came to 50, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, after spending time in Morocco filming “Home of the Brave,” a 2006 Iraq-war themed movie starring Samuel Jackson. (Morocco’s burgeoning film industry specializes in desert locations for inspired Hollywood directors seeking lands that look Middle Eastern but aren’t actually in the Middle East.) Returning to headline the 2011 edition of Festival de Casablanca, Jackson found that he was perceived as something akin to a god—official estimates reported 100,000 attending his free outdoor performance. (Jackson himself tweeted 200,00.) Hundreds of signs stating “I Love 50 Cent” cluttered the throbbing sea of arms; one youth shouted, “50 Cent is my life!” as he jumped onto the hood of the rapper’s van when it tried to leave the festival grounds post-concert.

All this is to say that 50 Cent is possibly more popular in Africa than in his native country. On the flight home the following day, one member of Jackson’s entourage said that it was the second craziest show of his career. The first was a now-mythologized performance in Angola, in which Jackson’s chain was ripped off his neck in the middle of a song. There is little doubt that the music of 50 Cent feeds generations of fans in Africa. Can he turn that into ingestible sustenance?

A number of Jackson’s nearly five million Twitter followers ping-ponged his Africa tweet around the blogosphere, pasting the proclamation with thumbs up signs and “You go 50!” addendums. A few hours before his Casablanca gig, I asked him to be a bit more specific regarding the details. How would he go about funneling that type of money onto the continent? And what countries would he focus on? His reply was thoughtful, thought not exactly telling.

“All different territories,” he replied. “Obviously I’d have to have support in different areas to accomplish this over the next five years. Moving forward, I’ve developed what I call the SKs, or Street Kings, and I feel like I can be more of an inspiration and be more effective in different areas of my actual life, so I look forward to being able to impact and effect people in a strong way moving forward. And that would be one of my first steps towards actually accomplishing it. And when I develop anything, any project that I support, I’ll have created a way of a donating a portion of whatever I make towards feeding a billion people over the next five years.” He concluded by saying, “I did this on Twitter. To anyone who felt like it was a good idea, I asked them to retweet it.”

Re-reading this at home reminded me of listening to the Obama-Boehner-Reid-Cantor chess match—well, at this point, more like checkers—regarding the debt ceiling: big ideas with little implementation. A few years ago, while chatting with Ziggy Marley about the “Back to Africa” project that he was producing with his brothers, I ran into a similar issue. He kept throwing out popular bullet points, such as Africans needing more education and food. By the third time that I asked him what actual steps the Marleys were taking—building schools, writing curriculum, planting gardens—his voice raised two octaves. The last thing I wanted to do was piss off a Marley. Yet like politicians, artists need to be held accountable for their statements. His reply:

“If we could somehow use our resources, instead of people killing each other and selling it all over the black market, or the white market—let’s call it the white market—if we could stop doing that and actually have some control over what is in our ground, we could gain some more financial power in the world, and then start to better the educational system, the medicines, and the food supplies. There is no need for people to go hungry in Africa when there are all these financial resources. Let’s find one identity for the African continent, one passport for all the African people. Let’s start somewhere, it doesn’t have to be one great step. Let’s start simple. It don’t even have to be a big t’ing.”

No, but it has to be something. While his points are valid, he never answered my question. Visiting the Marley website, we find that the brothers did play a free show in Africa. There is also plenty of promotional material about the reality-based documentary regarding their travels, as well as marketing links for their Bob Marley-inspired coffee company and Snapple-like cold tea beverage.

I wish 50 Cent the best of luck in feeding one billion Africans, as long as we recognize the dangerous trap that that sentiment provokes, so brilliantly captured by Ghana-born rapper Blitz the Ambassador: “Africa has become synonymous with charity.” Jackson is one of the few American musicians with the clout and capital to pull something like this off. He just needs to understand that it will require many full-time jobs and a tremendously disciplined mindset for transitioning his idea into reality. Otherwise, it’s just one more tweet in the Twitterverse.