From Pieces to Weight is an autobiography by 50 Cent (aka Curtis James Jackson III). 50 (usually said as Fiddy) was born is 1975. He was born to a woman who was a smalltime drug dealer. Knowing she couldn't care for him very well, he practically lived with his grandparents his whole childhood. In this book young Curtis recalls the days when his mother would pick him up from his grandparents house and he would see her "hustlin'." He enjoyed going to his mom's house. She spoiled him with gifts all the time, which was really the only reason he liked going there. Fiddy remembered that he would sometimes go to his mom's house and see her with women (whom she seemed to take a better liking to than men). He knew that a lot of the things his mother did was wrong, but he still loved her. She was murdered when he was 8. The killer was never caught.

That was the beginning of Fiddy's struggle in life. He lived with over a dozen aunts and uncles at his grandparent's house. Most of them were crackheads. He saw the people they were buying from and he decided to get in the drug game. He went from pushing "purple tops" (pieces) to running the streets and selling crack by the kilo (weight). It wasn't all easy. He often had problems on the block. People trying to bully him because he was one of the youngest hustlers on the block. As a matter of fact he first sold crack rocks at around 12 years old.

As he grew older he became a bigger dealer. He soon caught cases against him and found his aunts and uncles stealing crack from him. One time he got sentenced to two years in a drug rehab program. The police had charged him for possession of crack. When he took a drug test they found crack in his blood stream. They figured he was on crack. Little did they know, he wasn't on crack it just got in his blood stream while cooking up the crack at his cousin's house. He thought it was best not to tell them that he wasn't smoking crack but selling it.

His time in rehab only made him more money hungry. He got out and caused more havoc. He made the right friends, and they began a good operation. Him and one cooked and sold the crack, and two other boys killed or just shot anyone who messed with them. He couldn't believe how easy it was for them to shoot someone. He later found out how easy it was when he shot someone while he was getting mugged.

He got a break in music when he met Jam Master Jay. He saw this as a chance to express himself. Jay say this as a young man with an excellent talent finding a way to get out of "the struggle" legit. He helped Fiddy get signed to Columbia Records. 50 was now a rapper but he continued hustlin'. When he was a little bit older he got shot nine times by a rival drug dealer (who was killed weeks later). While in the hospital Curtis found out he had been dropped from Columbia. He didn't know what to do, but he didn't have a hard decision to make when he was contacted by Dr. Dre and Eminem.