VH1 is going to be doing a genealogy related episode of their “Rock Docs” series, and it will be featuring rapper 50 Cent. I never would have guessed that VH1 would be interested in exploring anything related to genealogy, even for just one episode of a show. I also wouldn’t have guessed that 50 Cent would be the celebrity that the episode features.
The “Rock Docs” series is a documentary series that was created by VH1. It has high-end feature length documentaries. Each episode tells an untold story in the history of rock and roll, or in hip-hop music. The series includes never before seen footage, and uses an unconventional narrative approach. This is where to find some stories that you have not heard before about a particular artist, or in the history of a certain genre of music.
Not all of the episodes of “Rock Docs” include genealogy, or family history, but some of them do. This isn’t the VH1 version of “Who Do You Think You Are?” The was an episode featuring Darryl McDaniels of Run-DMC. In 2000, when he was thirty-five years old, he was gathering information so he could write his autobiography. This is when he learned that he was adopted. Part of the episode of “Rock Docs” shows Darryl McDaniels as he talks to experts, researches archives, and attempts to find information about his birth mother.
On May 23, 2011, there will be an episode of “Rock Docs” that will feature 50 Cent. The episode will be called “The Origin of Me”. Curtis Jackson, (AKA 50 Cent), is thirty-five years old. The episode will describe his personal history, describing his rough childhood, and the murder of his mother, which happened when he was 12 years old.
From there, the show will go farther back into his family history. Viewers will watch as he travels to Edgefield County, South Carolina, to visit with his living relatives, and also to confront people who are the descendants of slave owners. According to VH1, Edgefield was one of the most violent places in the South. They refer to it as “The epicenter of ‘Confederate Rage’”.
Image by Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the BPL on Flickr