Mid-2000s pop-rap star Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson announced that he will author a young-adult novel with an anti-bullying message, to be released by Penguin Young Readers. The anti-bullying message of the planned work, which will be titled “Playground,” is surprising in light of Jackson’s career history. Not only has the rapper consistently mocked other artists, but he remains unrepentant for encouraging violence against gays in public messages to his fans.

Jackson has pushed his homophobia beyond the slurs he uses to refer to gays in his lyrics. Weeks after joking on Twitter about hiring a gunman to interrupt a gay wedding, Jackson responded to the rash of suicides by bullied gay youth last September with a Tweet encouraging gay men to kill themselves. “The world will be a better place,” he wrote.

 

“I ain’t into faggots,” he said during an interview with Playboy in 2004. “I don’t like gay people around me, because I’m not comfortable with what their thoughts are.”“Playground” marks an opportunity for the increasingly irrelevant Jackson to make good with the gay community. In a best-case scenario, he could use the novel and what’s left of his hip hop credibility to discourage homophobic bullying, in addition to all other kinds. But if the tone of “Playground” is anything like the tawdry, self-helpy drivel of labelmate Eminem’s film debut “8 Mile,” sincerity won’t run deep.