50 Cent has blamed negative press for the cancellation of his weekend free concert in his native New York, insisting stories about public safety at the event prompted the city's Mayor and state Governor to scrap the event.
The rapper poured his own time and money into the 40 Day event in the borough of Queens, which was scheduled for Sunday - and he's far from happy he had to cancel the concert and kids carnival at the last minute.
He says, "Mayor (Michael) Bloomberg and the Governor spoke about it... and spoke positively about the event, because of my motivation and what my intentions were. I went through the trouble of developing this... It’s been a nine-month period that I’ve been working on it.
"(But) it’s not interesting enough to promote positivity or to promote that someone’s actually attempting to give back to the community in that way. So they (media) promote the fact that I’ve been shot previously not far from where the location is, and they promote previous activity in that environment that has taken place to make it feel like something can happen... I think it slipped their mind that this is an event that was developed and based for kids."
But the scrapped show has not put 50 Cent off helping children in his borough: "I won’t let it discourage me from doing things in the community."
Tagged in 50 Cent