File this under Highly Unsubstantiated Rumor, but since it involves Apple, that's enough to get the blogosphere's collective tongues wagging. AppleInsider, along with a handful of music Web sites, are abuzz about a Forbes.com report that Steve Jobs is teaming up with rapper Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson to produce a line of budget PCs.

All the speculation is based on a couple of throwaway sentences in a profile of Jackson in the business magazine:

[50 Cent's manager, Chris Lighty, is] currently negotiating with Apple Computer chief Steve Jobs over a Fifty-branded line of low-cost computers. "He is setting a new standard in the music business," says Lighty. "Let's just say we get each other."

From that, we get a flurry of online activity, from tech blogs to Apple fans to the music community. Needless to say, this is about as likely as any of the other random Apple rumors we hear on a nearly daily basis. Still, say what you will about this highly unorthodox combo, it would make for a more interesting Apple press conference than the iPod Hi-Fi.

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