50 Cent has mirrored on his high-profile feud with Ja Rule, admitting he took issues too far by dragging others into the meat.
The Queens, New York natives turned embroiled in one among Hip Hop’s fiercest rivalries within the late ’90s and early ’00s after they traded blows each on wax and in actual life, stemming from a 1999 incident the place Ja was allegedly robbed of his chain at gunpoint by an affiliate of fifty.
50 turned so consumed with dismantling Ja Rule that he even went after those that labored with him — one thing Fats Joe realized after teaming up with the Homicide Inc. hitmaker on 2002’s “What’s Luv?” and 2004’s “New York” alongside Jadakiss.
After sparring lyrically on “Piggy Financial institution” and “My FoFo,” tensions between the G-Unit and Terror Squad leaders spilled over on the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards, the place they exchanged disses onstage and their respective crews nearly got here to blows backstage.
Reflecting on the meat nearly 20 years later, 50 Cent feels that he was “buggin’” for going to conflict with Fats Joe and anybody else who aligned themselves with Ja Rule.
“There’s a component, part of our tradition that I’m conscious of it as a result of I’m it,” he stated in a brand new interview with Rolling Stone. “Your Lil Durks, your NBA YoungBoys, the entire surrounding solid of that … it nearly splits our tradition in half as a result of if you cool with one, you’ll be able to’t work with the opposite.
“I used to be utilizing the identical pondering within the very starting of my profession as a result of it’s simply the pondering you’d use within the atmosphere. If anyone went subsequent to Ja Rule, I’d bounce on the one that featured with them, anyone who was faintly close to them, ’trigger I put him on life help and also you wanna go resuscitate him.
“In order that power, later you take a look at it and also you go, ‘I used to be buggin.’”
Fats Joe Says He As soon as Turned Down $10M To Combat 50 Cent
50 went on to reward Joey Crack for his loyalty to Ja Rule and Homicide Inc., describing him as the kind of pal everyone wants of their nook.
“Fats Joe, his points, I’d see him just a little uncomfortable with the success I used to be having, and I interpreted as, ‘He doesn’t like me,’ when he’s actually the type of man you need to be pals with as a result of he’s loyal to a default,” he added. “He’s so loyal for one document that [Murder Inc.] did with him that we turned enemies.”
Fats Joe additionally just lately revisited his feud with 50 Cent in his 2022 memoir The Ebook of Jose, revealing their aforementioned dust-up on the 2005 MTV VMAs value him a $20 million endorsement take care of Air Jordan.
“I used to be speculated to be the primary artist ever to collaborate with Jordan Model,” he wrote. “Me and Michael Jordan are precise pals. I met with him six instances going over designs for the Fats Joe Jordan … However after the VMAs, Mike deaded the deal.
“‘You understand I like you, Massive Joe, however you’re too scorching proper now,’ he informed me on a telephone name. ‘I needed to do it, however I’m not into all that rap beef. With all this controversy, we are able to’t do the sneaker anymore.’ That was it. I misplaced about $20 million by not getting that deal.”
He added: “I misplaced out on different endorsements too. Promoters positively didn’t e book me and 50 Cent on the identical exhibits. All people needed to hold us separated.”
50 and Joe later buried the hatchet on the 2012 BET Hip Hop Awards following the loss of life of their mutual pal, the influential music supervisor Chris Lighty.
“After I present as much as the BET Awards, we on level. We tremendous targeted. That’s the one manner I can clarify it legally,” Joe recalled of the truce on Talib Kweli’s Individuals’s Occasion podcast in 2021.
“They are saying rehearsal. I carry out ‘Lean Again’ after which 50 Cent comes out. He finally ends up proper by the place I’m at. And when the music stops, he places his arms out, and says ‘Peace for Chris Lighty.’ Chris Lighty needed peace.”
He added: “I believe we have now an obligation, a accountability to indicate these younger brothers that beefing over phrases may be squashed. “You may change into pals. It doesn’t need to end in us killing one another. The rap beef doesn’t have to show violent within the streets.”
