New 50 Cent Interview Addressing His Beefs
For the past half-decade, gangsta rap icon and international superstar 50 Cent has kept "beef" a steady part of the hip-hop diet by waging vitriolic -- but also cartoonishly entertaining, headline-grabbing -- wars of words with rap rivals.
50 Cent's place in the rap pantheon is also being debated on the cover of this month's Rolling Stone with the headline: "Showdown! 50 Cent vs. Kanye West / Who will be the king of hip-hop?"
At issue, West's third album, "Graduation," will be released on Sept. 11, the same day 50 Cent's third album, "Curtis," comes out, and the Queens, N.Y.-born rapper has vowed he will retire as a solo artist if West outsells him in its first sales week.
Brushing off questions about the challenge, 50 Cent instead took time to thoroughly diss the crop of rap stars he sees as pretenders to hip-hop's throne: Jay-Z, the Game, Lil Wayne, Nas -- and West.
And the tough-talking MC left little doubt about where he feels he stands in the pecking order. "In the music business, you're as relevant as the music you make," 50 Cent said. "I believe my consistency will break their necks, each one of them." Here's what he had to say during a recent interview:
Kanye West
Although 50 Cent claims to bear the Chicago-born West no personal animus and calls him a "talented producer," he says the proof of his commercial superiority will be in the proverbial pudding when fans hear the "Louis Vuitton Don's" new material.
"When the albums hit the streets -- and they're going to be on the streets before they hit retail -- that's when you're going to see the difference, the shift of energy for 50 Cent," he said. "Because the actual music on this record is going to dominate, generate more interest than Kanye's."
"I've heard Kanye's album. He has a good record with T-Pain. But that's all you can look forward to. He doesn't live up to expectation material-wise; it's going to hurt Kanye West."
Nas
Ridiculing the title and working premise of Nas' most recent album, "Hip Hop Is Dead," 50 Cent negatively assessed the venerable MC's densely narrative rapping and self-styled image as an "intelligent thug."
"Hip-hop ain't dead. That's just coming from an artist that's dead," 50 Cent said. "Hip-hop being what it was in his era -- the Tupac/Nas/Biggie/Jay-Z era -- is dead. Right now [rap fans] don't want to hear that nonsense."
He added with a laugh: "Those guys that flood their music with too much intellectual information don't sell. You could be so creative that you just got a smock and a French accent!"
The Game
Revisiting what is perhaps his most infamous "beef" with the Compton gangsta rapper and former member of his G-Unit collective the Game, 50 Cent again claimed credit for writing much of the material on the Game's multiplatinum-selling debut album, "The Documentary" -- an assertion the Game has repeatedly denied.
"So Game's 'Documentary' has six records that I wrote and three were his first three singles," 50 Cent said. "I had two records on Game's album in the top 10 and two records on my album ["The Massacre"] in the top 10 -- I'm the only hip-hop artist to be compared with the Beatles for having four songs in the top 10 at the same time."
"Bottom line: he's not even relevant now," 50 Cent said.
Jay-Z
Although it is clear 50 Cent views fellow former crack dealer turned rapper turned president of Island Def Jam Jay-Z as his strongest competition in the rapper-mogul department, 50 Cent feels Jay's policy of not responding to people dissing him is a major liability, contrasting it negatively with his own "let no diss go unpunished" hard line.
"Jay will look at the facts and say, 'They're not worthy of me saying anything to them,' " said 50 Cent, "when I'm willing to compete. A kid touches the stove and you say . . . 'Don't touch that!' Jay lets them go further and they just disrespect him more blatantly. It gets worse and worse; they feel there's no repercussions after a while. They say whatever they say and you will become accustomed to being disrespected."
Lil Wayne
The target of a diss track by 50 Cent earlier this summer, Lil Wayne has been touted in recent weeks as the most talented lyricist in rap today. Still, 50 Cent says the rapper's ubiquity on other artists' songs doesn't make up for his lack of stand-alone success.
"He hasn't actually had hit records," said 50 Cent. "He can bring a remix to life. Being featured on someone else's record, he sounds good. But where is his record? He doesn't have a hit of his own."
He continued: "If all I had to do was focus on one verse, I'd be on fire! There's a difference between good rappers and good songwriters."
Jimmy Iovine
Even 50 Cent's label chief, Interscope Records founder and music industry titan Jimmy Iovine, hasn't been spared the rapper's verbal lash. Upset with the way he feels Interscope has been marketing "Curtis" thus far, 50 Cent has at times run afoul of his boss by refusing to keep his feelings to himself.
"He gets angry with me because I say [expletive] Jimmy Iovine," said 50 Cent. "That's how I felt right then. He understands that I'm creative. But nobody else ever says anything like that to Jimmy! You don't say that period."
"Right now we ain't speaking," he added.
For the past half-decade, gangsta rap icon and international superstar 50 Cent has kept "beef" a steady part of the hip-hop diet by waging vitriolic -- but also cartoonishly entertaining, headline-grabbing -- wars of words with rap rivals.
50 Cent's place in the rap pantheon is also being debated on the cover of this month's Rolling Stone with the headline: "Showdown! 50 Cent vs. Kanye West / Who will be the king of hip-hop?"
At issue, West's third album, "Graduation," will be released on Sept. 11, the same day 50 Cent's third album, "Curtis," comes out, and the Queens, N.Y.-born rapper has vowed he will retire as a solo artist if West outsells him in its first sales week.
Brushing off questions about the challenge, 50 Cent instead took time to thoroughly diss the crop of rap stars he sees as pretenders to hip-hop's throne: Jay-Z, the Game, Lil Wayne, Nas -- and West.
And the tough-talking MC left little doubt about where he feels he stands in the pecking order. "In the music business, you're as relevant as the music you make," 50 Cent said. "I believe my consistency will break their necks, each one of them." Here's what he had to say during a recent interview:
Kanye West
Although 50 Cent claims to bear the Chicago-born West no personal animus and calls him a "talented producer," he says the proof of his commercial superiority will be in the proverbial pudding when fans hear the "Louis Vuitton Don's" new material.
"When the albums hit the streets -- and they're going to be on the streets before they hit retail -- that's when you're going to see the difference, the shift of energy for 50 Cent," he said. "Because the actual music on this record is going to dominate, generate more interest than Kanye's."
"I've heard Kanye's album. He has a good record with T-Pain. But that's all you can look forward to. He doesn't live up to expectation material-wise; it's going to hurt Kanye West."
Nas
Ridiculing the title and working premise of Nas' most recent album, "Hip Hop Is Dead," 50 Cent negatively assessed the venerable MC's densely narrative rapping and self-styled image as an "intelligent thug."
"Hip-hop ain't dead. That's just coming from an artist that's dead," 50 Cent said. "Hip-hop being what it was in his era -- the Tupac/Nas/Biggie/Jay-Z era -- is dead. Right now [rap fans] don't want to hear that nonsense."
He added with a laugh: "Those guys that flood their music with too much intellectual information don't sell. You could be so creative that you just got a smock and a French accent!"
The Game
Revisiting what is perhaps his most infamous "beef" with the Compton gangsta rapper and former member of his G-Unit collective the Game, 50 Cent again claimed credit for writing much of the material on the Game's multiplatinum-selling debut album, "The Documentary" -- an assertion the Game has repeatedly denied.
"So Game's 'Documentary' has six records that I wrote and three were his first three singles," 50 Cent said. "I had two records on Game's album in the top 10 and two records on my album ["The Massacre"] in the top 10 -- I'm the only hip-hop artist to be compared with the Beatles for having four songs in the top 10 at the same time."
"Bottom line: he's not even relevant now," 50 Cent said.
Jay-Z
Although it is clear 50 Cent views fellow former crack dealer turned rapper turned president of Island Def Jam Jay-Z as his strongest competition in the rapper-mogul department, 50 Cent feels Jay's policy of not responding to people dissing him is a major liability, contrasting it negatively with his own "let no diss go unpunished" hard line.
"Jay will look at the facts and say, 'They're not worthy of me saying anything to them,' " said 50 Cent, "when I'm willing to compete. A kid touches the stove and you say . . . 'Don't touch that!' Jay lets them go further and they just disrespect him more blatantly. It gets worse and worse; they feel there's no repercussions after a while. They say whatever they say and you will become accustomed to being disrespected."
Lil Wayne
The target of a diss track by 50 Cent earlier this summer, Lil Wayne has been touted in recent weeks as the most talented lyricist in rap today. Still, 50 Cent says the rapper's ubiquity on other artists' songs doesn't make up for his lack of stand-alone success.
"He hasn't actually had hit records," said 50 Cent. "He can bring a remix to life. Being featured on someone else's record, he sounds good. But where is his record? He doesn't have a hit of his own."
He continued: "If all I had to do was focus on one verse, I'd be on fire! There's a difference between good rappers and good songwriters."
Jimmy Iovine
Even 50 Cent's label chief, Interscope Records founder and music industry titan Jimmy Iovine, hasn't been spared the rapper's verbal lash. Upset with the way he feels Interscope has been marketing "Curtis" thus far, 50 Cent has at times run afoul of his boss by refusing to keep his feelings to himself.
"He gets angry with me because I say [expletive] Jimmy Iovine," said 50 Cent. "That's how I felt right then. He understands that I'm creative. But nobody else ever says anything like that to Jimmy! You don't say that period."
"Right now we ain't speaking," he added.
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