50 Cent has been through so much beef, you could probably dedicate a book to the fights he has picked. Throughout his career, he has never been shy to give his honest opinion about fellow rappers. He has mastered the art of the diss song and pretty much wears the crown for being the king at feuding. His moves to out battle his rivals have been smart, conniving and sometimes just plain deep.
Fif can easily be dismissed as someone who just loves to argue, but his history of beef plays a role in his success too. His constant beefing has meant that he has always been in media, keeping us all attached to the next moves in his feuds. At the same time, it's hard to call his battles "publicity stunts" especially when physical scuffles have been involved. 50 Cent is just someone who loves to speak his mind.
A lot of these feuds have now died down. But it's hard to say the rapper's knack for quarrelling is over as his arguing with Floyd Mayweather continues.
Take a look at the history of the King of Beef, 50 Cent!
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Ja Rule
Ja Rule claimed that the beef between him and 50 Cent started back when he and his Murder Inc crew were making a video and ran into Fiddy. They didn’t exchange many words but rivalling each other for their neighborhood support would later come to a head.
In 2000, Murder Inc members and 50 Cent were both present at The Hit Factory on West 54th Street, when Fif was beaten and stabbed by Murder Inc member Black Child causing him a wound needing three stitches. Both indirectly and directly, 50 took shots at Murder Inc in tracks such as “Life’s On The Line” and “How To Rob”.
In recent years, the Ja and 50 have put their beef to bed even boarding the same flight in 2013 without any problems.
Buck may be happily sitting in G-Unit now, but things weren’t always this pleasant for him.
It was in 2002 that 50 Cent snapped up Young Buck and signed him to G-Unit Records under Interscope. While things were falling out between The Game and 50 Cent, problems were also occurring with Young Buck. A phone conversation was taped and released by 50 where Buck was heard crying, and asking him for help. It was rumored that Fif had lent the member money to pay taxes that he hadn’t paid back. There were also claims of Buck wanting to concentrate on his own career as well as contractual issues. He also released a number of diss tracks whilst still contractually being in G-Unit. All this meant he was thrown out of the group in 2008.
At the moment, things seem a little less turbulent as the group reformed this year.
Game
The beef between Game and 50 was pretty major. When Dr. Dre discovered the talent of Game, he put him together with Fiddy and G-Unit. The Game went onto successfully make a number of hits with 50 Cent.
50 picked more than a bone with Game when he felt that he was not showing a solid allegiance with him against his rivals Fat Joe and Ja Rule. The “In Da Club” rapper felt he hadn’t been given enough credit for his role in the success of Game’s debut album The Documentary. Things got pretty nasty when a member of Game’s entourage was shot outside Hot 97’s premises.
Game hit back with his "G-Unot" campaign and also dealt a big diss to 50 and G-Unit in his “300 Bars and Runnin’” track. It continued to go back and forth with diss songs, diss pics including tracks such as “Stop Snitchin’, Stop Lyin’".
There were some attempts towards reconciliation but largely these failed. Last year, Game told Larry King in an interview that he hadn’t seen Fif in 8 years and admitted he had done some “dumb things”, but quite recently, it was clear that there isn’t much water under the bridge when 50 decided to call The Game “bipolar”.
Diddy
Fif chose to attack Diddy in a track he leaked back in 2007 called “Hip Hop”. In his anger surrounding a contract dispute with bringing Mase over to his side, he spat some cutting bars about Diddy’s knowledge of the death of The Notorious B.I.G.:
“Who shot Biggie Smalls?/We don't get em/They gonna kill us all/Man Puffy know who hit that nigga/Man that nigga soft/He scared them boys from the Westside’ll break him off/Dump on his ass/So he run to Harlem shake em off”
Any efforts of reconciliation have been negated as 50 Cent put in several jibes, such as claiming Diddy’s music sucked in 2010. Earlier this year in April, 50 also ran down Puffy’s single, “Big Homie” calling it “garbage”:
“Puff’s still out there. He don’t even need a record. ‘Cause he don’t got one. Like, you know Puffy ain’t got no music that you wanna hear…“That ‘Big Homie’ shit is garbage. I’m gonna keep it all the way real with you.” (Baltimore 92 Q Jams)
Of course, this year 50 Cent also claimed that Diddy was gay through his Instagram.
Fat Joe
50 Cent took a disliking to Fat Joe when he decided to collaborate with another arch nemesis of his, Ja Rule on the Murder Inc rapper’s track “New York” back in 2004.
The Queens rapper took a swipe at many rappers including Fat Joe, in his track "Piggy Bank":
“Got a 100 guns, a 100 clips, why I don't hear no shots?/That fat nigga thought "Lean Back" was "In Da Club"/My shit sold 11 mill', his shit was a dud”
Fat Joe hit back at 50 Cent on his track “My Fofo”, a song completely dedicated to dissing Fiddy in every way possible.
“End up with your head popped off thanks to Curtis/But he don't care, he stay locked up in the house an' shit/Steroid up, and he won't come about that bitch/Is it me or "Candy Shop" sound like "Magic Stick?"
In 2005, the feud was also very apparent at the MTV VMAs with Fat Joe referring to G-Unit as his "police protection", whilst the two taunted each other throughout the night. But the hatred between the two went on for years, as the they took shots at each other in interviews. There was also the time when 50 Cent recorded a song called “Fat Joe’s Funeral” and later took digs at the poor album sales of The Darkside.
The beef eventually got squashed when music industry executive Chris Lighty died in 2012, someone who was very near to both the rappers and had urged the two to quit their quarrelling. Both 50 Cent and Fat Joe performed together at the BET Hip Hop Awards in 2012 and shook hands.
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey
The rapper’s feuds have not only been limited to his fellow peers. In 2006, 50 Cent declared his dislike for Oprah Winfrey, when he complained about the demographic she was appealing to with her show. He told the Associated Press, “I think she caters to older white women. Oprah’s audience is my audience’s parents…So, I could care less about Oprah or her".
Fif also felt that the culture he represented in hip hop was disapproved of by Oprah and was consequently happier of making an enemy out of her.
In the 2012, the animosity between the two was finally dealt with when 50 Cent was invited on to her "Next Chapter" show to be interviewed by the lady herself. He explained a few things, including that he felt so strongly about it at the time, that he had named his dog Oprah! 50 also revealed why he had chosen to make an enemy out of her:
“I would see moments when you would discuss your feelings on the culture and everything that was wrong with the culture was what was on my CD, and I was like, ‘Oh, she doesn’t like me’. “I was saying, ‘If I can’t be your friend, at least let me be your enemy, so I co-exist.”
Lil Wayne
The reasons why this feud got started are not completely clear. But as we all have gathered, the past has shown that it doesn’t take much to upset 50! The rapper did not exactly have many nice things to say about Lil Wayne whilst he was rising to success. When Fif was asked why Weezy was so in-demand with featuring on the tracks of other artists, he told Funkmaster Flex this in 2007:
“A whore sleeps with whoever will pay ‘em. So we gotta call him a whore,” 50 said. “If he’ll just go with whoever pay him to be on their records.”
He then further laid into Weezy with the track “Part Time Lover”, implying there were sexual acts going on between Birdman and Wayne!
“You make me wanna kiss you like Baby kiss Wayne/And make you call me daddy like Baby do Wayne/Damn that shit sounds gay, its insane/I guess that's the price the lil nigga pays for fame
Always relentless, 50 Cent continued to keep up the shots at Wayne with “Play This On The Radio” after Wayne dissed 50 in his track “Louisianimal”:
“All about a dollar, fuck two quarters/Bitch I'll pour syrup in that Vitamin Water/I hope you die ugly and tonight'll be gorgeous/Feed me your organs, bitch I'm starving”
Publicly in interviews, Wayne often had little to say about the feud and would avoid answering questions on it. In 2010, near the end of the video for “Money On My Mind”, Weezy could be seen picking up a copy of Fiddy’s book “From Pieces to Weight” and looking at the camera and laughing. 50 Cent also threw shots at Wayne for his love for skateboarding suggesting is he was, “Acting like a white boy bored”, and had an “alternative life”.
Years later, the beef between the two died down. This year, Wayne even brought out 50 and G-Unit to perform on the Drake vs. Lil Wayne tour on their Hartford date.
Kanye West
Rolling Stone magazine dubbed this rivalry the “Clash of Rap Titans". Back in 2007, Yeezy and 50 Cent went head to head with their respective album releases, Graduation and Curtis. 50 was so confident about the success of the record, that he was willing to put his career on the line.
"Let's raise the stakes…If Kanye West sells more records than 50 Cent on September 11, I'll no longer write music. I'll write music and work with my other artists, but I won't put out anymore solo albums. (SOHH.com)
The result as we all know was that West completely obliterated Fiddy in album sales as Yeezy moved 957,000 units in the first six days of releasing Graduation whilst the New York rapper sold 691,000 in his first week. Of course, 50’s promise to essentially take a back seat in the rap game never really materialized. The two claimed that there was no real love-lost between the rappers, but this was more of a stunt.
Cam'ron
Although Killer Cam and 50 Cent ended their beef in early 2011, three years prior to this, all was not well between the two.
Their feud started in 2007 when 50 Cent was on Angie Martinez’s radio show and claimed that Koch Records was a “graveyard”. Cam called into the show to attack his comments. Following there were a few diss records from each party. But in the end, you can say that the two (kinda) made peace when Cam’ron called it their “little hip hop beef” and said he had no issue with the New York rapper, “I don’t have no problem with 50”.
French Montana
Prior to his 2012 interview with Complex, everything seemed straight between Fiddy and French. However, Montana's comments over how he felt that getting into feuds was not a good look if you were trying to make money, got him into a little trouble.
"You should avoid beef if you trying to make money. People get scared when you try to beef with people," French told Complex. "In general, nobody want to stand next to you if somebody about to shoot you, unless you have a a big lick. They do that with 50 because 50 was the bank. They knew he was going to win. People ain't doing that [anymore]…I feel like beef hurt him. I feel like it helped Ross unite people. That's why Maybach Music is one of the biggest labels. It just makes sense"
When 50 Cent found out about the Coke Boy’s words, he took to one of his favorite mediums, Twitter, to let him know how he felt:
“French Montana you ain't Shit boy”
“You out your league talking about me you hoe. i read your little interview what the fuck is you high”
The outburst went on and on, to which French responded with a tweet back.
"@50cent damn homie last year u was da mannnnn homieeeeeee wat da fuuuckkk happen to uuuuuu"
This minor argument was squashed a year later when French put it to rest in his interview with Shade 45:
"Yeah, everything's straight,…we been making music, making music. Yeah, it's good for hip-hop. I mean, at the end of the day, [Rick] Ross my brother. So I'm not going to play both sides of the fence, but you know where I stand at. So I'm not really, you know, we ain't have no problem, we ain't got no real beef, but you know where I stand at. You know what I'm saying? So let's just keep it like that”
Floyd "Money" Mayweather
Floyd "Money" Mayweather
Believe it or not, once upon a time, Floyd “Money” Mayweather and 50 Cent use to be friends. The trouble started back in July 2012 when they decided to mix their friendship with business by launching TMT The Money Team Promotions. The venture was designed to give greater control to fighters in boxing and create fight cards that would draw in younger fans. Mayweather served time in prison for misdemeanor domestic battery whilst Fif discovered that TMT did not have a promoter’s license, and had also not signed any boxers. He put the graft, spending $2million on a license and signing four new young fighters.
Mayweather was later released from prison, but unwilling to put up half the money that 50 Cent had put in, completely shooting down his hard work. Instead, 50 claimed that Money continued to spend hundreds and thousands on gold chains, and a new Lamborghini. The partnership fell to pieces leaving Fif to fend for himself in the boxing world. The feud unraveled in a very public way. The two had much to say about each other in interviews, as well as through their much publicized remarks on Twitter.
Since then, the feuding has been constant between the two stars. You may remember that 50 went in on Floyd when he started dating a chick called Princess, outing him for the fact that she was also dating Ray J and apparently stole a lot of shiny goodies from the boxer. Let’s not forget that this summer, the rapper took jabs at him when he put up photos on Instagram claiming that rapper Nelly took one of his ladies. Of course more recently, 50 Cent publicly made fun of Floyd when he had trouble reading an ad and challenged him to read out one page of a Harry Potter book. The rapper has even been very willing to get in the ring with the boxer who has been seen out with Fif’s son.