Did you know 50 Cent has his own YouTube channel? That he evidently runs himself? With help from a team of professionals, I am assuming, but apparently, Fiddy has picked up on what a useful tool YouTube can be by producing his own series on his personal page, including some that take a deeper dive into how Curtis Jackson became 50 Cent.
‘ThisIs50’, which started out as a 50-centred series where artists like Eminem and Pop Smoke recited their favourite Jackson verses, has expanded to allow any and all artists to pick whatever verse they want to pay tribute to. The origins of this spinoff can be traced back to when Jackson recalled his own favourite verse from Nas‘ ‘The Message’, the second track of his sophomore album It Was Written.
Does it matter that Jackson has to keep referring back to the lyric sheet that the has in front of him to remember what is allegedly his favourite verse of all time? Not really, because his love for his fellow Queens rapper comes through in the way Fiddy brings his signature easy flow to Nas’ more emphatic lines.
Jackson goes through the first half of the verse, ending on the lines “Lex with TV sets the minimum, ill sex adrenaline / Party with villains” which actually was inspired by another NYC MC, Jay-Z. “I saw Jay-Z driving a Lexus with the TVs in them,” Nas told Complex in 2016. “I got rid of my Lexus at that point and I was looking for the next best thing. It wasn’t a shot at Jay but it was just saying that’s the minimum you gotta have. It’s not a shot at him but he inspired that line. It wasn’t necessarily a shot at him but because the song was a shot at everybody, he fell into that. But he definitely inspired that line.”
The relationship between 50 Cent and Jay-Z is cordial at best and contemptuous at worst. It’s probably not accurate to say they have beef, but Jackson has emphatically insisted that he and Shawn Carter are not friends. Maybe that’s why he chose this verse from Nas, or why he ended it specifically where he did, instead of finishing the whole verse. That’s probably reading too much into it, but you never know.
Check out 50 Cent reciting ‘The Message’ down below.
‘The Message’ – Nas: Lyrics
Fake thug, no love, you get the slug, CB4 Gusto
Your luck low, I didn’t know ’til I was drunk though
You freak niggas played out, get fucked and ate out
Prostitute turned bitch, I got the gauge out
96 ways I made out, Montana way
The Good-F-E-L-L-A, verbal AK spray
Dipped attache, jumped out the Range, empty out the ashtray
A glass of ‘Ze make a man Cassius Clay
Red dot plots, murder schemes, thirty-two shotguns
Regulate with my dunn’s, 17 rocks gleam from one ring
They let me let y’all niggas know one thing
There’s one life, one love, so there can only be one King
The highlights of living, Vegas style roll dice in linen
Antera spinning on milleniums, twenty G bets I’m winning them
Threats I’m sending them, Lex with TV sets the minimum
Ill sex adrenaline
Party with villains, a case of Demi-Sec to chase the Henny
Wet any clique, with the semi TEC who want it?
Diamonds I flaunt it, chicken-heads flock I lace ’em
Fried broiled with basil, taste ’em, crack the legs
Way out of formation, it’s horizontal how I have ’em
Fucking me in the Benz wagon
Can it be Vanity from Last Dragon?
Grab your gun it’s on though
Shit is grimy, real niggas buck in broad daylight
With the broke MAC it won’t spray right
Don’t give a fuck who they hit, as long as the drama’s lit
Yo, overnight thugs, bug ’cause they ain’t promised shit
Hungry-ass hooligans stay on that piranha shitI peeped you frontin’, I was in the Jeep
Sunk in the seat, tinted with heat, beats bumpin’
Across the street you was wildin’
Talkin’ ’bout how you ran the Island in ’89
Layin’ up, playin’ the yard with crazy shine
I cocked a baby 9 that nigga grave be mine, clanked him
What was he thinking on my corner when it’s pay me time?
Dug ’em, you owe me cousin, something told me plug him
So dumb, felt my leg burn, then it got numb
Spun around and shot one, heard shots and dropped son
Caught a hot one, somebody take this biscuit ‘fore the cops come
Then they came asking me my name, what the fuck
I got stitched up and went through
Left the hospital that same night, what
Got my gat back, time to backtrack
I had the drop so how the fuck I get clapped?
Black was in the Jeep watching all these scenes speed by
It was a brown Datsun, and yo nobody in my hood got one
That clown nigga’s through, blazin’ at his crew daily
The ‘Bridge touched me up severely, hear me?
So when I rhyme it’s sincerely yours
Be lightin’ L’s sippin’ Coors, on all floors of project halls
Contemplatin’ war niggas I was cool with before
We used to score together, Uptown copping the raw
But uh, a thug changes, and love changes
And best friends become strangers, word upThug niggas, yo, to them thug niggas
Gettin’ it on in the world, you know?
To them niggas that’s locked down
Doin’ they thing, survivin’, ya know’m sayin’?
To my thorough niggas, New York and worldwide
Yo, to the Queensbridge Militia, yo
’96 shit, The Firm clique
Illmatic, nigga, It Was Written though
It’s been a long time comin’
Y’all fake niggas, tryna copy
Better come with the real though
Fake-ass niggas, yo
(They throw us slugs, we throwin’ them back, what)
Bring the shit, man, live, man
(Fuck that son, word up) ’96 shit