There is nothing more tantalising to the world of hip hop than a bit of beef. Of course, this can too often go awry, when violence takes over the artistry and becomes the predominant factor in the disagreement, however, when it remains in the realm of rap, and doesn’t descend into bloodshed, then a little slice of beef is something we can all enjoy. That can certainly be said of the issues between The Game and 50 Cent.
Usually, such beefs are centred upon a simple misunderstanding, a show of disrespect or an indirect call out in a song, however, for The Game and 50 Cent things are a little more clean cut. Their issues started when 50 publicly cut The Game out of his rap group G-Unit back in 2005. Since then, countless diss tracks have been aimed at one another, making this one of the longest-running feuds in hip hop history.
The writing was on the wall quite early for these two rap stars. While Dr Dre had a helping hand n 50’s career, he also wanted to help out The Game ahead of his new album The Documentary so asked the New York rapper to include the West Coast native in his group, G-Unit. Naturally, this kind of strongarming put 50 and The Game on a collision course. The Game’s album would also see 50 Cent have to push back his own record The Massacre so that they wouldn’t occupy the same air space.
The disagreements threatened to boil over and saw 50 and Dre fall out. But the business was still to be done and when The Game was shooting his video for ‘Hate Or Love It’, a video that had been scheduled to feature megastar 50, things took another turn for the worse. 50 allegedly refused to sit next to The Game and instead took the backseat in the video’s car scene. Things got even worse when, on the radio in 2005, 50 publicly dismissed The Game from G-unit saying he was “gone” and that he should stop saying G-Unit in his songs, “He thinks he’s doing me a favour when he says that”.
Enraged, The Game went down to the radio station and tried to confront 50. Amid a scuffle of trying to gain access to the building, one of The Game’s associates was shot in the leg while 50 and his crew escaped via the back door. After such a brush with violence, the people behind each rapper tried to force a reconciliation, with both men releasing statements. “50 and I are proving that real situations and real problems can be solved with real talk,” Game stated. However, their proverbial handshake wouldn’t last long.
The Game’s street cred was brought into discussion and the rapper was then formally removed from G-Unit, sparking a run of diss tracks. ‘300 Bars and Runnin’ was the start of The Game’s G-Unot phase. 50 Cent responded by portraying The Game as a Mr Potato Head doll in the video for his song ‘Piggy Bank’.
The diss tracks seemed to signal a souring that The Game couldn’t handle. He attempted to hold out an olive branch for 50 and Jimmy Iovine: “Jimmy always says, ‘Man, I told you guys not to break up the Beatles'” Game said in an interview with MTV. “He says he told John Lennon the same thing a long time ago. But I was young, man. I was dumb. I did a lot of dumb things… Now, four albums in, I can honestly say from Banks to Buck to Dre to Yayo to whoever, if it would have kept going, endless paper. Millions of albums sold — because we were great together. Me and 50′s chemistry was like how Method Man was to Redman when they get in.”
However, it soon became clear that this spat wasn’t over and The Game continued to disrespect the group, with Tony Yayo dismissing any notion of a change of heart “one day The Game is sorry, and the next day its f**k G-Unit.” 50 clearly felt the same as he released a powerful diss track titled ‘So Disrespectful’ rapping: “Come on Game you will never be my equal… I’m what you’re never gonna be/ I’m in that tax bracket you never ‘gon see.”
The feud seemed to quieten down thereafter. The Game tried to reach out in 2010 via Twitter to get 50’s attention but to no use. Then the West Coast rapper attempted to reform G-Unit but to no avail. “Every time there was nothing going on Game said “F**k you, 50,” to generate some sort of new interest,” 50 explained to Power 106 “But now that doesn’t work anymore, So you gotta figure out a new way to do it and now it’s saying, ‘We’ll get G-Unit back together!'”
“What do you see when you look at this picture?” asked 50 in a now-deleted Instagram post in January 2016 when an image appeared of The Game and Lloyd Banks. “I see confusion, I’m not sure if it’s just me, I’m a Cancer sh*t don’t get old with me. I never ask for trouble but I really don’t have a problem with it I’m different. The question isn’t how I feel about it, but how dose (Lodi Mac) feel about it? Some sh*t is just better off left alone”.
However, the time has passed enough for The Game to no longer be concerned with fighting it out with 50 but turning his attention to Eminem instead. “I f**k with 50,” he said. “What happened, that sh*t was 12 years ago. Ni***s ain’t on that sh*t. Drink your motherf**kin’ Effen…Ain’t nobody on that old sh*t.”
