‘Flight 187’: The song 50 Cent wrote not to diss Jay-Z
Feuds sometimes deliver the best hip-hop tracks, and 50 Cent is no stranger to a faceoff, and his friendly rivalry with Jay-Z was a long-running one. The two New York titans were at the top of their game during the 2000s and exchanged various lyrical jabs. However, there was one track on Fifty’s 2009 project, Before I Self Destruct, that had many people preempting a lyrical war between the two icons.
The question “Was ‘Flight 187’ a diss track aimed at Jay-Z?” is still a topic of contention in the hip-hop community. With its aggressive lyrics, ambiguous references to an unnamed rapper and subtle barbs, many hip-hop enthusiasts insist that ‘Flight 187’ was a diss track directed at Hov.
On the track, Fifty raps, “Why’s Jay rocking that Urkel look, man, isn’t he from Marcy?” and continues, “They say he’s growin’ dreads, and now he’s talking like a Yardie”. Upon first listening to the song, it sounds as if the Queens artist is mocking Jay-Z for wearing spectacles and growing out his hair. However, in an interview shortly after the album’s release, Fifty insisted it was not about the Reasonable Doubt creator.
Speaking with MTV News, the ‘In Da Club’ rhymer detailed, “It was the glasses! They saw the glasses. I didn’t Photoshop glasses on him. I think Jay is really conscious of his actual moves. He does those things to make a statement in different ways to create clarity that he doesn’t have to be the way people want him to be. He can do what he wants. But [I wrote the song] out of the perspective of me mentioning things I thought were interesting.”
In fact, Fifty grew frustrated with everybody’s focus on Jay-Z, even though he had actually referenced a lot of people on the track, not always positively. Emphasising how he had put effort into making sure he wasn’t singling out any one individual, he told MTV News, “I even wrote, ‘Em made me a star, and Dre is taking a long time to mix my records. I gotta talk to Jimmy [Iovine] about it.’ I wrote about Britney Spears. I said a lot of interesting things on the record, but they focus on Jay because his album is releasing.”
However, Fifty did use the opportunity to take aim at Jay-Z in a backhanded manner and suggested that the attention on Jay was by-design as the Brooklyn native was about to release The Blueprint 3.
Elaborating on why everyone was deciding to obsess over Jay-Z, Fifty told MTV News, “Of course, with those marketing dollars being spent, he’s the focus,” Fif confirmed. “The new XXL, there’s about 40 pages of Jay-Z on there. That boy is serious when it comes to his [Blueprint 3 album] layout. When it comes time for him to have companies market and promote him as a brand, he does a great job.”
Hip-hop rhymes can often be misinterpreted, and many tracks include veiled messages aimed at certain individuals. Still, more often than not, they’re picked up by dedicated fans, but every now and then, songs such as ‘Flight 187’ can create hysteria based on very little.