Fame is full of pitfalls, however, for Tony Yayo, the steady influence of 50 Cent helped to pave over some of these and helped him to “survive” the early days of his rap career in G-Unit.
With a string of young rappers tragically passing away in recent times, Yayo reflected on Pop Smoke’s death and claimed that the G-Unit crew were lucky to have 50 Cent keeping them on the straight and narrow and skirting dangerous situations.
Yayo told the Only Way Out Podcast: “There used to be 14 guns on the bus like Bobby Shmurda and them n—-s we used to be running around like that.” But he added: “You gotta kinda be smart, you have a n—a like Fif [50 Cent] around that help us survive a lot of shit.”
Yayo recalled: “He’ll be like, ‘Yo, if you gotta bring a gun, why the fuck you going? Just go party in my mansion I’m not even there. Just take over my mansion’.” Like a father figure, he’d also warn them against unprotected sex and getting people pregnant.
However, he also weighed in on why it seems harder for rappers to avoid controversies these days, commenting: “See that’s when you let a n—a get in your psyche, you’re weak, you can’t let a person get to you like that,” Yayo said.
Adding: “And don’t get me wrong they got me before, they’ll get you. But once you go through it it’s just like damn you can’t let these n—-s get to you. But you know the internet is undefeated.”
One thing that is for certain is a steady head goes a long way and hip hop clearly needs more figures like 50 Cent in the modern era.
