Beef

  We’re headed down a familiar road.

  Hip-hop and beef seem to go hand in hand.  And for the last couple of weeks, Hip-Hop fans have been caught up in the ongoing feud between The Game and 50 Cent.  Once friends and labelmates, their falling out has been in the works for several weeks.  According to the most reliable sources, their beef stems from disagreements over 50’s problems with other rappers, and The Game’s refusal to participate in it.

  And 50’s got beef with everyone.  Most recently, he has set his sights on Ja Rule, Fat Joe, Nas and Jadakiss.  In the last two months, he has taken shots at nearly all of hip-hop’s heavies, and his G-Unit crew—including The Game, Lloyd Banks and Young Buck—have been dragged along for the ride.  When The Game decided he wanted no part of it, he was deemed disloyal and was “excommunicated.”  

  All of it culminated a couple of weekends ago when 50 Cent was doing a radio interview at New York City’s Hot 97.  50 told the interviewer that The Game was out of G-Unit, and that he was on his own.  He continued lambasting The Game on the air, and moments later The Game showed up at the Hot 97 studios.  As he was being refused entrance to the studios, a dark-colored sedan pulled up and began shooting.  One member of The Game’s entourage was wounded, though not fatally.  Later that evening, shots were fired at the offices of Violator Management, the high-profile management firm that represents 50 Cent.

  Is this a dangerous trip down memory lane, to the highly publicized beefs that resulted in the deaths of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.?  Or is it nothing more than hype, manufactured in an effort to sell more copies of 50 Cent’s latest CD, “The Massacre,” which hit stores last Thursday?  Skeptics believe that the latter is more likely.

  After all, G-Unit is no stranger to such hype.  The crew’s success relies on its “hard” image.  It is cloaked in legend.  50 Cent was shot nine times and lived to rap about it.  The Game was a drug-dealer who was shot.  While hospitalized he had an epiphany, decided to clean up his life and learn to rap.  Months later he was signed by Dr. Dre, hip-hop’s legendary uberproducer.  At the Vibe Awards, Young Buck stabbed the man who punched Dr. Dre in the face.  Weeks after The Game’s first solo CD hit stores, and as it was the bestselling CD in the country, the Compton headquarters of his label was shot up.

  There is no question that this image, this lifestyle, and this hype sells CDs.  But at what cost?  I would be willing to bet money that we are headed toward another hip-hop assassination.  If this beef continues, one of its key figures will be killed.  And that, I suppose, will sell CDs too.

 -From Pulse
  March 10, 2005