In the five days since Beanie Sigel attacked Jay-Z, his former Roc-a-Fella boss, pal, and sugar daddy, Hova has, for the most part, remained quietly above the fray. But 50 Cent hasn’t! Despite having no real connection at all to the drama, 50 altruistically came to Beanie’s defense yesterday during a joint radio interview on Philadelphia’s Power 99. Also — and this is probably completely unrelated — 50’s new album, Before I Self Destruct, is out next week.
For the uninitiated: Sigel, who has been out of Jay’s warm embrace since 2007’s The Solution, felt a few lines from Blueprint 3 (like “I heated up the Roc already, why can’t y’all get hot already?â€) were aimed at him and other Hov cronies who never succeeded commercially. He released the Jay dis track “What You Talkin Bout (I Ain’t Your Average Cat)†last Friday, and has been making the rounds on radio shows since, blaming Jay for his unrealized potential. If this sounds like the work of a largely irrelevant rapper playing the last card he has left… well, that’s ‘cause it mostly is.
Which is where the wonderfully shameless 50 comes in: He elbowed his way into the conversation yesterday, making dubious claims that Jay once blocked 50’s attempt to sign Beanie to G-Unit and criticizing the Roc-a-Fella “corporate model.†Remember 50 Cent’s sales feud with Kanye, his last blatant pre-album-release stunt? that comes off as near-masterful compared to his gauche maneuvering this time out.
As for Beanie vs. Jay, we don’t expect to hear a response on record, as Hov has wisely avoided low-level beef in recent years (he did touch on it briefly during a press conference over the weekend). But we’d really like one, if because it might inspire more mixed-metaphors from Beans — as he says at the end of the Power 99 interview, Jay “ain’t no walk in the park as an artist, don’t get me wrong. All I’m saying is, I don’t got to jog to keep up to him.†Right. Got it.
Audio: Beanie Sigel & Curtis on Power 99 [Nah Right]