50 Cent On G-Unit Reunion: "Don't Ask Me To Go Do It For Them"

by JAY BALFOUR

50 Cent says G-Unit emcees don't have his phone number and divulges his early business relationship with Tony Yayo and Lloyd Banks.

Speaking with Philadelphia radio host Cosmic Kev on Power 99 for an extended interview, 50 Cent went into detail about his fallout with G-Unit, feeling like Lloyd Banks and Young Buck stopped listening to his advice years ago, and having no motivation to record another group album. During the interview 50 also addressed his confrontation with Steve Stoute and leaving Interscope to become an independent artist,

Early in the interview the rapper hinted that he’d rather have had his career take a more business-centered role.

“If I could have a successful project and not have to be the focus, I would have done that in the beginning,” he said. “I would have liked it if one of the artists that was with me was 50 Cent. I could have just done the business end for them, helped them and everything else. Out of the trio, in the very beginning. It allows me to have to multi-task. To be both of those things. When I put my full focus in the actual artist end of it I move the needle. I see things start to shift.”

Answering a question about their initial relationship as business partners and group artists, 50 explained how the G-Unit dynamic changed when the group began to see early success.

“In the very beginning they listened to everything I’d say. Then they wasn’t actually listening to what anyone else was saying ‘cause it was still like on the what the big homie say. No matter if they put it on the schedule or what it is, they going, ‘Yo, do it?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, it makes sense to go do it.’ Then they would do it. Sha Money had to be the manager ‘cause he was close enough to make the communication with me to make it still happen in enough time...When they have the moments—what happened is we had so much success so fast. The first project following my solo album was the G-Unit record that did 3 million records. Banks album came out and did 3 million...Then Buck come sell a million eight. Then [Yayo] gets out of jail, sells damn-near a million copies...Then Game in between that did 5 million. The momentum is happening so easy for them, they not going through that process where they grinding and shooting a video of themselves in studio. Rap performance video and everything they doing. It’s like it breaks off, because they have their own road manager, their own security people, their own people just to be around. It becomes each like a crew in their own. It gets interesting because when they go away the artist is the big homie. He’s the big one ‘cause he’s causing everyone else to be fed. Financially he’s generating the money in that circle. When I come around it’s an interesting shift because they go, ‘Oh, there go the big homie.’ It’s like you the big homie until I show up and now you’re not because I’m here. It gets a little uncomfortable that I’m here but if I’m not here the money not here.”

The Animal Ambition emcee went on to reference Kanye West as the type of successful protege he wanted to bring up.

“If I made Jimmy Iovine feel uncomfortable about how much success I was having maybe he’d turn my lights out. It bugs’em out ‘cause they’re competitive and I want you to be better. I want them to be the best as possible. I was looking to build that artist that you could lean on when they actually start acting funny with you. You see Jay do it with Kanye. That’s what he’s doing with Watch The Throne man. C’mon, he got one #1 record his entire career, it happens and then you wanna go and in eleven albums you wanna gamble without saying I could do it again right quick. Not at Kanye, look at what I’m saying. This is what I’m saying. If I have one #1 record in eleven albums. Good records, we listen to all those records and they’re official. Good entries in our culture. Are you in a hurry to compete with that #1 record? That’s all I’m asking. Or do we get a chance to do a concept record that won’t ever be questioned because it’s the two of us collaborating?”

50 Cent also nixed most any possibility of recording new music with G-Unit or Game while on-air with Cosmic Kev.

“I wouldn’t work with him,” he said of Game. “You can’t buy the song. I won’t work with him. The same question that you asking me, Jimmy Iovine asked me. I said, ‘Jimmy look, I’ll do the record with the game and after I die you’ll own the masters. And you could put the CD out. If I die, you could take the masters and let him rap and ya’ll could put the CD out.”

Moving onto the question of new G-Unit music, 50 said Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo could put together music and he'd consider rapping on the project if it came together. 

“No," he said when asked if they have a way to get into communication with him. "My New Year’s Resolution was not to waste my time talking to people who don’t have information. As far as Banks and Yayo concerned they have to get themselves together before—they do something together. If they went and wrote the records I’d rap on the records with them. I wouldn’t not. Now you talking about not making money. I would do it. You know that. I hustle enough in front of you that you to understand that I’m selfish enough to make the money. That would make them the money in process. They haven’t done it. Don’t ask me to go do it for them. They asking me to go make the record for them and bring it to them and say, ‘Could you rap on this because I’m gonna spend the all the money to market and promote it and make you have a career because I know you half retarded and you don’t understand that you should be actually working so I just want to do this for you.”