50 Cent talks Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo, Jay Z, Kanye West and more in his new self-help book, Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter. In an excerpt published by HipHop-N-More on Friday (May 8), the G-Unit leader shares why he believes Jay is “disappointed” in the Chicago native and opens up about his own disappointments.
For starters, Fif details Jay’s transition from Roc-A-Fella Records frontman to president of Def Jam. The “major commercial upgrade” aligned Jay with Def Jam’s “preexisting superstars,” Yeezy and Rihanna.
“Unlike when he was running Roc-A-Fella Records, Jay didn’t have to put in any work grooming them or investing money in their careers,” Fif reportedly writes. “Def Jam had already done that. It was like moving into a fully furnished home. And better still, after he stopped running Def Jam, Kanye and Rihanna still saw Jay as their boss. He got to take all that furniture with him when he moved out!”
As for the infamous Kanye West vs. 50 Cent rivalry, Fif claims that he came up with the idea and pitched it to West. The pretend beef was actually a marketing scheme for West’s Graduation and Fif’s Curtis, both of which dropped on the same day. In the end, Graduation sold just under a million copies in its debut week and Curtis moved 691,000 units.
“Today, selling 691,000 units your first week would be considered a massive success, but at the time the narrative was that Kanye had soundly defeated me. Of course he did beat me, but what the public couldn’t see was that I’d still earned a major victory.”
Interscope label head, Jimmy Iovine, didn’t care much about the sales battle but Jay was ecstatic that West won, Fif writes. “Jimmy Iovine might not have cared about beating Kanye, but Jay-Z, who was the head of Def Jam at the time, damn sure cared about beating me. Jay had been extremely uncomfortable with my run in NYC for years. So he did everything under the sun to make sure he could beat me through Kanye. Jay took a lot of pride in Kanye’s victory. I think that’s one of the reasons he’s so disappointed in Kanye today.”
Later in the book, 50 admits that the “unfulfilled potential” of Tony Yayo and Lloyd Banks remains one of his “biggest disappointments.”
Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter marks the first self-help guide from 50 Cent since his New York Times Best seller, The 50th Law. His latest book offers a “unique, cutting-edge lessons and hard-earned-advice.”
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