Once a calm came over the Rotten Apple after the 2015 NBA All-Star Weekend left the city, VIBE swung by G-Unit’s listening session to lend an ear to their upcoming EP, The Beast Is G-Unit. Still riding the momentum of their potent project, The Beauty of Independence, the quartet’s vigor is still on a trillion on The Beast Is G-Unit.
Hosted in Manhattan’s bustling Engine Room studio, the crew seemed to be feeling like a true family again. How can we tell? Well, Young Buck, who recently dropped his Before The Beast mixtape, was in the studio bouncing to every track as if was onstage.
Lloyd Banks and newcomer Kid Kid walked the floor, holding court with hip-hop critics such as MTV’s Rob Markman and Rap Radar’s B.Dot, to name a few. However, 50 Cent is ducked off doing what bosses do — contemplating his next checkmate. And Tony Yayo, eyes low and hooded up, taking it all in in the midst of excited hip-hop heads.
After everyone rocked out to the Unit’s gangsta anthems, Buck, Fiddy, Banks, Yayo and Kid Kid took the floor to discuss what they learned about themselves while recording The Beast Is G-Unit.
50 Cent Reflects On The Moment:
“We want to do things that reflect where we’re at? That “I’m Grown” record, you know there’s reasons why you would relate to that, even if you’re in an one bedroom apartment. If it’s yours you going to hear that motherfucker and feel like this is my song, they made this shit for me and if you don’t like it you can get the fuck out.”
50 Cent On His Upcoming Album Being Pushed Back:
“These two EPs pushed my album back. I had to. We just did the Summer Jam and the momentum was there. If I would’ve released my album and went on tour as a solo artist, by the time I came back how excited would everyone be about G-Unit being back together? It wouldn’t be current.”
50 Cent On G-Unit’s Album:
“This is still not the G-Unit album. This is what happened the first two weeks we were together in the recording studio. So when we start to build material that I feel is ridiculously good, I’m putting them on the side and accumulating material that I feel like it will be a classic album from G-Unit. So it’s a process. It’s rare that you find that much production in one spot by one producer. Look at all those classic albums—It Was Written, Reasonable Doubt, Get Rich Or Die Trying, The Carter—and you’ll see that it’s various production and if you ask the artist, it was a big time period to accumulate the music and sequence it the way it was for it be considered a classic album. If you walk into a room you’ll hear the producer playing some really hot tracks, but only one of those belong on that classic. It’s a process sorting out what doesn’t go.”
50 Cent On What He Learned From Recording The Beast Is G-Unit:
“I learned that it’s cool to let everybody just do what they want to do. And then sequence it. So they know when we listening to the song in the recording studio and it’s a two-track, that it’s not the song yet. When we move it around, change it, sequence it and make the best record out of it. There’s songs that I wrote verses to that I just said, ‘take that verse out, we don’t need it and let the song end at 3:30 instead of 4:00 and another chorus playing.’ I didn’t need you to hear me so much because I’m getting ready to come with my album.”
“The coolest part about this is the differences of the process. Because now everyone is seasoned, they take the lead on different songs. Like, if you hear it, they had the lead on the records and then I kind of fell back because I didn’t want to push myself to the front of the record. So everyone had their actual moments on this project.”
Lloyd Banks On What He Learned From Recording The Beast Is G-Unit:
“I didn’t really learn anything, I kind of already knew what we all could bring to the table. It was just a feeling of what it was like in the beginning. It’s one thing to work in the studio, we all lab rats, but to get in there and get different direction from five different people is a whole ‘nother thing. So it’s something that we all look forward to.”
Kid Kid:
“I learned that you can’t put a limit on yourself. Can’t put a limit on your abilities. Coming into the group and recording with them, I knew that I was good, but really being on the track with them making me sound great. I’m going crazy on these things, y’all hear me?”
Tony Yayo:
“I learned that consistency is the key to everything. Don’t focus on one record. You can make a million records in one night. You just have to keep working.”
Buck:
“I learned to believe a little bit more in myself. Everything that y’all been hearing from Young Buck I haven’t wrote. I haven’t picked up a pen and a pad at all. So I just learned to trust myself a little bit more and go in that booth and do what I want to do if it feels right.”
50 Cent On Young Buck:
“He grew up a lot. Buck is real impulsive. So he going to do what he’s going to do anyway. Now I see him going, ‘Am I supposed to do that.?’ I see him stopping himself before he do it.”
50 Cent On Kid Kid:
“Kid Kid is the hardest worker outside of Buck. He wants it like he never had it. This is his very first run where people are acknowledging his music. But he got backlash from me. What happens when they see an artist in front of thirty-thousand people consistently, cause I’m traveling internationally, and they’re like, ‘Who’s that? oh, that’s Kid Kid, he with G-Unit’ So, you feel like you already made it cause you on that stage verses you being in the night club with Yo Gotti on tour or woith another artist. So you on the big stage and they’re like you already made it.”
50 Cent On Intelligence:
“You got some of the smartest guys out here that are underestimated a lot because they don’t follow the dress code. Then you got some people who gauge a person’s level of intelligence based on whether they have an associates, bachelors or masters degree. But those people who were A students in those classes could easily be pointed out as people who are conditioned for the school system and comfortably functioning in that position and pertaining information long enough to pass midterms but not necessarily using or internalizing the things that they’re actually learning. That’s why they don’t go as far as you expect them to go in their fields.”
The Beast is G-Unit drops on March 3. You can stream The Beauty of Independence below.