Game Calls Attacks On 50, G-Unit Self-Defense: 'I Felt Like It's Five Against One'
06.22.2005 1:21 PM EDT
MC lays into G-Unit, others in 15-minute mixtape dis track.
I feel they're beating down on me," Game, wearing a black T-shirt that said "G-Unot," calmly explained Tuesday night about his reignited beef with 50 Cent and crew. "I felt like it's five against one: Yayo, Young Buck, Lloyd Banks, 50 and Olivia against me. It all comes down to me having to secure the future of my family financially."
The Compton native — in New York to promote the November release of Hurricanes, his sneaker line — said that his tirade at Hot 97's Summer Jam (see "Game Ends 50 Cent Truce With Verbal Attacks At Summer Jam") and, most recently, his dis-filled freestyle on the mixtape Nu Jerzey Devil & DJ Skee Present: The Game - You Know What It Is Volume 3, are his effort to defend his livelihood against attacks from his former fellow crew members in G-Unit.
He said he refuses to let the G-Unit hurt his career like they did Ja Rule and Murder Inc. "I always use what happened to Murder Inc. [as] the foundation," he said. "All Murder Inc. did was sit back and let him [dismantle them]. Me, I can't do it."
In recent weeks, Game has verbally attacked 50 and G-Unit onstage, enlisted picketers and a man wearing a giant rat costume to make fun of 50 in the street, and now the streets are talking about "300 Bars and Runnin'," a 15-minute-plus dis freestyle on You Know What It Is Volume 3 where Game conveys toxic thoughts toward G-Unit and others over classic rap beats like Mobb Deep's "Shook Ones, Pt. 2," Jay-Z's "Takeover" and "Dead Presidents," and Kanye West's new banger "Diamonds From Sierra Leone."
"Very, very controversial record that is," Game said about his epic dis track. "Sometimes, man, 16 bars plus a eight-bar hook is just not enough to tell your story. You have to go into the hundreds with it. Not many people have even done a 100-bar freestyle. But you know me: I been down a 100-bar freestyle lane, I been through a 200-bar freestyle lane, and this is my last one, 300 bars. I been working on this the last three or four months."
As you might guess, with three songs' worth of rhymes tied into one track, Game vents his heart out. He throws some jabs at Memphis Bleek and the Young Guns about his previous verbal exchanges with them, and leaves no G-Unit member untouched. He jokes that Young Buck actually pulled out a butter knife at the Vibe Awards (see "Dr. Dre Attacked, Man Stabbed During Melee At Vibe Awards"), questions Olivia's sexual orientation, threatens DJ Whoo Kid, says Tony Yayo is "boring" and that Lloyd Banks "sounds like Oscar the Grouch with them nursery rhymes."
"They kicked me out of G-Unit/ I rebounded like Rodman," Game raps in one of his many lines. He later addresses the now-infamous press conference calling a truce between him and Fif (see "50 Cent And The Game Call A Truce"), whom he accuses of being jealous of him. "50 whispered in my ear like we still bonding/ I'm just acting like Charles Bronson."
Game said Tuesday that during the press conference, he felt his former collaborator was just there for the publicity. He specifically pointed out that he didn't feel sincerity when 50 whispered in his ear that they "should really squash the beef."
"My feelings were genuine in squashing the beef — not on behalf of 50 Cent, not for anybody outside of myself, my family, my fans, hip-hop and my endorsements," Game said. "I got to losing endorsements — people didn't want to sponsor me and Snoop's tour because they figured I was a threat. So I opted to do the peace conference against my own will, because I know right. 50 did it, but I think he did it with the intention of promoting his album."
Of course, after Game yelled for the entire G-Unit to "suck" the reproductive part of his anatomy at Summer Jam, another reconciliation seems very much in doubt. Game had doubts himself about venting in such a public forum, but said that once he got onstage, his heart took over.
"When you're anticipating doing that in another man's hometown, you think about the consequences," Game said. " 'Will Jimmy Iovine [head of Interscope, label home to Game, 50 and G-Unit] be mad at me? Will Dr. Dre be mad at me?' It wasn't so much about 50. 'Will the New York crowd let me do this? Will they boo me? Will Hot 97 cut my mic off?' I'm going through all that, and at the end of the day, I came to a decision to follow my heart. I started off doing my show, and I didn't feel right. I felt it was something I had to do, so I stopped performing and that's when the tongue-lashing came."
In the wake of Game publicly calling out the G-Unit at Summer Jam, he spearheaded a campaign against the crew across New York where picketers and a person dressed in a rat costume denouncing 50 popped up all over New York. On June 6, they were at the offices of Hot 97 while Tony Yayo was upstairs doing an interview, and on the following day, the rat and crew showed up in front of the offices of Violator Management, the company that manages 50.
"I came up with that," Game said about the campaign. "I'm gonna take the blame for that. It's just basically saying 50 is a rat. I can say it because I have information based on my theory and that's him dry snitching on me all the time."
"I can't tell him not to be a man," Game's manager, Jimmy "Henchman" Rosemond, said about the schism between his client and 50. "I can't tell a man to be a bitch. I can't do that. I don't know how to do that. When I met Game, he was a man."
Henchman and Game say that regardless of what the public perception may be, it wasn't the Hurricane who broke the truce. They say the G-Unit began taking potshots at Game in advance of Summer Jam, citing a radio interview where Tony Yayo told Whoo Kid that it was Game's own fault for being kicked out of G-Unit, and recent issues of XXL and FHM where 50 talked unfavorably about Game.
At press time, 50 Cent could not be reached for comment on the matter. His reps had no comment.
— Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Sway Calloway
