S. Samuel
G-Unit rapper 50 Cent recently offered his take on the state of New York hip-hop and how most rap crews cannot strive without a strong leader to guide them.
50 used Lil Wayne’s Young Money and Wiz Khalifa’s Taylor Gang as prime examples of current rap crews with strong frontmen.
“I think it’s good, I think we’re in a good state now,” Fif said when asked for his take on the current status of New York hip-hop. “I just think a lot of the artists are hovering under the older crews that worked already when they should be creating their new crew. … Of course you need one person that’s really a spearhead, when one break, the rest of them get a shot. Without [Lil] Wayne, there’s no Young Money. Once one artist gets over the wall, that brand is cool. Wiz [Khalifa,] you see he’s got a group of artists around him now. It really takes one artist to come in and have that song take off and then have that ability to continue to create that material.” (V.I.P. Saturdays)
He also dished out the advantages and disadvantages to having a rap crew.
“There’s positives and negatives to keeping artists real close to you,” Fif added. “You got artists that become complacent because they’re on the stage in front of 60,000 people, they ain’t writing like they need to get out of the hood. They writing like, ‘Okay, tomorrow I’m going to do something. I got four bars, that might even work.’ [laughs] You gotta write like you really want it. … The positive parts is when they’re hungry or competing, trying to get to that point, they’re striving.” (V.I.P. Saturdays)
Earlier this month, the G-Unit head talked about having Tony Yayo and Lloyd Banks rely too heavily on him.
50 Cent still has plenty of love for his G-Unit brothers, Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo. He just thinks that “they need to get themselves together.” And he’s partially blaming himself for it. The G-Unit general made that point clear on a recent appearance on Big Boy’s Neighborhood. “I’ve enabled them to a point where they feel like they don’t have to do anything,” 50 began explaining about Banks and Yayo. “I end up doing their job, too.” “They haven’t had a manager,” he added. “I’ve been managing them for their entire careers. That $8.7, $9 million a piece. I did that for them. I’m telling them since the top of last year, ‘Yo you got to find managers.'” And on Yayo: “Yayo has to do a lot more. He just doesn’t do what he’s supposed to do.” (XXL Mag)
Back in May, the rap executive revealed his distanced relationship with Unit member Lloyd Banks.
“He goes through these things where there’s no communication and he goes off and does what he wants, it’s set at that point because I’ve spent marketing dollars so he can go wherever he wants to go and actually go do shows, make money and do other things,” 50 told radio host Big Boy. “At that point, it’s fine for him to move around and go do it by himself. I want them to be individuals and operate on their own away from me, I’m fine with it. … We can get on the phone together, but I haven’t spoken to him. I haven’t spoken to Banks in nine months. But this is not the first time this has happened. He’s a baby. He’s the youngest in the actual G-Unit, he got really rich at 19. Both him and Tony [Yayo] have made over nine million dollars. With [Young] Buck, it was almost eight million dollars.” (Power 106)
Check out 50 Cent’s interview below:
