S. Samuel
Former Roc-A-Fella artist Beanie Sigel has come clean on why he never signed to 50 Cent's G-Unit Records in the past and why Jay-Z ultimately determined his future.
Placing the blame on Hov, Beans said Jay did not want to lose him while he was running Def Jam from 2004 to 2007.
“I told him I had to roll. ‘If you can’t make that situation happen for me, I gotta leave. I gotta go,’ ” Beans said. “I asked him to just let me go — from Def Jam, not from Roc-A-Fella — because he was the president of Def Jam. ‘I want to leave Def Jam, I’m out. You’re the president, you can push that button. Let me get my release papers.’ — I went to Jay like, ‘Let me get this [record deal] situation,’ and he was like, ‘I can’t let you go.’ He was like, ‘No.’ He was like, ‘Nah, let me see what I could do.’ That ‘see what I could do’ turned into another two years.” (RapFix)
In 2009, 50 explained why he was not interested in rushing a G-Unit deal with Beans.
“I had a meeting with him today,” 50 said in an interview. “First we gotta start with the music — where’s the music? Then we have to get into what it would take to bring him over to G-Unit as a record company. You can’t sign a deal in a conversation — it’s a process. We’ll see what happens. I would listen to what he has. His skills haven’t diminished. Nine times out of 10, he’ll have something workable already on deck. When you’re dealing with artists who have been established longer than you, it’s a process. You have to figure out exactly where they are at before you commit to being a part of those projects, because they have habits and they’ve been conditioned for something different. You have to figure out exactly what that is before you dive in.” (MTV)
Despite dropping their “I Go Off” collaboration in 2009, Beans later said he never reaped the financial benefits of rolling alongside the Unit.
“And I ain’t get no check from 50 yet,” Sigel said in June 2010 referring to his recent connection to 50 Cent. “So don’t think, ‘Oh, 50 must have gave him that money.’ He’s overseas. I mean, right now they on tour, I mean they overseas on tour right now doing their thing so I’m just waiting for them to come over and we can finalize the business situation that we doing.” (Hip Hop Beef)
Although recent reporting suggesting otherwise, Beanie recently said he never publicly apologized for dissing Jay.
“I never made a public apology [to Jay-Z], I talked to somebody from a magazine, and they brought that issue up. You never hear me say ‘apology.’ What I said was, to stop that interviewer from asking me those questions, and everybody else who asked those questions,” Beanie told DJ Green Lantern. “I felt how I felt and I still feel how I feel. But, just letting it go for everybody else. Hustler’s number one rule is never lose your cool. I broke one of the hustler’s rules. Gangstas f*ck up, but at the end of the day, I still feel how the f*ck I feel.” (“Invasion Radio”)
Check out Beanie Sigel speaking on Jay-Z below:
Beanie Sigel interview with DJ Green Lantern from 3 Little Digs on Vimeo.
