S. Samuel
[After 50 Cent shared a personal dislike for his cousin's musical content, Continental Five tells SOHH about his relationship with the G-Unit head and why he has yet to pull on Fif's coattails for a collaboration.]
50 Cent is not my second, third or fourth cousin, he’s my first cousin. When he’s home, I’m with him. We talk, he tells me what’s going on as far as the game is concerned, so he schools me a lot. So our relationship isn’t like a family that’s fighting or we ain’t talking. Nah. We talk all the time.
As far as working with him, you know what, I’ve never wanted to. I’ve never wanted to. When [Jam Master] Jay taught him how to rap, I was there, so I kind of learned the same way he learned. We both progressed in the same way, he just had more of a shot and opportunity before I did.
Even now, it’s like when everyone was calling me 2-5. When I would do something good, they’d call me that. Like I sold 15,000 CDs, hand-to-hand, go to the stores, and drop them off. So when I was out selling what I was selling then, everyone was saying my success was all coming from his name.
I just got tired of the comparisons and I thought to myself, “You know what? I don’t want to have anything to do with nothing.” So I changed my name. I figured I might as well change everything I’m doing and if you want to do a record with me, that’s because of me.
I wanted to show people that this was not an accidental. I wanted to show them this was not about name recognition.
Things were tough when I was younger, you start to adapt to a habit. You start to fall into certain habits. Instead of buying one car, I’ve got to buy two or three. If you see me in this one, then you’re gonna see me in another one. There’s those little things that you’ve got to be aware of so you don’t get jammed up.
You just have to know handle yourself.
Continental Five began his grind in the NYC underground hip-hop scene under the moniker Two five, which was a nickname given to him in jest by Tony YaYo. Slowly, he built a name and reputation for himself with his gritty style of freestyle rap. In early 2007 DJ Whiteowl decided to reach out to the rapper in hopes that he would host a mixtape for him. Continental Five was consistently gaining momentum in the underground scene so DJ Whiteowl thought he would be a good fit for his series of mixtapes. The two put out 5 successful mixtapes that started expanded his growing underground following and landed him a nomination at the Justo mixtape awards. Together they have sold and distributed over 70,000 CD’s.
