50 Cent obviously have everything going well with bill collections, publications, television and water ventures of his enterprise. With the newly release of his book ‘Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter’, where he clearly has a reflection on critical moments of having to define a career, the book is etched with adorations for Jay-Z as a likeminded entrepreneur. He elucidates Jay-Z’s shift from Roc-A-Fella to Def Jam, and how instrumental he was to Rihanna and Kanye West music success.
“By taking over Def Jam, Jay positioned himself to make that label’s preexisting superstars his new crew. Instead of being closely associated with Beanie Sigel and Freeway, he became associated with Kanye and Rihanna. It was a major commercial upgrade. And unlike when he was running Roc-A-Fella Records, Jay didn’t have to put in any work grooming them or investing money in their careers. Def Jam had already done that. It was like moving into a fully furnished home. And better still, after he stopped running Def Jam, Kanye and Rihanna still saw Jay as their boss. He got to take all that furniture with him when he moved out!”
He didn’t stop there as this continues in another chapter of the book titled “Curtis versus Graduation”. It is in this page that 50 Cent clearly gave an account of his long-time battle with Kanye West. 50 Cent cleared air about Kanye West’s story and emphasized the genuineness of his claim in beginning which he brought to Kanye. Technically, 50 Cent lost the feud to Kanye, who went ahead to sell 900,000 plus copies compared to his nearly 700,000 copies. Just as a grinder, this duel was seen as win for the both artists, especially 50 Cent seeing his label waning off him.
“Jimmy Iovine might not have cared about beating Kanye, but Jay-Z, who was the head of Def Jam at the time, damn sure cared about beating me. Jay had been extremely uncomfortable with my run in NYC for years. So he did everything under the sun to make sure he could beat me through Kanye,”
“Jay took a lot of pride in Kanye’s victory. I think that’s one of the reasons he’s so disappointed in Kanye today.”
In the end, it was just chess and not checkers, because this can be seen as a blessing-in-disguise for 50 Cent. He moved on life to achieve greater feats in the world of film production than in music.
