50 Cent is a savant in the art of war. With the litany of feuds 50’s been engaged in throughout his decorated career, the G-Unit mogul knows how to shrewdly navigate in battle, and he’s just about seen it all in hip-hop.
As part of his The Hollywood Reporter cover story published on Wednesday (July 31), Fiddy dished on the dust settling on the Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud, which he doesn’t chalk up as a loss for the 6 God.
“This is hip-hop. I think it’s competitive to a degree, obviously. Even Drake, his position and the attitude and his choices, those are 50 Cent choices,” he began. “‘F–k it, everybody got to get it then.’ When it becomes Drake versus Kendrick, it’s because it’s the only thing you can put up against Drake’s success.”
When an artist has a successful run as long and dominant as Drake’s, 50 believes other rappers are waiting to see him fall from the top so they could have a shot at the throne. The Queens legend thinks it came to the point that people were poking holes in Drake’s artistry that really weren’t there.
“Look, our culture loves to see you go up because it’s confirmation that they can go up,” he added. “But when you stay up — ‘I want this s–t forever, man’ — they go, ‘Well, goddamn. When you going to come down? If you don’t come down, I ain’t going to have my chance to go up.’ And then it’s these clouds that come over you, and that cloud is doubt, a shadow of doubt that doesn’t come from material or your work ethic.”
The “In Da Club” rapper continued: “It’s doubt from the artist community, where they say, ‘I don’t know, his new s–t is cool, but it’s not his first s–t.’ They do that to you and Drake’s just experiencing what you experience as a backlash from success, from the consistency he’s delivered over and over. I don’t see a loss for Drake. The people who bought Drake material are going to buy Drake material when his next song comes out.”
While 50 is confident Drake will bounce back, because of his own antics in battle, his enemies didn’t suffer the same fate. “Now, the s–t that I do, it ruins your whole f—ing career,” he gravely declared.
Kendrick and Drake’s back-and-forth came to a close in early May, and the fan consensus is that the winner was Lamar, with which Billboard agreed. K. Dot’s “Not Like Us” is still simmering and holding strong on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 3 on the Aug. 3 dated tally.
50 and Drake actually linked up earlier in July, and the Power creator teased a collaboration on the TV side from the duo. He shared a photo of the two together on Instagram and wrote, “Brainstorming last night me and @champagnepapi gonna get the [camera emoji] rolling biggest ting on your TV.”
