I’ve talked about beefs that have started over copying rap styles, beat biting, and even beefs
over cities, but beefing over record sales? Along with the competitive nature and new found
mainstream appeal of hip hop comes the bragging about things like how many records you sold,
especially for one artist in particular at this time. You see the title, you know the drill,
this is the Rap Beef Series. Jamaica Queens native 50 Cent who took his rap name from notorious New
York stick up kid Kelvin Martin’s nickname is well known for dropping a classic debut album in
Get Rich or Die Tryin and is especially notorious for starting beefs with a multitude of rappers.
Of course there’s that whole incident of him getting shot 9 times but that’s another story.
Here we focus on his beef with another well known figure in hip hop,
Harlem native Cam’ron, the co-founder of Dipset and former signee to Roc-A-Fella Records.
On February 1st 2007, 50 Cent was on the Hot 97.1 radio station being interviewed by host
Angie Martinez and 50 had made a remark about independent record label Koch Records saying
that he could “shut down” any projects coming from that label. Alan Grunblatt who introduced himself
as the general manager of Koch records then called into the radio station wanting to speak to 50 Cent
and mentioned that Koch Records distributes Diplomat Records. 50 Cent basically refused
to speak to him and asked for Cam’ron who was in the room with Alan. Cam then took the phone
and got on the air and the two went back and forth about Koch Records, and record sales
between G-Unit and Dipset members. Cam brought up Prodigy recently signing to Koch Records too,
to which 50 responded that he let him do so and Cam’ron questioned why he would let him do that
if he thinks it’s a graveyard to which 50 replied that he let Prodigy do it because he doesn’t hold
people back. It then turned into a back and forth about Lloyd Banks recent album sales compared
to Jim Jones. Cam’ron continued to get more passionate in his delivery and started calling
50 by his first name Curtis, which is something that would be very prevalent in this beef
and then Cam’ron wound up swearing which Angie Martinez had to then get him off the phone
as of course you can’t swear on the radio. This back and forth led to the music and skits that
would be soon released. However some also say that this beef goes back even further.
In 2002 when 50 Cent dropped the song “Wanksta” allegedly the start of his second verse is aimed
at Cam’ron with the lines “Damn homie, in high school you was the man homie, the f happened
to you?” This might have some truth to it as on Dipset member JR Writer’s debut album History in
the Making on the song “Bird Call” featuring Lil Wayne and Cam’ron, Cam starts his verse with the
line “Damn, homie in high school you was the man homie, that’s what a fan told me” just like 50 did
with his second verse from Wanksta. In high school Cam’ron was considered to be a great basketball
player and had a chance to go pro and the 50 line was apparently a reference to that while Camron’s
line was a response to 50 by calling him a fan. Also the JR Writer album was released in 2006,
months before the radio interview happened. Also on Kim Osorio’s book “Straight from the Source:
An Expose from the Former Editor in Chief of the Hip-Hop Bible” she mentions how she had
spent a lot of time with 50 Cent and had asked him about an altercation that had allegedly occurred
between him and Dipset. She also mentioned that the original version of the song “Back Down”
from the album Get Rich or Die Tryin took shots at Jay-Z and Cam’ron too, not just Ja Rule. She
also mentions in the book that the album version was edited to remove those disses and that the
original version is essentially not available anywhere and that people deny it even existing.
If that is indeed the case however this is more evidence that the beef between
the two started years prior to the interview. Shortly after the radio incident 50 released
the song “Funeral Music” which was a hidden track on Young Buck’s Buck the World album
and it was also on the G-Unit Radio 24 mixtape where it was titled Cam’ron’s Funeral, dissing
Cam’ron along with a video that begins with a hearse that has the words “Camron’s career” etched
on the window. The whole song takes aim at Cam’ron and makes references to Jim Jones, Young Buck,
and he even has one line in particular talking about Rick Ross’ weight which very well might be
the first shot directed at him as the next year they would have a beef that became very public.
50 Also makes reference to Cam’rons beef with Jay-Z with the line “Word on the street is 50’s
not Jay and Cam better stay out of his way”. He takes a shot at Cam’ron again in the outro as
well as possibly sowing discord within Dipset by stating that Jim Jones is the new boss of Dipset,
Juelz Santana, is now the capo and Cam has been demoted to a soldier and making another reference
to their earlier phone call on the radio.He also mentions the whole “computers putin” line
from Cam’ron’s song “Get em Girls” from his Purple Haze album which is hilarious. It’s one of my
favorite Cam’ron songs but even I have to ask “wth Cam?”. In return Cam’ron came back at 50 with the
song “Curtis” which of course is titled after 50’s first name. Cam takes direct shots back at 50 and
responds to “Funeral Music”. In his first verse he makes a clear reference to the diss with the line
“hopped out the casket bastard, reincarnated” and on the accompanying music video he’s in a
funeral casket and jumps out. The humor of these two is probably the best part of this beef.
Cam then responds to the outro from Funeral Music by saying that Jim isn’t the president of Dipset,
he’s the CEO and Freekey Zeekey is the president while Juelz is the underboss. He makes more
responses to 50’s lines from Funeral Music like mentioning again that 50 doesn’t stay in New York
anymore. He finishes it off with an outro dissing G-Unit clothing and making references to 50 being
a snitch. A pretty humorous diss overall. Cam’ron also released Curtis part 2, a video skit poking
fun at 50 for being a snitch. In the video Curtis stands for Co-operating Unit Reinforcing Telling
in Secrecy. A 50 cent impersonator is an informant snitching on multiple people in the courtroom,
it’s probably one of the funnier things to come from this beef. Then 50 came back at Cam’ron
again with the song “Hold On” also from Young Buck’s Buck the World album. There’s at least
two different versions of the song, one of them has slightly different lyrics and has an outro
with 50 dissing Cam’ron, so make sure you check out the right one if you plan on listening to it.
Does anyone else find it funny though that 50 is dissing Cam’ron from Young Buck’s album? If
there’s one thing 50 knows how to do is promote music through beef. On the outro of Hold On
50 denies Cam’ron’s claims of IBS and instead states that he has AIDS and mocks Cam’rons’
Killa Cam nickname. The mention of IBS is from Cam’s song IBS from his Killa Season album
in which he raps about his experience with the condition irritable bowel syndrome
which affects the intestines. 50 Cent states that he’s losing weight due to AIDS instead
as that’s another symptom of the illness, during Cam’rons’ beef with Nas a few years prior
Nas would also claim that Cam has HIV. 50 Cent also took shots at Cam’ron on the G-Unit Radio 25
mixtape on the Hood Newz skits Search for Camron 1 and 2 as well as the third one called Camron Found
they make fun of Cam’ron for moving and no longer being in the public eye for a while.
They make claims that he’s left to Africa as well as having a Jim Jones impersonator
say that he kicked Cam’ron out of dipset and makes a reference to him having a black eye
because of the incident earlier that year where he had a physical altercation with rapper Tru Life
who Dipset was beefing with also at the time. Once again some pretty comedic stuff.
Also on this mixtape they released the track “I’m On Some Shit” on which the intro 50 Cent
responds to a video that Cam’ron put out in May stating that he’ll be back June 1st.
On the intro 50 mocks Cam for still not having shown up despite it being almost August at that
point. Later on in November 2007 Cam’ron released the mixtape Public Enemy #1 and
on the intro track for disc 2 he speaks at length on multiple things including where he’s been,
how he was on probation and how police have been on youtube watching his videos and asking about
his beef with 50 Cent and Jay-Z. He also mentions that he had a family emergency which later on was
discovered to be his mother having fallen ill and that’s why he was out of the public eye, in
order to take care of her. He also mentions that he’s the reason that 50 named his album Curtis.
On that album which released in September 2007 50 would take shots again at Cam’ron on the
song “Come & Go” featuring Dr. Dre on his second verse with lines like “Cam buyin condos I’m buyin
the whole buildin”. This beef has also played a part in worsening the relationship between Dipset
members as one day while performing at a concert 50 Cent did something that would be a blow to
the unity that fans thought Dipset still had. He brought Jim Jones and Juelz Santana out on stage
to perform with him and G-Unit and they performed Jim’s hit song “We Fly High”. Some would claim
this as the reason for the falling out between the group but I’d say for this to even happen
things weren’t going too well beforehand. In an interview with Hot 97 Jim did years later
he would state that he was already in talks with 50 Cent about their groups working together before
the whole situation happened and that he basically didn’t agree with Cam’ron getting on the phone and
defending Koch Records and Alan Grunblatt because Koch owed them money. Another Dipset member, JR
Writer on a VladTV interview states that the group broke up shortly after Cam’ron was beefing with 50
Cent and moved to Florida. Around this time 50 Cent would also begin beefing with Kanye West
as well as Lil Wayne. This is when 50 and Kanye had the album sales competition between 50 Cent’s
Curtis album and Kanye West’s Graduation album. On the track “Play This on the Radio” which took aim
at Kanye and Wayne, 50 Cent also took another shot at Cam on the outro when he said “Don’t end up on
the list nigga, be a missing person like Cam’ron, Ja Rule and Fat Joe” Other artists affiliated
with the groups would be involved as well and take some shots. One in particular being Tony Yayo from
G-Unit who dissed Jim Jones on the track “Mo Money Mo Problems” from the G-Unit Radio 23 mixtape.
G-Unit affiliate Nyce Da Future also released a track dissing Cam’ron and Dipset
aptly titled “Dipset Eulogy” which is a scathing diss track with references to Cam’ron leaving Jim
Jones in the rucker park fight, dissing his choice in wearing pink, and claiming JR Writer is Cam’s
ghostwriter among other various insults aimed at other members as well. Another G-Unit affiliate,
40 Glocc released a track as well titled “N.W.A”. which has him rapping over an N.W.A. beat
and taking aim at Dipset as well as the Game who was also beefing with 50 Cent as well.
The beef soon settled though as in January 2011 in an interview for MTV Cam’ron stated that he
has no problem with 50 Cent and went on to say that Jim and Juelz have both worked with 50 Cent
and his crew plenty of times and he doesn’t have a problem with it. A few years later in
2016 50 Cent posted a picture of him and Cam’ron together laughing, implying that everything is
cool between the two now. Fast forward to August 2021 Dipset and the Lox had their Verzuz match.
The general consensus is that the Lox thoroughly beat Dipset. 50 Cent took this opportunity to poke
fun at Cam’ron by making a post on instagram saying the Lox smoked Dipset in the Verzuz.
Clearly another example of 50 Cent and his trolling and humor, nothing too serious as like
I said the general consensus is that the Lox did perform better than Dipset. Overall these two had
a beef that lasted for several years and mostly was shots sent from 50 Cent and G-Unit affiliates
towards Cam’ron and Dipset. Did the beef between the two start off from the radio interview or was
that just when it became public? Did they really have an altercation years prior like Kim Osorio
mentioned in her book? Who knows? I do know that this is a beef that resulted in some pretty funny
skits back and forth between the two and probably one of the first beefs that really resulted in
internet videos and skits which is what 50 Cent beefs since then especially have turned into. For
example his beef with Rick Ross that happened soon afterwards. Anyways that’s it for this episode
of the rap beef series, what do you think about this beef? What beef would you like to see next?
Head to the comment section below and let me know. As always thanks for watching and
remember to click that subscribe button, and I’ll catch you guys in the next video.