50 Cent is known for his many beefs.
From the Game to Ja Rule to Rick Ross,
50 has had problems with half the industry.
But the most legendary one was probably his feud with Young Buck.
When 50 started beefing with Young Buck,
it sparked a war that led to the end of the hottest rap group in the world.
Here’s what happened.
G-Unit was created by 50 Cent, Lloyd Banks, and Tony Yayo.
The three of them linked up when they were teenagers and started rapping together.
At first, 50 tried to make it in the industry but was ignored by labels and record execs.
So the three friends went the independent route and started G-Unit.
They started consistently dropping mixtapes,
and in 2002 Eminem decided to sign 50 to his label Shady Records.
He already had a buzz from his work with G-Unit,
but nobody could have guessed what would happen next.
When 50’s debut album Get Rich or Die Tryin’ came out, it hit the industry like a tidal wave.
In da Club and 21 Questions both hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100
and out-sold every other album in 2003.
In 2020 it was certified 9x platinum and is now the 10th best-selling hip hop record ever.
Thanks to the success of Get Rich or Die Tryin, 50 was able to start his own label, G-Unit Records.
The first two artists he signed were his homies Tony Yayo and Lloyd Banks,
and they jumped right into recording G-Unit’s debut album.
At the time, Tony Yayo was locked up on a weapons charge and couldn’t record new material.
Since they had a spot to fill,
50 signed Young Buck to the label and made him part of G-Unit.
Young Buck was an up and coming rapper from Nashville, Tennessee.
He was originally signed to Cash Money Records, but left to sign with G-Unit in 2003.
G-Unit dropped Beg for Mercy in November 2003 and rode the wave of 50’s success.
The album ended up selling almost 4 million copies and put the rest of G-Unit on the map.
50, Banks, and Yayo were all from the same area of Queens,
but Young Buck grew up in Nashville.
Even though he wasn’t from New York, he had a lot in common with the dudes in G-Unit.
Before his rap career really took off, Buck was still hustling to make a living.
He was signed to Juvenile’s label UTP in 2000, but still had a foot in the streets.
One night a bunch of dudes broke into his crib.
They got into a shootout and Buck ended up getting shot several times.
He was rushed to the hospital and nearly died from blood loss
but was saved by a transfusion.
After he recovered, Buck knew that he wanted to change the path he was on
so he decided to go even harder in the booth.
But focusing on his career ain’t mean Young Buck wasn’t ready for smoke.
He was charged with attempted murder in ‘04
after stabbing a man who punched Dr Dre at the Vibe awards.
Snoop Dogg and Quincy Jones were getting ready to give Dre a lifetime achievement award
when a dude named Jimmy James Johnson walked up and asked Dre for an autograph.
Dre was trying to focus on the show and told him no,
and then Johnson punched him in the head.
A fight broke out immediately, and Buck rushed down from the stage to help Dre.
He saw that Dre was surrounded,
so he jumped into the fight with a fork in his hand and ended up stabbing Johnson.
He was originally charged with attempted murder,
but later pleaded guilty to a less serious charge of assault likely to produce great bodily harm.
Buck managed to avoid jail time and was placed on probation for three years,
while Johnson got locked up for a year after he recovered.
Buck’s background in the streets and his rapping ability
made him a perfect fit for G-Unit.
But while they were recording Beg for Mercy,
Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine from Interscope decided to add another artist to the mix:
The Game.
Game wasn’t widely known at the time,
but Dre saw his potential and knew that his style was going to work with 50 and the others.
Game was featured on Lloyd Banks and Young Buck’s solo albums,
then he jumped straight into making his own.
But even before the album dropped, there was already drama between him and 50.
The beef allegedly started because 50 was upset
that his album’s release date got pushed back
so The Game could release his debut album, The Documentary.
The situation got so heated
that 50 allegedly wouldn’t even sit next to Game during the video shoot for Hate It Or Love It.
A few weeks after The Documentary dropped,
50 kicked The Game out of G-Unit during a live interview on Hot 97.
Game and his crew heard what was going down and went to the station to confront 50.
A fight broke out in the lobby
and a security guard from the radio station shot one of Game’s affiliates in the leg.
In March 2005 Game and 50 held a press conference to call a truce,
but the peace ain’t last long.
They started sending diss tracks back and forth, and Game got kicked out of G-Unit for good.
Then in 2007, Tony Yayo and his friend Lodi Mack
spotted the son of Game’s manager Jimmy Henchman.
They attacked the 14-year-old,
and Mack ended up serving two years in prison for the assault.
Fighting other rappers is one thing, but Yayo and Mack took it too far this time.
Jimmy Henchmen wasn’t just a manager either.
He was also a drug lord who ran the streets of New York for years.
When Mack got out in 2009,
Jimmy Henchman paid a shooter to take him out
and was later sentenced to life in prison for the murder.
A couple of years later,
rumors started going around that Young Buck and 50 were beefing behind the scenes.
After this, 50 played new G-Unit tracks for MTV with everyone in the crew present except for Buck,
which basically confirmed the rumors.
Buck and 50 both told the media that it wasn’t anything serious.
Buck told XXL “It's an understanding that we have as a crew. Not just with 50,
but as a family. Everybody has had they situations, but everybody handles that sh-- a little different.
'Cause we all individual men.
For me, it's just about gettin' sh-- off my chest and airing the sh-- out.
But as far as being disloyal to my n---as, it's far from that.”
But a week after 50 said everything was all good,
he went back to Hot 97 and kicked Buck out of G-unit on air just like he did The Game.
He told the Hot 97 crew “You can look at that and see that’s Game all the way.”
According to 50, the problems started cause Young Buck was spending too much money
and claimed he wasn’t being paid royalty checks.
Plus, 50 thought Buck was being inconsistent by performing on stage with Lil Wayne
and then dissing him on G-Unit records.
The situation got even worse
after 50 released the recording of a phone call he had with Young Buck.
On the call you can hear Buck break down into tears while he begs to be let back into G-Unit.
He also talks about how broke he is and tells 50 that he don’t know what to do.
Buck retaliated with the track Taped Conversation,
where he took shots at 50 for exposing something that should have been private.
On the song he raps
“B**** n***** do b**** thangs Look at 50, what he do just to get fame
Record my phone call when I spoke from the heart
That was a year ago, this was a joke from the start
You a ***, I know, The only people that record conversations is 5-0."
In an interview with Vlad TV, Buck said the problems between him and 50
started when 50 fired the president of G-Unit Records: Sha Money XL.
On top of being president at G-Unit, Sha was also managing them.
And when 50 fired him from the label,
Buck says he wanted everyone in G-Unit to get rid of him too.
Buck says that Sha was like a brother to him and he was even the best man at his wedding.
So Buck kept Sha as his manager, which led to the problems between him and 50.
After he got kicked out of G-Unit,
Young Buck’s money problems went from bad to worse.
Even though he wasn’t on speaking terms with 50 or anyone else on the label,
he was still under contract for two more albums.
He allegedly owed the IRS millions in back taxes at the time,
but ain’t have a way to release new music.
He filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010,
and the IRS planned to auction off his property to cover some of the debt.
His lawyers were able to delay the sale for a while.
But in July 2010 a public auction was held at his house
and he was forced to give up his watches, studio equipment, and more.
In 2011 it was rumored that Young Buck was going to sign with Cash Money.
He told the IRS that the deal would help him pay his debts back and exit bankruptcy,
but the deal never went through.
Birdman denied that a deal was ever even on the table.
He told reporters: “I spoke with Buck a few times, he’s been a friend of the family…
But it ain’t came to none of that. Not to this point.”
Buck’s career and finances was already headed to the bottom,
but then things got even worse.
In March 2012, Buck was almost killed in his hometown of Nashville.
He was with his girlfriend at a club
and they ended up getting into an argument with another group.
Everybody left the club,
and then a few minutes later someone drove by Buck’s SUV and started letting off shots.
His girlf got hit in the shoulder, but Buck walked away without a scratch.
Now he was broke, had no deals coming in, and was getting shot at in his own city.
Just when it seemed like it couldn’t get any worse, Buck got sentenced to 18 months in prison
for a weapons charge he caught back in 2010.
In February 2014, Tony Yayo announced that G-Unit was over
and he wasn’t friends with 50 Cent anymore.
50 seemed to agree and said in interviews that they broke up after too much fighting.
But then in June 2014, G-Unit reunited onstage at the 21st annual Summer Jam.
The entire original crew was there except Game.
50, Lloyd Banks, Yayo, and Young Buck came out onstage
and introduced their newest member: Kidd Kidd.
Later that year they dropped a ton of new tracks and a mixtape.
Fans thought that G-Unit was back, but the reunion ain’t last long.
Kidd Kidd left the group in 2018 to focus on his own label.
Then 50 announced that he wasn’t speaking to Lloyd Banks anymore,
so G-Unit was done for.
In 2021, 50 went after Young Buck to collect on an alleged $250,000 debt he owed him.
According to 50, Buck was still under contract with G-Unit records and owed the label two albums.
Young Buck claimed that the beef was all fake.
In a video that was later deleted he said: “We ain’t got no muthaf*****’ beef.
You understand me? That’s what you mutha****** get
’cause you muthafuckas are always chasing this beef shit,
and then we done played y’all muthaf*****’ a**. Whole time, bro.
We made all you muthaf***** think that it’s beef and we don’t like each other.
I just got off the phone with the n****. We just shot a video yesterday.
About to drop it and give it to the world.
… This social media shit got you people ****** up. Y’all got played this time.”
The court battle is apparently still going on,
but no one knows exactly what is happening behind the scenes.
50 sounds like he’s dead serious about getting his money back.
But right now, Young Buck got bigger problems to worry about.
On February 2nd, 2022,
TMZ reported that Young Buck was arrested in Nashville
after police responded to a domestic violence call at his ex-girlfriend's house.
According to police,
she told them that Buck started kicking her door after she wouldn’t let him inside.
When she walked outside after he left, she realized he damaged her car as well.
Buck was picked up later during a traffic stop and charged with vandalism.
He posted bail and was released, but it’s not clear if the case will go to trial.
With all of the charges on his record, he might end up doing more time.
Young Buck’s career has been full of ups and downs,
but right now it looks like he’s headed towards rock bottom.
Hopefully, he’ll sort out his legal and financial situations and get back to making music.
But with the label disputes between him and 50,
it’s gonna take a lot of work to get his career back on track.
G-Unit was one of the most respected rap groups in history.
But petty beef brought the whole thing down.
Maybe one day 50 and Young Buck will finally settle their issues.
But as of right now,
it don’t seem like fans will ever get to hear another album from G-Unit.