Cam’ron vs. 50 Cent – How Far Will It Go?

Last week New York City had its first exciting mainstream Hip-Hop moment in quite a while when Cam’ron decided to call up Hot97 while 50 Cent was having an on-air interview and flex a little muscle. Having spoken with 50 quite a few times myself I know he’s a witty guy, but apparently Cam took offense to something 50 said, called in, and got to talking about album sales. It was revealed G-Unit’s Lloyd Banks has only sold 300,000 copies of his latest release, Rotten Apple, while Dip Set member Jim Jones’ Hustler’s P.O.M.E. is also at that number, but, unlike Banks, Jones is doing it independently, making a heck of a lot more money per album. 50 didn’t take kindly to this and the next day released a dis track and video. A day after that Cam had his reply recorded. The content of the songs and video is rife with violent imagery, so, hoping for a peaceful resolution, I sat down with Dip Set’s Duke Da God to find out exactly how far this beef is going to go.

Very few rap battles have escalated to real violence. Many people think the Pac and Biggie battle resulted in both artists paying the ultimate price, but the fact of the matter is there were plenty of outside influences that had nothing to do with Hip-Hop involved in their murders. Let’s not fully blame the music when the music isn’t fully to blame. The video 50 Cent created for his dis track, however, makes some folks uneasy. Our troops in Iraq have less weaponry than 50 does in his video. Despite this, Duke Da God feels it didn’t go too far, saying “nah, it’s Hip-Hop, we could do the same thing,” adding “they both got shot before, you know what I’m saying? It’s fair game. It’s no fair when it’s not fair. It’s all part of the game. I don’t think they went too far.”

If the video isn’t going “too far” then the question remains, what constitutes “too far” in this battle? Does someone have to get shot for anything to get “resolved?” According to Duke Da God “I see this one just staying in the music. It ain’t like there’s no real altercations, like no real history between these two artists, they don’t have no real history with each other so it ain’t like it’s that, it ain’t nuttin that sticky, it’s just who’s the better man. It’s nothing personal.”

Though they may say it’s nothing personal it could get real personal in a hurry with 50 talking about sending Cam to his funeral and Cam saying 50 went to the Dip Set leader’s parole officer to try to get him in trouble. I will say this, though, in Cam and 50 we have two MCs who are at their best when they feel they have a point to prove, so I fully expect them to be releasing some of their best work in the coming weeks. What do they have to prove this time around? Well, for starters 50 has to prove his clique is still hot while Cam has to prove Dip Set now runs New York. For all those who’ve been wondering who the new King of the Streets of New York is this battle could go a long way to deciding such a title.

In the end, Duke Da God feels “this is just good for Hip-Hop, the same as BDP and MC Shan did it. The same way, the same effect.” A good rap battle is almost always good for Hip-Hop as long as the artists keep it on a lyrical level, as Duke Da Good feels these two combatants will, so here’s hoping for some more fire from these two artists who are notorious for wearing their emotions on their sleeve.

As of press time Young Buck of G-Unit had missed three separate interview times that we had set up. I would have loved to have heard his opinion on all this, but the G-Unit side will have to wait for another day.