With the highly anticipated sophomore release by 50 Cent coming out, it seems that 50 Cent is attacking the world of music. Just weeks before his album “The Massacre,” he released a diss tack titled “Piggy Bank” which attacked fellow New York rappers Fat Joe, Jadakiss, and Nas. The strike at these rappers stemmed from another “beef” between rapper Ja Rule and 50 Cent. Jadakiss and Fat Joe appeared on a track by Ja Rule named “New York, New York”, which 50 Cent saw as a betrayal by association and was the cause for the backlash. Each of the rappers attacked by 50 Cent put out records in response to the song and took strike at 50 for questioning the rappers’ integrity.

The fellow New York Rrappers Fat Joe, Nas, and Jadakiss who were attacked by 50 Cent never sold as much as him but are all popular in the U.S. Fat Joe and his Terror Squad put out last year’s summer anthem “Lean Back”, while Jadakiss is one of the most popular rappers in New York and Nas is safe to say one of rap’s greatest lyricists. This still raises the question: what gives 50 Cent the power to get at them? The commotion over these beefs seems to be more about entertainment than a justified rap battle. 50 Cent has spoken out continually about this beef on television stations such as MTV and New York radio station HOT 97. This broadcasting of the feud has just seemed to increase the popularity of the rapper and increase publicity for his new album.

The question that comes to mind when examining the situation is whether the feud between 50 Cent and the rappers was legitimate or a publicity stunt. It is a recurring “coincidence” that before 50 Cent’s CD release, drama seems to surround the rapper. Before his debut album, “Get Rich or Die Trying” was released, there was hype surrounding 50 Cent about the original beef with rapper Ja Rule and about his past experiences as a drug dealer from Jamaica, Queens. Now with the battle to overcome the sophomore curse, 50 Cent is still using this tactic to increase his record sales. With “Get Rich or Die Trying” selling more than 11 million records this seems to be a ploy to increase attention towards the rapper so people go out and buy his album to see the full story. We will just have to wait and see when a final count comes in to see if 50 Cent out sold his first CD ...