In a recent interview, Tony Yayo claimed that The Game’s beef with 50 Cent was rooted in Jimmy Henchman’s attitude toward Chris Lighty.
The beef between The Game and 50 Cent never seems to end. The Game recently told 50 that his “career died with them tank tops,” and then said that the legendary rapper “can’t rap.” The mutual vendettas have gone on since the mid-aughts, and now Tony Yayo is shedding some light on where it really began.
In a new interview with VladTV, Yayo claimed that the beef between Game and 50 was actually founded in a separate beef between Jimmy Henchman, the former CEO of the rap management company Czar, and Chris Lighty, the co-founder of the record label and management company Violator.
Peter Kramer/Getty Images
“Jimmy Henchman never liked Chris Lighty,” Yayo explained. “It was always jealousy.”
Both Henchman and Lighty were enormously powerful in the rap industry. Henchman’s Czar represented the likes of The Game, Gucci Mane, Salt-n-Peppa and Akon. Lighty’s roster, meanwhile, included 50 Cent, Ja Rule, Missy Elliott, LL Cool J, Nas and A Tribe Called Quest. According to Yayo, the two East Coast power players eventually began to see each other as rivals.
“Chris Lighty always had hate from people,” Yayo said. “To the point where Henchman moved on the same block.”
Yayo claimed that this tension bled into 50 Cent and Game’s relationship. He went on to discuss the fraught dynamics within G-Unit, which 50 Cent kicked The Game out of.
“When you’re in a group, man, it’s egos,” the rapper said. “Motherf**kers is from the hood. N****s ain’t got no money. No financial experience, nothing… It’s egos.”
In the end, Yayo claimed the beef hurt what was a beneficial relationship, saying, “For Game, I heard the songs co-written by 50… and it was fire.”
Check out the interview below.
[via]