Back like I never left.. and I brought beef! Wait...

So remember, oh… like a year ago when Fat Joe released that album Elephant in the Room? Neither do I, save for the fact that his single was catchy (“I Won’t Tell” with J. Holiday) and your favorite rapper 50 Cent came up with the Brilliant Elephant in the Sand, complete with front and back covers (for an online mixtape) and the goal of registering more downloads than Fat Joe could sales. So after the 1st week numbers came out and Joe didn’t fare so well, 50 took to his um, social networking site (why) and touted himself as the victor. But he preceded this by congratulating, in his words, “the boss… Ricky Ross” on the sales of his Trilla album (which is a damn good listen I might add.) Fast forward a good year, and behold, some niggas beefin’.

I still don’t understand 50’s problem with Ross, but I mean, does dude really need an excuse at this point? He got in the game blasting Ja Rule for um, channeling his inner (radio) Pac, which was completely understandable from a fan’s perspective. Perhaps it’s the same thing with Ross. Now that everyone knows he was a correctional officer (my pops recently became a c.o., but he never claimed to sell dope) it was only a matter of time before somebody pulled his card right? But I don’t think any of us thought it would be 50. So, 50 released what my dude Broken Cool called “a pretty damn good diss track” to which Ross responded “I’ll give you 48 hours to come up with a better one.” That was a big mistake. One thing 50 doesn’t do well with is to not be congratulated for his work (are he and Kanye really all that different?) so 50 in turn pulled his other card, you know, the bitches card, and coerced (see: paid) his baby’s mother to appear on camera and set the record straight on ol’ Ricky. She not only confirmed his former employer, but explained that during a child support hearing, he had her vehicle repossessed! Not if they were trying to say he took it or he had been paying for it and couldn’t anymore, I can’t say. But she went on to explain that he owns virtually nothing, and leases it all (does that matter?) and 50 provides enough facial expressions to seal the deal. And speaking of sealing deals,

50 lets us know he’s going to help her put out a book detailing her experience with “Officer Ricky” (fun.) They then proceed to paint the town ghetto buy purchasing mink coats (doesn’t she live in Florida?) and Gucci shoes while an unknown woman tags along and does the same. And 50 beat them cakes. Not on video, but come on… she’s in good shape and those lips are made for, well, snitchin’ and the other thing some of these lesser individuals do to get ahead (want some cheeseburgers?) So here we are a day removed from the incident, and what's Rick’s response? For her to go ahead and milk 50 for what he’s worth, cuz since she aint suckin’ him no more why would he pay her (other than to feed his seed of course.) 50 has now promised to bring Ross’ former labelmates Jackie-O (Poe Lil’ Rich Milk Carton Girl) and Trick Daddy, who is probably very offended at Ross’ behavior cuz as we all know, Trick loves the kids. Is there any end in sight to this beef? Prolly not till both albums hit stores, but you know how that goes… and if you don’t it’s because you haven’t realized that this whole thing is manufactured. Apparently, to cut their losses, Def Jam has issued a gag order on Rick Ross to avoid him getting into a “beef” as it were.

So who’s going to win? Well us, of course. We get to see 50 do what he does best: clown people and have fun doing it. And Ross? Well, the funny thing about him is that I don’t thin we ever believed what he was selling. The great thing about him what that we as fans love drug stories and good production, and he has both. I think his sales will snag a bit from the three people who thought he was really a drug kingpin. He never did shitty thug love songs like Ja Rule (only shitty thug sex songs like Port of Miami’s “Hit You from the Back”, yuck) and even went so far as to say “It’s a movie baby!” on DJ Khaled’s “I’m So Hood” Remix, or original, or whichever one had 13 niggas on it (both you say?) So um, here’s to everybody being friends… after a dozen or so more non-violent shots are thrown.