Among the topics discussed during G-Unit helmsman 50 Cent’s Sirius XM Town Hall event yesterday (March 17) was fellow rapper Jay Z’s multi-year retirement. The Brooklyn wordsmith began his retirement in 2003 shortly after the release of The Black Album and officially made his return to music in 2006 with Kingdom Come.
According to AllHipHop.com, during 50 Cent’s conversation with Sirius XM, he revealed that he sold well over 20 million records during Jay Z’s retirement.
“Where was Jay Z from 2003 to 2006? I sold 23 million records from 2003 to 2006,” 50 Cent said. “He stopped making music. He said ‘I quit. We’ll get back to what we got later. I quit. Timeout. I’ll come back to play later.’ When he signed that Beyonce contract he was like ‘men lie, women lie, numbers don’t.’”
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The Queens rapper also questioned the timing of the 2001 release of “Big Pimpin’,” a collaboration between Jay Z and the Port Arthur, Texas-based group UGK. Years prior to the release of the Timbaland-produced “Big Pimpin’,” 50 Cent appeared alongside UGK on the 1998 record, “As The World Turns.”
“After I had got shot Jay did ‘Big Pimpin” with UGK. I don’t know where he got the idea from,” he said.
During an interview with Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club last year, UGK emcee Bun B revealed that 50 Cent was the first New York artist to ask UGK to appear on a project while artists like Keith Murray and Lord Jamar were the first to embrace the group.
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“No, that would probably be 50,” Bun B said while speaking to The Breakfast Club last November. “Let me not say that. 50 was the first artist that called like ‘We want you on a project.’ The first artist to embrace UGK is either going to be, like, Keith Murray or Lord Jamar, probably gonna be the first two people that we rocked with. That’s how we all ended up on the Don’t Be A Menace soundtrack, because those were all our friends in New York. We met Keith Murray at the label because he was on Jive Records.”
50 Cent’s Sirius XM Town Hall conversation can be heard in its entirety beginning on March 31 on the Sirius XM website.
