Earlier this week, on 50 Cent‘s birthday, T.I. challenged his fellow rap mogul to a hits battle on Verzuz, the head-to-head music showcase that has been entertaining music fans on Instagram Live for the past several months of the trash fire of 2020. In his challenge, T.I. included plenty of his characteristic trash talk as he goaded 50 with reminders of his release day L to Kanye West in 2007 and declarations that T.I.’s catalog of hits would demolish 50’s. While 50’s original response was as flippant as it was dismissive, it appears he’s reached his boiling point — such as it is.
Rather than responding directly, 50 instead resorted once again to social media trolling, this time posting video to his accounts of T.I.’s “Crime Stoppers” PSA. In the PSA, T.I. relates his nickname, Tip, to the anonymous “tip line” whose purpose is for citizens to provide information to law enforcement for prevention or investigation of local crime. 50 capped the video with a clip of his verse from G-Unit’s T.O.S.: Terminate On Sight cut “You So Tough,” which obliquely references T.I.’s 2007 arrest for gun possession and gently implies that T.I. snitched to avoid a longer sentence.
“What’s today’s mathematics? Sh*t ain’t addin’ up
Get knocked with 10 machine guns, only get 12 months”
Of course, none of that really has anything to do with whose discography is better, but for better or worse, this is who 50 Cent is now. He’s more interested in promoting his other endeavors, like executive producing Pop’s Smoke’s posthumous album, than he is playing his hits for a streaming audience for free. While he has said he’d battle opponents like Snoop Dogg on Verzuz, it doesn’t seem likely we’ll see such a thing anytime soon.
See 50 Cent’s latest response to T.I.’s Verzuz challenge above.