Weeks after former Roc-A-Fella rapper Beanie Sigel revealed that he never apologized to his former mentor and friend Jay-Z for his infamous beef with the mogul, the Philadelphia emcee is now revealing that once Roc-A-Fella Records split, Jay-Z blocked him from signing a new record deal with 50 Cent’s G-Unit Records.
In a recent interview with Sway Calloway on RapFix Live, Sigel explains that after his release from prison in 2005, he was able to secure a lucrative record deal with G-Unit records.
“When I first got out of jail, I had a meeting, a situation that was already lined up and set up where I could’ve had [a deal] over there,” Sigel said of an agreement 50 Cent put on the table for him. “He wanted to give me a label, a whole label deal … and a whole lot of money too.”
Not wanting to burn any bridges at his then label Roc-A-Fella Records, Sigel explains that he approached Jay-Z, who did not visit the rapper during his year-long stint in prison, to tell him that he had a pending offer from another record label, omitting the fact that it was G-Unit. Sigel explains that he wanted to remain a Roc-A-Fella artist, but wanted to be released from his Def Jam contract by Jay-Z, who happened to be the president of the label at the time.
“I told him I had to roll. ‘If you can’t make that situation happen for me, I gotta leave. I gotta go,’ ” he recalled telling Jay. “I asked him to just let me go — from Def Jam, not from Roc-A-Fella — because he was the president of Def Jam. ‘I want to leave Def Jam, I’m out. You’re the president, you can push that button. Let me get my release papers.’ ”
However, Hov refused to release Sigel from Def Jam and only provided him with empty promises about his future at the label.
“I went to Jay like, ‘Let me get this [record deal] situation,’ and he was like, ‘I can’t let you go.’ He was like, ‘No.’ He was like, ‘Nah, let me see what I could do.’ That ‘see what I could do’ turned into another two years.”
Ultimately, Sigel never signed with G-Unit and in 2009, he began hurling lyrical jabs at Jay-Z after suspecting the Roc Nation mogul of dissing him on his The Blueprint III album.
Despite his lost business deal and his soured relationship with Jay-Z, Sigel admits that he’s still grateful for the opportunities that both Jay-Z and his former business partner Damon Dash provided him during his Roc-A-Fella days. Watch the rest of Sigel’s RapFix Live interview here. –nicholas robinson
