Rapper and entrepreneur 50 Cent opened up about his estrangement from two of his oldest friends, and how his attitude contributed to the estrangement. The deterioration of the relationship between G-Unit—specifically, the core trio of childhood friends 50, Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo, has made for several hip-hop headlines over the past year. Yayo has been open about the fact that 50 isn’t very close to his former cohorts, and 50 revealed recently that he mishandled a situation with Lloyd Banks, in particular, when his friend lost his father.
“[Yayo and Banks are] like my little brothers, so at points I say things that make them uncomfortable,” 50 Cent told MTV. “There was one point where you can even say I was a bit insensitive. [Banks’] father passed away and I was like, ‘All right, he passed away, but you can’t just go home and stay home.’ He went home and just stayed at the house. Ask Kanye [West]; his mother passed away while his record was at a peak point. If he didn’t go on tour, he wouldn’t be the Kanye you know right now. He worked his way through that situation; the world doesn’t stop.”
50 went on to say that he and Banks saw enough friends die in the streets to not allow death to make them falter.
“I’m not much older than [Banks], but I’ve been out since I was 12,” 50 Cent continues. “I’ve been hustlin’ since I was 12. Because his father used to hustle, I look at him like one of the homies. When one of my homies gets killed or they pass away, we don’t stop doin’ what we been doin’. We lost … probably five or six people got killed while we been on the road prior to him actually behaving that way. We don’t stop what we’ve been doing. To me, it’s an excuse.”
