Well, I knew this was gonna happen….the other shoe has been ready to drop for months.
There were subtle signs, Young Buck stopped hyping G-Unit South, and launched Cashville Records instead. There were Buck’s comments about Tony Yayo’s assault charge on my girl Angie’s show. And of course, other comments about not beefing with Game.
Then there were the less subtle signs: Buck’s appearance onstage at a Baby and Lil Wayne concert. His interview on an Arizona radio station where Buck said, “I’ve been loyal….and its hard to be down with somebody when there’s no communication….It makes me feel like ‘what’s going on?’ There’s a video, everybody’s there, and there’s no Buck. Or you see your man moving overseas, on tour with the camp, with G-unit. Or you go to Thisis50.com and you see G-unit pictures is there, without Buck’s face…and then there’s no communication so I don’t really understand why…”
Oh boy. But the straw that broke the camel’s back was apparently, was this unsolicited offering from Young Buck to Quinton Hatfield of YoRaps…
“A lot of times a lot of artists don’t recoup off of albums so a lot of times they never get to see the backend from that project. I’m the only artist on G-Unit that ever recouped off of an album meaning I went off on this “Buck The World” project not owing Interscope and G-Unit shit, I can say that much. I’m still waiting on a royalty check period, I never seen a royalty check since I’ve been signed with G-Unit. So hell yeah I’ll tell you one damn thing the show money is that good. I’ve never in my career cashed a royalty check, how you like that? Put that one in big black letters n*gga!”
Now after this interview went up, Buck’s team went into damage control mode, doing a really good job of calming the situation and also releasing a statement that Buck “cleared $10million” as a G-unit artist and that the writer was “taking Buck’s words wrong.” Meanwhile YoRaps released their own statement, basically saying, don’t use us as a scapegoat, come check the tape.
But it didn’t really matter because, 50 was already reaching for the eject-button.
Why would Buck’s comments about royalties be that big of a deal? According to inside sources…..A few years back, Young Buck was in big trouble with the IRS. We’re talking $500,000 worth of trouble. And like Al Capone and Ron Isley would tell you, “in this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.” So, 50 Cent bailed him out and paid the debt.
Allegedly Buck celebrated getting off the hook, by buying a Bentley (doh!). But either way, 50 recouped $300k of his loan over time by taking…you guessed it…Young Buck’s royalty checks. Not his show money, or his label advance, or even his watch deal money.
So with $200,000 still in the red, from what I hear, that’s why Young Buck’s seemingly innocuous comment on a hip hop website spiraled into a G-unit drop kick.
Now, is Young Buck a valuable member of the group? Definitely. His Tennessee twang brings much needed diversity to their Queens County bullet-bullet-shank schtick. And Buck is still featured on the upcoming G-unit album. But he’s looking at an uphill battle as a contracted solo artist in a hostile environment if things are not amicably resolved.
Can they be amicably resolved?……I hope so.
But let’s just say….I get the feeling (read: hearing whispers) that there are some very itchy trigger fingers on both sides of this stand-off.
(PS: The timing of Game’s comments baiting Buck on that new Black Wall Street song are just peachy, huh? Maybe Game learned something during his time with 50 after all.)
