Did 50 Cent and Fat Joe have beef? History between the rappers explored

50 Cent recently revealed that he has found himself a best friend in fellow rapper Fat Joe after years of feuding. Appearing on the September 2 episode of the Million Dollaz Worth Of Games podcast, Fiddy said that he and Fat Joe became close friends once they put aside their feud involving Murder Inc.

"I didn’t f**k with people because they had already dealt with them. The entire beginning of my career I was up against the leverage of Murder Inc. So, my whole beef with Fat Joe was really his loyalty. Later we become the best friends, like I really f**k with him. He’s loyal to a default, because he worked with him," 50 Cent said.

While the beef between 50 Cent and Fat Joe wasn't personal, the former said it began after Joe aligned himself with Ja Rule, one of Fiddy's bitter rivals in the 1990s and 2000s. Ja Rule was part of the East Coast supergroup Murder Inc., which included rappers DMX and Jay-Z.

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50 Cent and Fat Joe started feuding after the latter collaborated with Ja Rule

The feud between 50 Cent and Ja Rule is still considered one of the most popular rap rivalries in the hip-hop industry. The beef between the two began in 1999 when 50 released his first Ja Rule diss, Life's On The Line. This came after one of 50's affiliates allegedly robbed Ja Rule at gunpoint.

What followed was years of diss tracks and physical altercations. The beef continues to this day, though with less intensity. Fat Joe was embroiled in this beef after he collaborated with Ja Rule on New York in 2004, a track widely considered a Fiddy diss.

50 Cent fired back at Joe on his 2005 track Piggy Bank, which also targeted other rappers. Joe responded with the track My FoFo, taking shots at 50 by calling him a faker and alleging he used steroids.

The tension between the two came to a head at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards, in which 50's G-Unit and Joe's Terror Squad gangs almost came to blows. This incident was recounted in Joe's biography The Book of Jose. Joe wrote that 50 spent the ceremony trying to antagonize him.

Joe responded to the antagonism by taking a jab at his fellow rapper on stage by saying:

“I feel safe with all the police protection courtesy of G-Unit.”

This led to 50 calling Joe a "p***y boy" during his medley performance on stage.

Joe also wrote the commotion caused him to lose a $20 million deal with basketball player Michael Jordon and Nike.

"That was it. I lost about $20 million by not getting that deal. I lost out on other endorsements too. Promoters definitely didn’t book me and 50 Cent on the same shows. Everybody had to keep us separated. But as fate would have it, after the VMAs, we didn’t see each other again in person for almost a decade," Fat Joe wrote.

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How did 50 Cent and Fat Joe's feud end?

In 2012, Fat Joe and 50 Cent ended their feud to honor their late friend Chris Lighty. They agreed to put aside their differences and performed at their friend's memorial service.

In a February 2023 interview with Rolling Stone, 50 said he was "buggin" for beefing with Joe for his association with Ja Rule.

“I was using the same thinking in the very beginning of my career because it’s just the thinking you would use in the environment. If anybody went next to Ja Rule, I’d jump on the person who featured with them, anybody who was faintly near them, ’cause I put him on life support and you wanna go resuscitate him. So that energy, later you look at it and you go, ‘I was buggin’," he said.

In a July 2023 interview with Cam Capone News, Joe explained how his beef with Fiddy increased his street cred in the neighborhood, gaining him the persona of "New York Suge Knight."

The two have become fast friends since their feud ended, with 50 Cent bringing Joe out to perform at the former's 'Final Lap Tour' in Brooklyn on August 9, 2023.