The free ride is over at 50 Cent's G-Unit Records.
The rap mogul has confessed he was overgenerous with artists on his
label. In fact, Fitty spent $8.5 million of his own money to take a lot
of the rappers on his most recent tour so that they could bring their
entourages - and so that everyone could travel, as he says,
"comfortably."
Not only that, he'd hand out hundreds of thousands of dollars to them at a time just for the asking, Sacha Jenkins
writes in the new issue of XXL magazine. "Whether I got to give them
$500,000 or $300,000 ... Just 'cause they want $300,000 more to make
what they [are] doing at the time comfortable. Like, 'yo, I want to get
this new place over here.' "
Sure, 50's got plenty of do-re-mi: His albums "Get Rich or Die
Tryin' " and "The Massacre" sold 20 million copies combined. And though
his album "curtis" is delayed till September, he's getting a payday
playing a boxer in the Nicolas Cage movie "The Dance," and a drug dealer in "Righteous Kill" with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.
And there are the clothing and sneaker lines - and at least $100
million more he stands to make now that coca-cola has bought Glaceau,
which owns Fitty's Formula 50 Vitamin Water.
But still, he called a meeting and told the artists at his label that the free ride was over.
"Laze was there as representation of M.O.P., Havoc and Prodigy," he told the hip-hop mag. "Banks, Buck. Spider was on the phone. Olivia was there. Sha Money
was there. I broke it down. I told them I wouldn't be assisting them
financially anymore. Pretty much I was telling them I wouldn't be
there. [In the past] they'd make a lot of money and spend a lot of
money and have me there to fix it."
There was another problem. "I looked around the room, and I was the
only person with G-Unit sneakers on. But they were being paid," he
adds. "It had become the norm for the check to come, but they were no
longer wearing the clothes."
