50 Cent went into renegade mode Thursday, blasting his label on Twitter and releasing his new single "Outlaw" independently of Interscope. Don't get it twisted, however: The G-Unit General isn't just acting off of emotion. This is all part of his plan to light a fire under the label in preparation of his fifth, yet-untitled album. (50 confirmed to MTV News that this is not the Black Magic album he had announced in 2010.)
On April 18, Fif announced via Twitter that he was going to be dropping a single from his new album, but never did. When MTV News caught up with him a few days later on the L.A. set of Nicole Scherzinger's "Right There" video, 50 backtracked, saying that instead, he opted to work in conjunction with Interscope on the release.
"So I had the record I was ready to launch, and we sat down and everybody talked," Fif told in an interview Friday (June 17). "What happens is, there are a lot of people involved in my actual launch, because its three parties; it's Shady, then you got Aftermath, then you got Interscope, and then you got me on my end. So by the time we got to go sit down with [Interscope chairman] Jimmy [Iovine], we talked a little bit, and then I ended up having to go see Dre, because we had the issue, the confusion about the Twitter stuff."
The "Twitter stuff" the Southside Jamaica, Queens, rapper is referencing is when he charged on the social-networking site that Dre and Jimmy Iovine were "mad" because Fif announced that he was developing his own brand of high-end head headphones to rival the Good Doctor's Beats by Dre.
"We sat down, we cleared that up, me and Dre, and then we said, 'Let's just get back to the music and do what we do,' " Curtis said before revealing his and Dre's next move. "Immediately after, we wrote a song together called 'The Psycho'; it's Dre's next single."
After making peace with his partners, it was 50's intention to release his own single with his label's support and have a record that would impact radio so he could perform at Hot 97's annual Summer Jam concert at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. There was no single and, subsequently, no 50 Cent at the show, which took place June 5. "Why would I be going to Summer Jam to perform a bunch of feature songs?" the rapper asked rhetorically. "That's not for me. I rather not be there than to go through that."
Things took a turn Thursday when the MC tweeted: "Ok I tried to be cool with my record company. I went to the meeting talk to everyone and sh-- feels like there moving in slow motion," adding that he wouldn't drop an album in 2011 unless Interscope got "on the same page." Then he premiered his new song "Outlaw" later that evening in an effort to cause excitement for his upcoming LP, which will be his last on Interscope.
Though he is visibly concerned about how the rollout of his album is being handled, Fif wants to be clear about where he places the blame. "It's not necessarily Dre or Jimmy; it's more the guys that they pass the responsibilities on to. It takes longer for people, because they'll be like, 'OK, we're gonna do this and we're gonna do that,' and the building will start having those conversations, but they're not actually moving at that point."
What do you think of 50 Cent's label drama? How about the new song "Outlaw"? Let us know in the comments!