Forgotten beefs : AZ vs. G-Unit

"Somebody talk to homie, tell 'em I don't play ball
you fuckin' with them Saratoga hackers off St. Marks
cheese n*gga mad 'cause he went A.W.O.L
but first family is Fif's la familia all day y'all.."

M.O.P - I'll Whip Ya Head Boy remix
(From various mixtapes; 2006)



Not only was M.O.P's I'll Whip Ya Head Boy remix the henchest chair-breaker of a joint to emerge from their fleeting stay in the G-Unit Records HQ broom cupboard, but it also chucks us in right at the deep end of the AZ vs. G-Unit fracas with Lil' Fame playing the Tru-Life to 50 Cent's Jay-Z by pitching threats back in the direction of AZ after Nas' former BFF responded to 50's "if I put out bullshit joints like AZ, every chance n*ggas get they'd try and play me" dis on What If with Royal Salute :

50 Cent - What If
(From Get Rich Or Die Tryin' OST; 2005)



AZ - Royal Salute
(From various mixtapes/bonus track on The Format; 2006)



And that was fair enough really since Fame and Billy had to earn their keep at G-Unit somehow when there was more chance of 50 & Ashanti recording a Best Of Both Worlds duets album together than Interscope ever releasing a Mash Out Posse album, but the I'll Whip Ya Head Boy remix charters into queer how'd-you-do territory when you consider that Fame actually produced a song on AZ's A.W.O.L album and then went on to produce another 3 songs on its follow-up The Format including the Sit 'Em Back Slow banger he and Danze blessed with their presence, when only 6 months earlier he was warning AZ his "ass would get popped with a hot one" should he mention 50's name again :

AZ ft. M.O.P - Sit 'Em Back Slow
(From The Format; 2006)



The general assumption that 50's initial dis to AZ on What If was little more than a throwaway instance of douchebaggery because AZ happens to rhyme with Jay-Z and Baby might be accepted elsewhere, but any mention of such a theory in this post will be greeted with the sound of the Family Fortunes wrong answer noise. The line was actually a riposte to the intro to A.W.O.L's title track where AZ's chief-hideous Gucci sneaker carrier Animal delivers a sermon paying tribute to AZ for his no-frills approach to N.Y rap classicism and subliminally zings 50 and G-Unit's other latest edition to their roster Ma$e as "bitch ass n*ggas crying, retiring and comin' back; findin' God and comin' back; gettin' shot and comin' back; doin' mixtapes and comin' back..." :

AZ - A.W.O.L
(From A.W.O.L; 2005)



It's a pity Ma$on didn't follow M.O.P's lead in jacking 50 songs from the Get Rich Or Die Tryin' soundtrack to reimagine as AZ dis tracks, because a Ma$e take on Window Shopper could've scaled the lofty heights of his 1997/1998 apex of arrogance. His only comeback joint to do just that, of course, was We Gon' Make It Right with none other than a certain rapper from Brooklyn whose namesake is a member of MobStyle :

Ma$e ft. AZ - We Gon' Make It Right
(From DJ Sickamore's Hood Radio V. 2 mixtape; 2005)



This beef might not have resulted in anything as entertaining as the story of Game breaking into the grounds of 50's mansion to steal a basketball hoop to wear as a necklace or prompted a dis track as venomous as the I Run N.Y freestyle where Yayo brought the pwn with such quotables as "my money longer than yours, call your recruits/The Lox made more money in them damn shiny suits", "Styles and Sheek Louch went double plastic/Yayo, Buck and Banks is puttin' out classics" and "100 shots, 100 clips - you ready to die?/Fat Joe ain't a gangsta, you scared to fly" before 50 proceeded to unleash a torrent of ad libbed shit-talking and spot-blowing, but, hey, at least it gave us a handful of good songs and some toadying behaviour by Fame to impress his new employer, and sometimes that'll suffice just nicely instead, right?