T.I. says he’s lost his “respect” for 50 Cent, who referred to him as a “rat” in a recent Instagram comment.
Before we dive into the latest between Tip and Fif, a reminder: T.I. recently revived talks of his well-documented desire for a VERZUZ pitting him against the Get Rich or Die Tryin’ artist and present-day TV mogul. As expected, 50 responded on Instagram earlier this month, writing, in part, “Keep my name out ya mouth.”
As fans continued to debate the hypothetical VERZUZ matchup, a video of a phone conversation between T.I. and Kevin Hart, seemingly originally shared in 2020, has resurfaced. In the video, T.I., whose Pharrell-produced Kill the King single “Let ‘Em Know” was released last month, urges the comedian to pass on his sentiments of Southern superiority to Fif.
“Listen, I’m the king below the Mason-Dixon line,” he said in the resurfaced video. “King of the South. I speak for all of the Southern people. New York been saying shit under they breath ‘bout us and having little bullshit, slick-ass comments ‘bout us thinking it’s all slow down here. But they wanna come down here and go to our malls and go to our clubs, but then they wanna kick it like we substandard when they get back up top. Well, that shit stops right now.”
In the comments of the below IG post from Nuface featuring the resurfaced 2020 video, Fif wrote, simply, “King Rat.” T.I. was quick to offer a response, arguing that only one of them is “a rat in real life.” He also again urged Fif to either step up by putting his catalog up against his own, or keep quiet.
“You playing on MY NAME when only one of us a rat in real life…you know I got your paperwork right?” T.I. wrote in his comment. “And my transcript is available online. Your excuses is useless. Get yo ho ass in the box or STFU and live in fear. You soft son. You’ve lost my respect. Fckn [duck].””
In a Breakfast Club interview last December, T.I. made sure the world knows that he’s still confident in his abilities as a rapper.
“I’m still cold as a motherfucker on the mic. … Can’t nobody fuck with me,” he asserted at the time. “I’mma just let you know that now. Go in the booth with anybody, walk out with the better verse.”
50 Cent, meanwhile, has taken a slightly different approach. Speaking with Rolling Stone this month, he argued that hip-hop at large is “connected to youth culture,” adding that, in his opinion, artists shouldn’t “have the best verse at 50 years old.”