The beef between rappers Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Jeffrey “Ja Rule” Atkins will apparently never die.
More than 15 years after their feud was at the center of the hip-hop world, it appears there’s still some bad blood between the Queens, New York emcees.
On Friday, Jackson, dubbing himself as “the King of Petty,” revealed he purchased 200 front row seats for Ja Rule’s concert so the rapper would have to perform in front of an empty room.
‘People think I’m mean so go see this. $15 bucks wait what I do now LOL,’ he wrote as a caption alongside a photo in a since-deleted Instagram post featuring a screengrab of the tickets being sold on Groupon.
He later added a comment to his own post revealting: “I just bought 200 seats in the front so they can be empty. LOL.”
Jackson also shared two additional Photoshopped posts of himself surrounded by empty seats in reference to Ja Rule’s upcoming concert.
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LOL😆Damn Boy you put on a hell of a show. 🤨get the strap #bellator #lecheminduroi
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The beef, which dates back to as early as 1999, was reignited in September when Atkins announced that he had to cancel on a show in Syracuse, New York.
“Yo, Syracuse. i just got word that the show has been canceled,” he said in a video. “Sorry, man. Been trying to get there all day. I love y’all man. We gon’ reschedule the show. I’m leaving the airport now, man.”
Jackson responded by saying the concert was cancelled because of a lack of attendance.
“Only 10 tickets sold don’t nobody want to see that s***, you talking about wait we get a lot of people on the walk up. Get the f*** outta here,” he wrote as a caption on Instagram, ending with his signature message: “get the strap.”
The original cause of the beef between the rappers seems to be up for debate. Jackson alleges that Atkins’ anomosity stems from an incident in which he was robbed at gunpoint in October 1999 and witnessed 50 Cent socializing with the culprit in a nightclub several weeks later.
Ja Rule, who had already achieved commercial success, claimed Jackson’s ire stemmed from being spurned by his label, Murder Inc., when he was an up-and-coming rapper around the time of the incident.
Following the release of 50 Cent’s single “Life’s on the Line,” which featured threats directed at Ja Rule and his label, the two were involved in a heated argument that turned into a physical altercation at an Atlanta nightclub.
In March 2000, Jackson and his G-Unit crew crossed paths with Murder Inc. at the Hit Factory studios in New York City which, following another altercation, left the rapper with a stab would. Ja Rule and Murder Inc. rapper Black Child, who took credit for the stabbing, were both arrested.
In November 2002, 50 Cent released his first major single, “Wanksta” as part of the 8 Mile soundtrack and later “In da Club” in January 2003 as part of his debut studio album Get Rich or Die Tryin’, which led to huge commercial success.
50 Cent had then surpassed Ja Rule in terms of popularity and the beef became one of the most debated feuds in hip-hop, with several other rappers getting involved including Eminem, who was the founder of Jackson’s label, Shady records.
The feud continued for years despite the fact that Ja Rule — alongside Murder Inc. CEO Irv Gotti — admitted defeat during an interview with Angie Martinez on Hot 97 in New York on September 19, 2013.