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IS 50 PICKING A BEEF WITH T.I.?: Fans examine G-Unit song 'You So Tough.' Meanwhile, Tip is hanging with Andrew Young.
*While 50 Cent and his G-Unit posse may or may not have called out T.I. in their new single, "You So Tough," the jail-bound Atlanta rapper is busy with more important things, like receiving guidance from a veteran of the civil rights movement.
"He's a mentor of some sort to me," the 27-year-old T.I. said of former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young in an interview with the Associated Press.
Young, who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and was actively involved in the struggle for equality, has taken T.I. under his wing, believing he has the potential to influence today's kids in the way King did during the civil rights movement.
"If you put him in jail for 20 years, that won't do any good toward gun violence," Young told the AP. "The judge had the wisdom and courage to give him a chance and force him to think about the process."
T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris, was sentenced in March on several gun possession charges and will serve about a year in prison after completing at least 1,000 hours of community service. To avoid a lengthy sentence, he agreed to speak with youth about the pitfalls of guns, gangs and violence.
According to the AP, Young stepped in to offer some direction. He brought T.I. to a rehabilitation hospital in New York to meet with people who were paralyzed from gang violence. He's given the rapper books to read, including one written by Young and another on the genocide in Rwanda. Young said he hopes to take T.I. on a trip to Africa before he starts his prison sentence in late March. He already took him to an exclusive birthday party for poet Maya Angelou in May.
Meanwhile, hip hop fans who have heard G-Unit's single "You So Tough" believe the lyrics target T.I. and his gun drama by accusing him of working with police to get a lighter prison sentence.
On the track, which appears on G-Unit's new "Terminate on Sight" album, 50 raps: "Nowadays this rap sh** ain't adding up/ How n****s get caught with 10 machine guns, only get 12 months/ Oowee, don't talk to me/ You talk to him, you talking to them./I got the best lawyers that money can buy/They say at best they would've got me 10 or maybe nine/ I said, 'How do you explain how homie breezed?' They said, 'You keep your mouth shut or you eat the cheese.' "
Despite what sounds like an obvious dig at T.I., 50 told MTV he has absolutely no beef with the King of the South and never mentions his name in the song.
"It's like 'CSI': You use real-life situations to create something that's entertaining without being specific," 50 said. "When have you known me to be indirect with an issue? If I had a problem with any artist, trust me, they would know. I take [that situation], and I write that because a lot of people think that. They're not saying it because they're cowardly people. When you write it and put it there and leave and say, 'Let me watch and see what happens.' There's so much controversy around it, and you didn't say anything. Then you go, 'See, they think that.' They just won't say it to him because they're a bunch of punks."
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