DISGRACELAND - 50 Cent Pt. 2: Federal Raids, a Stabbing in the Studio, and a Dead Man’s Game

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Curtis Jackson took his name from a stickup man – and then proceeded to play by that dead man’s rules. This episode traces the violent legacy of the original 50 Cent and the rise of 50 Cent the rapper through his feud with Ja Rule, the Lorenzo brothers, Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff, and Murder Inc. Records. This is about how Curtis Jackson a/k/a 50 Cent became a rap king, despite a nine-shot assassination attempt that failed to kill the man—or the myth. For a full list of contributors, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠disgracelandpod.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠⁠⁠⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠⁠⁠⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places.

Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like, like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is bookmarked by Reese's Book Club from Hello Sunshine and IHeart Podcast, where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Brought to you by Cotton.

of our lives. This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. This is a story about power, about a stick-up kid who became a king and a crime kingpin who wanted to stay in the game. It's a story about music moguls who wanted to be gangsters and gangsters who wanted to be music moguls,

about reputations in the street and assumed identities on the stage. about mixtapes, attempted murder, and four FBI raids in one day. This is a story about Kenneth Supreme McGriff, Lorenzo Brothers, Jarl, and most importantly, Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent. It's a story about great music. Unlike that clip I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Gold Chain Chacha MK.

one. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to lose yourself by Eminem. But why would I play you that specific slice of mom's spaghetti cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on January 3rd, 2003. And that was the day that federal agents raided the offices of Murder Inc. Records looking for dirty money. Four days before the hip-hop label's main adversary, 50 Cent, released, to single in the club, which would become the biggest song of the year. On this episode, raids, stick-up kids, crime kingpins, music moguls, mixtape wars, attempted murder, and part two of our story on 50 Cent.

I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. If you happen to have a copy of Eric B. and Raqim's classic 1987 debut album paid in full, go grab it and turn it over. There on the back cover, you'll see a small picture of nine guys posing outside the Jacob Jabbit Center in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. There's Eric B. with the giant gold medallion hanging from his neck, and there's Rakeem, a.k.a. the God MC. And yeah, I know it's crazy. He's actually smiling. And then there's the rest of their crew, real guys, a mixture of rappers, hustlers, and stick-up men,

including the kid crouched in the bottom right-hand corner with the red Adidas hat and the thick gold rope chain. If you know anything about hip-hop, especially the foundational years of the 1980s, that chain will look awfully familiar to you. But more on that in a minute. This kid with the Adidas hat in the gold rope chain, they all called him 50 cent. But he's not the 50 cent you're thinking of. That is not Curtis Jackson, who was just 12 years old when paid and full this record that we're talking about with the photo on the was released. Incidentally, it was the first record that he ever bought.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. This 50 cent, the OG 50 cent, the dude on the back of Paid and full, was a guy named Kelvin Martin, who, despite his vertically challenged 5'2 frame, was at the time one of the most prolific and feared stick-up men in Brooklyn. It didn't matter if you were John Dillinger

or Billy the Kid or Tony fucking Montana, If you were a pimp, a dealer, a doper, a rapper, you could be his sworn enemy or his good friend. If you saw 50 coming, you crossed the street because chances were you were going to get robbed. And that's if you were lucky. With a 357 magnum in one hand, in a cold 45 and the other, 50's reputation preceded him. He had no fear, no regrets. And at only 23 years old, he lived by a code that protected himself above everything. thing and everyone else. Some said he shot down some of Brooklyn's biggest hustlers in a hail of

bullets like a Western gunslinger of old, just to make sure that reputation of his was kept spit-shined and airtight. Some even said that he stole the gold rope chain right off of LL Cool J's neck, LL's iconic chain, and that LL was relieved of said chain by the persuasive force of 50's twin long-barrevolved revolvers. Whether or not that particular story is true, it's hard to say. L.L. Cool J. for one, had his own reputation to maintain. And L.L. was hard as hell. So L.L. wasn't saying shit.

But plenty of others saw a 50 cent, again, the original 50 cent, pull a piece and live to tell. On one particular afternoon, every liquor store owner on a long stretch of Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn heard the front door of their shop open and the jingle of that little bell go dingling and looked up from behind the counter to see not a customer. But this short stack of menace cocking one pistol and then another, and then that face, not 50's actual face, but the face of the Halloween mask that 50 was wearing. The Count from Sesame Street, or maybe it was a Richard Nixon mask,

or something like that. And by that time, the store owner was way ahead of him, popping open the register drawer and hand in the mass neighborhood menace, all of his cash. But 50 cents exploits, his crimes, his unwavering code in which he got rich or died trying. Again, I'm still talking about the original 50 cent. It made him a lot of enemies.

It all came to an inevitable end in October of 1987, just months after Payton Full hit the shelves. This time, the barrel was aimed at 50 cent. Multiple shots fired, one to the back of his head, the plume of gun smoke, the scattershot rhythm of sneakers, tearing ass down several flights of stairs, and then hitting the pavement and fading into the night.

They found 50 cents. bleeding out on the seventh floor stairwell in an Albany Projects building in Brooklyn. He was rushed to the hospital and then moved to the ICU. Four days later, he was dead. Word of 50's death rippled through the streets of Brooklyn through every liquor store that he ever held up

and to the ears of every person he ever double-crossed. But by the time that word spread one borough over to Queens, the streets were reckoning with even bigger news. Kenneth Supreme McGriff was being, released from prison and coming home after serving eight years of a 12-year sentence. Prem, as he was better known, was a ruthless gangster and the leader of the Supreme team, a notorious criminal organization, and crack cocaine distributor based in Queens. Unlike the last time, Prime got out of the joint, this time was going to be different.

At least that's what was believed to be true by the feds, who were continuing to monitor Supreme's every move. It was suspected that Supreme had entered the increasingly lucrative world of hip-hop by striking up a relationship with a brand-new record label, and that he was using that label to launder his drug money. Murder Incorporated Records was named after the cold-blooded triggerment of the syndicate, the infamous organized crime group from the mid-20th century. The one we're talking about here in Queens,

was founded by the Lorenzo brothers, Chris and Irv, though they wanted to be known around as Chris and Irv Gaudy, a nickname bestowed upon them by none other than Jay-Z. So here's a record label whose very name, as well as the nicknames of its owners, gave a wink and a nod to gangsters both past and present. And again, this is alleged by the feds, they were being bankrolled by the deep dirty pockets of the Queens drug lord Kenneth Supreme McGriff. Little future Irv Gotties growing up in Queens, growing up in the shadow of the supposed Supreme and Lorenzo partnership were inspired by the sheer magnitude of this new endeavor

by a record label that wanted to be bigger than the streets, like the rapper Jarl Rule, who was one of murder Inc's first and brightest stars. But not every kid in the city looked up to the Lorenzo's and Supreme with that kind of awe. One such outlier was Queen's native Curtis Jackson. When it came time for Curtis to level up from hustling on the streets to hustling on the airwaves, He did so not by aligning himself with the likes of Murder Inc, the Lorenzo's, Prime, and even Sean Puffy Combs in the eyes of Curtis Jackson. These guys didn't represent what was real. They weren't the streets. They reped that hubris life.

They were all corporate bullshit, so far removed from the streets that they may as well have been living in a castle in the sky. Curtis was the opposite. He was the fly in the ointment, the nail in the tire, the storker. stick-up kit fucking up your corporate machinations. When it came time to assemble a crew, he called it G-unit. Not G as in gangster, but as in guerrilla, as in a scrappy, independent group that battled much larger, stronger forces. And when it came time to take a stage name, Curtis Jackson didn't look to the Gambino family for inspiration as Chris and Irv Lorenzo did. Instead, Curtis Jackson took up the mantle of the city's ultimate stick-up kit.

For his first commercial single, How to Rob, released on Columbia Records in 1999, Curtis Jackson, now 50 Cent, gave a wink and a nod to his new name and his place in the hip-hop hierarchy. See, the single was included on the soundtrack of the film Into Deep, which starred none other than L.L. Cool J himself, long since rumored to be one of the victims of the OG 50 Cent, and L.L's face was featured on the single's artwork. It was genius. Unlike the late Kevin Martin, the original 50 cent, the new 50 cent had no beef with LL Cool J. His beef was with these new corporate gangsters, the Lorenzo's, the preams, and the puffies. But mostly for the little guy with the rough voice that was now putting murder ink on the mouth.

There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And Rule 2, never mess with her friends either. We always say that, trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.

I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro.

And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. And just then, we felt the plain turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive headfirst into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything and me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him.

Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else? that you can do rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb.

And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that I've been asleepwalk. David O'Yellow-O. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kimman broke up with Keith Thurban.

Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena, monjeu. Camilla Morone. Kenny Silver and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It all began with a stick-up. One of Curtis Jackson's, now 50 cents, friends flashed his piece and told Jha Rule to fork over his chain. Jha got this rumbled deep down in his gut, a feeling that fell somewhere between embarrassed and insulted. What the hell was he going to do? He slowly peeled the chain from around his neck and handed it over. The next time he saw 50, Jha gave him all kinds of shit. The fuck, Fifty thought. He didn't rob Jha. It didn't matter.

It was 50's guy who did it, so it might as well have been 50 himself. 50 tried the water under the bridge thing, but Jha didn't see a bridge. He saw a wall, and then he started talking shit to anyone who would listen. And the gist was always the same. 50 cent was a fake rapper. This is when 50 was on the come-up, when he was trying to establish himself. He couldn't be derailed by some wannabe gangster running his mouth. But if Jarl Rule wanted a fight, then a fight was what 50 Cent was going to give him.

Some say the 50 Cent didn't fight fair, but fairness had nothing to do with it. 50 Cent played by the rules of a dead man. March 24, 2000, Midtown Manhattan. The small studio inside the hit factory was loud as hell. 50 was rhythmically bobbing his head up and down, lost in the music and letting the deep bass of this track wash over him. He worked out a verse in his head, the rhymes coalescing into that trademark smooth, casual flow. A small but mighty crew looked on. A couple of dudes sitting on the couch, heads nodding in sync, and an engineer working the board.

The track ended and 50 Cent told the engineer to rewind it and start it from the top again. But this time, hit record. 50 was ready. He stepped up to the mic and began to wrap his verse while the music played. His debut album for Columbia, Power of the Dollar, was scheduled for release in four months in July. But 50 was already thinking three steps ahead. You had to be prepared if you wanted to blow up without selling out. Take that rap money.

Don't shake hands with it. The song, How to Robb in particular, was all the rage, with emphasis on the word rage. It was supposed to be a joke, a piece of it. of cutting satire, but more than a few of the 40 or so famous rappers and singers that 50 Cent fantasized about taking for all they were worth in his lyrics. They weren't laughing. No one could take a joke. Jarl rule wasn't included in that song, but 50Cent made sure the Murder Inc. Star didn't feel left out. The string of disc tracks that 50 was releasing straight to the streets in advance of his major label debut put Jhaerl in the crosshairs. And then 50 Cent took game with the guy that the FBI and the NYPD thought was really in control of murder inks purse strings. One of the songs from 50's upcoming power of the dollar album, Ghetto Karan, leaked and soon it could be heard pouring from speakers throughout the five boroughs. The track aired the dirty laundry of the Supreme Team and of Kenneth Prine McGriff,

and this was something that you just didn't do. The door to the small hit factory studio flew open and three men walked inside. Jarl rule, Chris Lorenzo, and a number of another murder ramelle gill, aka Blackchild. They weren't there to check out the new shit 50 was working on. 50 stopped rapping right away and took a step back as the uninvited visitors came at him fast. If only he had some of that Kelvin Martin hardware on him. Someone hit the lights, and the whole room descended into chaos. 50's boys were up off the couch, up from the engineer's chair, jumping into the fray.

Fists swung into darkness. Lorenzo or Dja, someone was coming at 50 now, knuckles out. knuckles out, so 50 Cent retaliated. Wild, quick stabs of self-preservation. Then the scuffle a pair of hands grabbed one of the speakers to the top of the recording console and lobbed it through the air. It slammed Lorenzo right in the head. He screamed in pain, and also because it pissed him off. The blood gushed down the side of his face. 50 Cent stumbled, tried to catch his breath. Black Child flashed a knife. Fifty saw it gleam in the darkness, like it was winking at him. This all-knowing, all-seeing beacon of impending doom about to all fuck up.

Black Child lunged forward, jabbed, and sunk the knife right into 50's chest. Fifty howled. The pain consumed him. Breathing in, breathing out, it hurt like fucking hell. He slumped to the floor, teeth clenched, eyes squeezed tight, while Lorenzo, Black Child and jaw rules scurried out the same way they'd come in. Minutes later, 50 Cent was in the back of an ambulance racing down the streets of Midtown to St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital, where doctors treated his gaping chest wound, along with a partially collapsed lung. Two months later, after getting back on his feet, 50 Cent was shot nine times by an unknown would-be assassin and nearly killed.

It was the totality of these two incidents happening so quickly, back-to-back, that cemented 50-cent not only as authentic, but dangerous. So dangerous and so hot, the Columbia Records got cold feet. He may have survived those nine bullets he took outside his grandmother's house in Queens, but he wouldn't survive his first relationship with a major label. Columbia pulled Power of the Dollar with no intention to release it, or any other 50-cent album for that matter. And right at the moment, when he was supposed to be blowing up by executing that stick-up strategy, by taking that rap money, Instead, 50 cents dead man game left him dead in the water. We'll be right back after this word, word, word.

There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield. And in this new season of The Girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man.

A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target.

He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the Girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history.

I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. And just then, we felt the plain turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive head first into the complex power, of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal to us

our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything, and me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off and that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark.

When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an act or whatever, my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? You'd rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up, and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb.

And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate. stance like he's about to attack me, like making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been

sleepwalking. David O'Yello I love this podcast whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban.

Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Morone at Carrie Kenny Silver. And more.

Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Murder Inc. made sure to hit 50 cent while he was down. Irv Gotti went live on Hot 97's The Star and Buckwild Morning Show. Irv told all in New York that 50 Cent had gone soft. The 50 had turned tail. The 50 Cent was a rat. So 50 Cent, you never can't believe this, went and got himself an order of protection against Irv Gotti and Jarl.

This is what Irv Gotti told Hot 97, that 50 Cent was essentially acting like a little bitch. That's him talking, not me. Also him talking. A guy does that, he makes himself all cozy with the NYPD, and that guy is not authentic. And that guy is essentially a fucking snitch, per Irv Gotti's thinking. But 50 Cent was no snitch. Irv Gotti was only half right whether he knew it or not. There was an order of protection, but it had been issued by the NYPD on behalf of 50 Cent.

And no matter how much Irv Gotti and Chris Lorenzo and Prime tried to discredit their rival, their strategy continued to backfire. only adding to 50 cents suddenly larger than life profile, which in turn was how one of his mixtapes ended up in Eminem's Walkman, and then to a million-dollar deal with M and Dr. Dre's hip-hop empire. And so, as 50-cent's debut album was once again back in the pipeline and being prepped for an early 2003 release, he doubled back to respond to the guys who had left him for dead

and were now trying to bury him alive. To be clear here, I'm not talking about the guy who shot him nine times, as 50 would make known on the track Many Men, Wish Death, from his debut album, Get Rich or Die Trying. The shooter was a stick-up kid from Fort Green named Darrell Homo Baum, who was killed just weeks

after he tried to ice 50 Cent. When I say left him for dead and we're now trying to bury him, I'm talking about the shit that went down at the hit factory and the subsequent slandering of 50 cents name on the airwaves. But as usual, 50

was three steps ahead of his antagonists. Just weeks after Irv Gotti called 50 a snitch. In December of 2002, 50 Cent and his rap trio G unit released an independent mixtape titled The Future is Now. One of its standout tracks was I Smell Pussy and it flipped Irv Gotti's script by calling out Irv, Jarl, and the guy who stabbed 50 Cent, Black Child, buy their names. As in, I Smell Pussy. Is that you, Irv, I smell pussy, is that you Jarl? 50 Cent didn't go after Prem on this particular track, but the notorious crack kingpin was having enough problems of his own.

Earlier in the year, Supreme had pleaded guilty to a weapons possession charge, and he was currently out on bail and awaiting sentencing. And the shocking recent murder of RunDMC's Jam Master Jay had brought more unwanted attention from the cops since some of Jay's close friends, friends like 50 Cent, who was mentored by Jamaster Jay, they weren't going out of their way to say that Prim hadn't had anything to do with the shooting. And so as G units, I Smell Pussy, kept the cold December, St. November streets of New York City red hot, Prime was laying low down in Miami Beach.

He checked into the Lowe's Hotel under an alias, paid with cash, and then quietly slipped into a room with walls as white as the outfits at a Sean Combs Labor Day party. But his quiet reprieve didn't last long. As Prime sat there, alone, his hotel room door was busted down from the outside with a bang. Splintered Wood paved the way for FBI agents in their trademark windbreakers. They grabbed Prim's arms and twisted. them behind his back, locking his wrists and cuffs. What the fuck was it this time? Prime shook his head.

He didn't know who did Jam Master Jay, but it wasn't him. Now it was the Fed's turn to shake their heads. They didn't care. They weren't here for that. They had Prime on another weapons charge, one from a few years back when he brought a machine gun to a shooting range. What's this? One of the agents wanted to know.

We're rocking and rolling tonight, are we, Prim? As he said it, he was holding up a baggie of Viagra and another baggie full of ecstasy that were found right there on the nightstand next to a murder-ink pager. And that's where the feds were headed next. Straight out of this Miami safe house and back to New York, where not even a week later,

the record company that they believed Prime Bankrolled was about to be taken down. January 3rd, 2003, Manhattan, early. The elevator doors opened on the 29th floor the worldwide plaza building on 8th Avenue. The surge of federal agents and NYPD detectives came flooding out. Vests strapped tight, weapons locked and loaded, warrant in hand. They crashed through the front door of Murder Inc.'s corporate offices

and began to turn the place upside down. They seized computers, boxes of files, two-way pagers, anything they could use to trace the dirty money back to Preme. Cut to New Jersey, where more FBI agents and NYPD officers, were raiding the house belonging to Cynthia Brent, murder inks accountant. And then, to Westchester County, New York, Irv Gotti's house, raided.

And then, Wexford Terrace and Queens, the home of Joe Reagan, one of Primm's longtime associates, raided. All four places were raided simultaneously by the feds that morning, along with a fifth location, Chris Gotti's apartment,

at an undisclosed location. And then, with an affidavit filed with the U.S. Attorney's Office, the United States government officially made the claim that Prim was the, quote, true owner, unquote, of Murder Inc. And then he provided the Lorenzo's and the label with muscle, aka threats, violence, and intimidation. Four days later, while Jha Rule's record label was trying to peel the G men off their backs, 50 cent pulled that G-unit gorilla move of his, swooping in and taking that rat money.

He hit Murder Inc. where it really hurt. on the charts and in the minds and hearts of the record buying public. His smash single, Inda Club, was released on January 7, 2003. It spent nine consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard Top 100. And during its time in the number one slot, as quick as a Kelvin Martin liquor store stick up, it set a Billboard record as the most listened-to song in radio mystery. 2005, Brooklyn.

Chris and Irv Lorenzo sat inside a federal. courthouse watching nervously as one of Prim's former close confidants walked slowly to the witness stand. The brothers were on trial for laundering more than $1 million in drug proceeds through their Murder Inc. record label. In total, nine individuals and two corporations have been charged with everything from racketeering to cocaine, heroin, and crack trafficking, to homicide. Chris and Irv Lorenzo considered it a win early on when a judge granted their request to try them separately from Prim, who they continued to maintain was in their orbit for street credit only, but did not contribute financially to their business. If they were guilty of

anything, they said, it was guilt by association, plain and simple. But even though Prime was not in the courtroom with them, you could nevertheless feel his shadow casting Paul over the proceedings. The allegations, the charges that the Lorenzo's were facing, were serious, career-ending, life-altering charges. And so, as they watched while former Prem associate Joe Reagan sat down in the hot seat next to the judge, their pulses quickened. The prosecuting attorney asked John Reagan if he could recall the events of one day in particular, some five years earlier. May 24, 2000. Reagan nodded his head. He had a mine like a

steel trap. He remembered that day like it was yesterday. Reagan was no longer as close with Prem as he'd once been. And with the feared crime mogul now on the hook for a laundry list of offenses, including two murder for higher homicides, Reagan really didn't care if what he said incriminated his one-time ally. So Reagan began to talk. He recalled how Prime came by his auto garage in Brooklyn that afternoon. Prim had come all the way from Queens,

and he had two other guys with him. Now, the reason that they went all the way to Brooklyn in the first place was to buy a bunch of stuff from stores. They were on a shopping spree, you can say. And it's not that Prine was in a shop. dropping mood or anything, he just wanted receipts, pieces of paper to prove that he had been in Brooklyn during the afternoon, and not in Queens were just an hour before. Nine bullets ripped through 50 cents body. But of course, Prime had actually been in South Jamaica, Queens that day, according to John Reagan's recollection. Reagan testified that Prime told him they'd just come from

Queens where 50 was shot coming out of his grandmother's house and then left to bleed out, just like the OG 50-cent Kelvin Martin, how he had bled out on that seventh floor stairwell some 13 years earlier. Now, John Reagan further said that while Prune ordered the hit that he hadn't pulled the trigger, that that was one of the other two guys who showed up at Reagan's garage that day, and that dude's name was Robert's son, Lions. Again, this is alleged by John Reagan. But wait, you're thinking. Jake, you told us earlier that 50 cent IDed Darrell Homo bomb as his shooter in a song. Yes, that's correct. And it's also true that the primary book that we used for researching this episode, Ethan Brown's excellent Fat Cat 50 Cent and the

rise of the hip-hop hustler, also claimed quite definitively that the shooter was indeed Homo. The distinction of who the trigger man was exactly may not really matter in the end. Because the big bombshell here in John Reagan's testimony was that Prime was the one who'd been behind the attempted assassination of 50 cent. It was not some random stick-up kid. It wasn't some low-key street beef or whatever. It was the mastermind of a New York criminal empire, the chief of the Supreme Team, the alleged muscle of a record-list. with which 50 Cent have been publicly feuding. So to recap, 50 Cent claimed Homo was the shooter in his song,

Many Men Wish Death. At the Lorenzo Brothers 2005 trial, John Reagan testified that Robert's son Lyons pulled the trigger on behalf of Primm, who sat by and watched as 50 Cent was sprayed with gunfire. Now this was one man's testimony. This was talked from a guy who we can, assumed had fallen from grace and fallen out of favor with Prime at some point. And so who knows?

Perhaps John Reagan had something to gain from saying something like this. And perhaps that gain was just to hurt Prime or to hurt the Lorenzo's. It's important to note that like many aspects of Pram's relationship with Murder Incorporated, this particular allegation has never been proven in a court of law. But here's the thing. Before the jury could hear John Reagan's story, The defense attorney, the Lorenzo's attorney, made this argument to the judge. And I quote, this 50 cent artist is at the height of his popularity. And this is an explosive issue. It's fundamentally unfair.

I believe this to be outcome determinative. This would be like a plot to assassinate Bob Dylan, unquote. In other words, people would lose their minds if they knew that one of the biggest leaders of New York City organized crime, Kenneth McGriff, aka Supreme, aka Prine, put out a hit on one of the biggest rappers in the world, that it would be a quote-unquote explosive issue and that the public wouldn't be able to handle it. So the judge did not allow the jury to actually hear this explosive testimony

from Joe Reagan implicating Kenneth Supreme McGriff, a.k.a. Prim as the mastermind behind the assassination attempt on 50 cent. Less than two weeks later, on December 2, 2005, Chris and Irv Lorenzo were acquitted of the federal charges against them. But despite this, their reputation was already damaged by the criminal allegations and by their ties to preem, so much so that their careers and their murder ink label were never the same again. Their beef with 50 cent was never really squashed. And in the years that followed, Chris Lorenzo co-founded Ad Ventures,

a digital distribution platform aimed to give artists more control. And Irv Lorenzo eventually went into TV production before suffering. a massive stroke and dying in early 2025. Kenneth Supreme McGriff, aka A.K.A. Prime, he on the other hand, despite the jury not hearing the testimony from Joe Reagan incriminating him as the one who ordered the hit on Robert 50 Cent back in 2005 was not so lucky. In February of 2007, following his own trial for murder conspiracy and drug trafficking, Kenneth Supreme McGriff was sentenced to life in prison without parole. During his trial, he was asked by prosecutors about his role in the attempted assassination of 50 Cent.

Prim straight up denied any and all involvement and said that the government and the media made the whole thing bigger than it actually was. But to the hip-hop community at large, the Prime 50 Beef was an iconic conflict, which shaped rap music in the early 2000s and helped define who 50 Cent was. Later that same year, as Prime began serving his life sentence, 50 Cent. released his third studio album. It debuted at number two on the Billboard album chart, and within a month and a half, it sold over one million copies. 50 Cent called the album Curtis, perhaps a surprisingly vulnerable move to acknowledge the person he was

before he took a dead man's name as his own, a dead stick-up man who led a nasty, brutish, and short life of disgrace. Unlike 50 Cent, who's still breathing and who took that money without ever shaking hands with it. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgrace. All right, thanks for rolling with me in this 50 cent part two episode of disgrace land. Apple podcast listeners, make sure you have auto downloads turned on. Listen, I want to know from you guys, 617-90666-6-36-3-8,

which hip-hop star would you most want to sit down and have a drink with, chill out with, talk with, ask questions to, share some stories. This is a 50 cent. Who is it? Somebody else. Let me know. It could be any hip-hop star from any era. Not looking for rock stars.

Not looking for pop stars. You're looking specifically for hip-hop stars. Which one would you most want to hang out with? Let me know. 617-906-66-36-38. Call me with your answers. Leave a voicemail. Send me a text.

And you might hear yourself on the next episode of the after party coming up right after this. At disgrace-sland pod on the socials if you want to get at me on anything else. It's grace-ampod at gmail.com. I'm going to take off. Here comes from my. credits. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com.

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I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season, on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler,

we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. David O'Yello-O. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships. religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts.

Dennis Leary, Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes a suspect is found guilty before a verdict is ever read in court. On the Wicked Words podcast, I talk with the writers who dig deep into the cases that changed history, including Marcia Clark, who went from prosecuting one of the most famous murder cases to writing crime fiction. It doesn't matter that you didn't take part in the murder. If you were at the scene at all, you're guilty of murder.

Every week, the real story is revealed. Join us every Monday for new episodes of Wicked Words. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.