Attention in the hip hop world is focusing more and more on that previously reported incident when G-Unit rapper Tony Yayo allegedly confronted and hit the fourteen year old son of Jimmy 'Henchmen' Rosemond, founder of hip hop management firm Czar Entertainment and a long term feuder with the G-unit posse.
Yayo allegedly confronted the teenager as he made his way to work as an intern at his father's New York based company, with the rapper seemingly offended by the Czar Entertainment t-shirt the teen was wearing. Yayo, real name Marvin Bernard, was charged with one count of misdemeanor assault and one count of endangering the welfare of a minor in relation to the altercation, and he will face those charges in court on 25 Apr.
Yayo's fellow G-uniter 50 Cent is also tangled up in the incident, because Rosemond junior claims the hip hop star was present at the time of the attack and even ordered Yayo to hit him. Fiddy's people strongly deny he had any involvement, even denying he was in New York at the time of the incident. Nevertheless, protestors picketed the New York offices of 50 Cent and G-unit's record label, Universal Music, on Monday with banners bearing lines like "save your children" and "ban 50 Cent".
Capitalising on that protest, Czar staged a press conference on this issue denouncing 50 Cent, Tony Yayo and their associates, and calling on music industry execs like Universal chief Doug Morris and Interscope founder Jimmy Iovine to likewise condemn their artists' actions. Alongside the teenager's mother, Cynthia Reed, and Czar exec Bryce Wilson were New York Councilman Charles Barron and civil rights activist Al Sharpton. According to Allhiphop.com, the latter told the press event: "I'm not here to take sides, I'm here to say that all sides are letting us down and need to come down to the table again and create a level of decency and respect for the communities that has been the basis of your wealth. We put the 'ING.' in your bling bling [and] have no choice but then to try and [take] 'the' 'ING' out your bling bling by withdrawing our support commercially of your records and your use of airwaves".
Barron, meanwhile, said: "It is out of control. We gotta deal with the police who are out of control. Then we gotta deal with some of our own people who are out of control. I'm on the side of black youth who should be able to walk this community without being abused because of some foolishness that adults who are making bling, money, whatever you're making, you shouldn't even be involved in dealing with beefs that will lead to more death and destruction of our people. Let's use hip hop for liberation and revolution, and not foolishness".
Stephane Hires, mother of the child of Israel Ramirez, the bodyguard killed outside a Busta Rhymes video shoot early last year, was also at the press conference - investigators of that shooting reckon Ramirez may have been shot after an argument involving Yayo, who was at the video shoot, got out of control, and it has been alleged that it was a Yayo associate who fired the fatal shot. However the G-unit man has always denied knowing who fired the gun that killed Ramirez.
Hires told the press event: "We shouldn't have to be here today, but unfortunately due to an act of senseless violence we are. This young man [her son] Stiles Ramirez is why I am here. You may have forgotten, but I can't and he won't, that his father was senselessly murdered at a video shoot on Feb. 6, 2006. Young men today face many obstacles already. As a community we have to take responsibility and protect them from harm".
Despite the general call for cooperation on both sides at the Czar press conference, long term 50 Cent / G-unit feuder The Game, who is managed by Czar, has released a track via his MySpace dealing with the attack against Rosemond Junior, and the call for reconciliation is notable by its absence there. The rap includes the lines: "Potato on the muzzle, black tape on the grip/We in the A-Team van with black tape on your bitch/She gonna tell us where you at, we gonna twist that dro/And just wait until the rat climbs out that hole/Know the streets aint safe, when we see him we gonna eat that face/No body we gonna beat that case/It's on again, two shots of patron, I'm in..."
G-unit have, so far, avoided getting into any rap dissing with regard this altercation - possibly because if Yayo is guilty of what is alleged it is pretty indefensible, even through rap, though it is still unclear whether Yayo recognised Henchman's son before he attacked him - not that that would make what he did excusable, though attacking your arch-rival's son is slightly different than attacking a random teenager because of his choice of t-shirt.
G-unit have issued a statement telling reporters they are undertaking their own investigation into what happened when Yayo met Henchman junior, and again distancing 50 Cent from the incident. Lawyer Benjamin Brafman said this week: "We are conducting our own investigation to determine exactly what happened in Manhattan on Tuesday, March 20. One thing I can say with absolute certainty, however, is that at the time of the alleged incident, 50 Cent was not in New York State".
Fiddy himself is quoted as saying: "I have authorised an independent investigation of the incident to determine whether anyone associated with G-Unit Records was involved in the confrontation. I must state for the record, that I was at my home in Farmington, Connecticut the entire day completing songs for my new album".
It will be interesting to see where all this goes from here, though it's good to know that while former feuders Snoop Dogg and P Diddy can now tour the world together as friends, the next generation of hip hop stars keep the always petty and at times deadly tradition of hip hop feuding alive.