Fat Joe has been sent a warning by 50 Cent’s fans for hanging out with Kenneth McGriff Jr., whose father allegedly conspired to murder the “In Da Club” rapper.
McGriff Jr. posted a clip on Instagram on Wednesday (November 22) of him shopping with Joey Crack, who could be seen wearing a “Supreme Team” varsity jacket — a nod his father’s former street gang.
“That’s Supreme Team, baby. You can’t get more official than this, more authentic than this. You be kidding yourself, man,” the Terror Squad rapper says in the video while stood next to McGriff Jr.
The footage quickly sparked speculation that Joe and 50 could start feuding once more after squashing their beef in 2012, with many fans pointing out that the G-Unit mogul is not one to forget any perceived slights.
“This ain’t gonna sit right with 50,” one person commented on the post, while another said: “Dam the beef fina start up all over again.”
Someone else criticized Joe for hanging out with McGriff knowing his family’s history with 50: “I’ve NEVER seen a dude play both sides of the fence the way he does.”
McGriff Jr.’s father was notorious drug lord Kenneth McGriff, also known as “Supreme,” who was allegedly behind the plot to murder 50 Cent in 2000 when he was shot 9 times.
Supreme allegedly took issue with the rapper’s 1999 track “Ghetto Qur’an,” which namechecked McGriff and several other figures involved in organized crime in New York.
McGriff was also allegedly involved in the murder of Jam Master Jay, who had begun mentoring a young 50. He was also close to Murder Inc. heads Irv Gotti and Ja Rule, who had an intense feud with 50 during the early ’00s.
According to documents released by U.S. investigators, McGriff and Murder Inc. plotted to assassinate 50 in 2000 and there was an ongoing plot as late as 2003.
50 has never co-operated with prosecutors regarding his shooting.
Gotti would later be charged with money laundering McGriff’s drug money, but was found not guilty at trial.
Despite their own history of bad blood, 50 Cent and Fat Joe have formed an unlikely friendship in recent years, with the pair praising each other’s work and performing together.
50 has even expressed regret over his beef with the Bronx native, which stemmed from his collaborative relationship with Ja Rule.
“There’s an element, a part of our culture that I’m aware of it because I am it,” he told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “Your Lil Durks, your NBA YoungBoys, the whole surrounding cast of that … it almost splits our culture in half because when you cool with one, you can’t work with the other.
“I was using the same thinking in the very beginning of my career because it’s just the thinking you would use in the environment. If anybody went next to Ja Rule, I’d jump on the person who featured with them, anybody who was faintly near them, ’cause I put him on life support and you wanna go resuscitate him.
“So that energy, later you look at it and you go, ‘I was buggin.’”
Fif also complimented Joe’s loyalty to Ja Rule, saying: “He’s really the kind of guy you want to be friends with because he’s loyal to a default. He’s so loyal for one record that [Murder Inc.] did with him that we became enemies.”