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"We had a swell-up of hate" ...
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"I was having fun confronting the fans that had turned on me." ...
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"You had to be a leader to be on Ja Rule's side. The ones that stood up for me, holla back." ...
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"We're innocent, and our innocence will be proven." ...
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Through it all, Rule said he's learned to appreciate family, both musical and blood, more than ever.
"I really learned a lot about people's values," he said. "You had to be a leader to be on Ja Rule's side. The ones that stood up for me, holla back. I got y'all forever."
Ironically, Ja Rule has found himself in the middle of a difficult situation with regard to the recent feud between his friends R. Kelly and Jay-Z, which has resulted in a lawsuit and criminal charges. A couple of years ago, in the midst of Kelly's sex scandal, Rule stood up for the Pied Piper and appeared on Kelly's Chocolate Factory LP when most were treating the R. like public enemy number one. This year, it was Kelly proving he was down for Ja, joining the rapper on both "I Wonder" (which has never been officially released) and its remix, "Wonderful."
On October 29 at Madison Square Garden, Rule was slated to be a surprise performer during Kelly's set when the now-infamous Best of Both Worlds breakdown occurred. Kelly refused to continue performing the concert because he claimed two men in the audience were waving guns at him, although he changed his mind after being convinced that it was safe to return to the stage by the promoter. The singer never did make it back to the mic, because he said he was pepper-sprayed by a member of Jay-Z's entourage.
"I was not with Kells," Rule recalled of that night. "Kells was coming to the stage; I was on the stage watching the show from the monitors. I didn't see anything. I felt the melee going on and everybody start clearing the stage. How does Ja Rule always wind up in the middle of these things? I'm trying to stay neutral. You guys, settle that, good luck. I'mma stay absolutely out of it. "
With Kelly leaving the Garden well before the concert was scheduled to end — reportedly to seek medical treatment after the pepper-spray incident — Jay had to scramble and call upon his celebrity friends to complete the show. One of them was Jay's estranged buddy Ja Rule.
Rule was quick to downplay longstanding rumors that he and Jay had beef stemming from a series of events that include the Inc. trying to sign onetime Hov enemy Nas, and Jay later going on tour with Ja's biggest foe, 50 Cent.
"Me and Jay never had a falling out," he said. "It was just competitive. It was just that we wanted to be the best at what we do. That [night] was the first time we'd stepped on the stage together since '98, '99. It felt real good. In my eyes, that's how it should be. We came in [the game] together, seen each other grow. It was fun.
"I remember when we use to go on Cancun trips. I got arrested, Jay would bail me out. It sounds bad, but it was fun. Those were the good old days. Hip-hop is different now. Everybody's cliqued up."
Far more contentious was the feud between the Inc. and the Shady/ Aftermath/ G-Unit crew, which bubbled to a boiling point at the end of last year when Rule released Blood in My Eye. Not only was the album his weakest-selling to date, it was laced with venom toward his enemies in almost every verse: "DMX was my dog, but now we just dog-fight/ Sucking on a glass d---, calling them crack pipes/ And I'm hearin' you letting yo' health slide these days/ And yo lady's d---ed up and you contracted AIDS/ Who the f--- you callin' gay, n---a?/ You musta' been talkin' to Em' and Dre."
In retrospect, that bitter album seems like Ja hitting bottom. The streets hardly cared and the mainstream responded with deaf ears.
"To me, those records on that album wasn't street records, those were hate records," he said. "The audience for hate music is slim. People don't want to hear that. We got terrorist attacks going on. Nobody wants to hear about all that bad stuff. I can understand why a lot of fans were mad at me. A lot of my male fans were like, 'Yeah, get 'em, Rule!' But a lot of my female fans were like, 'Forget them, Rule, do what we like you to do.' I understood that, but I'm an artist and sometimes it ain't about the money. That's what I felt like saying, how I wanted to put it across. That's why I didn't put none of them other records on there — no party-style records, no records for the ladies, no feeling records. Just 'I hate you.' "
Even though Ja won't be exchanging Christmas gifts with anyone from the opposing camps this year, he's ready to move past the feud.
"I don't even gotta speak on it no more," he insisted. "I feel like I'm not never making another record about these n---as, ever. I don't feel I need to. We wasted a year on making records and sh-- like that. Basically, all n---as is doing is putting on a show for the people, and the show is wack. I listened to the Shyne [song, "For the Record," where he goes after 50 Cent], and Shyne is sh---ing on them n---as. And because the public is so drawn into the show, they can't detect what's real and what's fake. And [Shyne] is saying real sh-- on there. I ain't thinking about that anymore. How many [times] can I say, 'F--- them?' "
Eminem has gone public with similar sentiments. In a recent interview with MTV News, Slim Shady said he was "walking away from the beef."
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Photo: Johnny Nunez
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