(June 4, 2025). Fiddy hates Diddy. Actually, 50 Cent doesn’t just hate Diddy — he relishes his downfall. The “In Da Club” rapper has never seen a trolling opportunity that he could pass up when it comes to Diddy’s current legal woes. Almost daily, the MC-turned-TV production mogul has mocked the embattled Bad Boy kingpin on social media, literally basking in the prospect that the former hip-hop and fashion entrepreneur born Sean Combs might spend the rest of his life in jail.
That is, until there became the very real possibility that he might not. Speculation has grown that no matter what the outcome of the ongoing federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial against Diddy will be, Donald Trump might use his presidential powers to free hip-hop’s most mercurial figure this side of Kanye West. Aside from the millions of taxpayer dollars spent by the Justice Department on this case that would essentially be flushed down the drain, that pardon would send yet another message not just about Diddy, whose freedom would be riding on his celebrity status and prior connections to Donald Trump, but about the POTUS himself.
Related: Bad Boy Meets MAGA? What a Trump Pardon of Diddy Would Really Mean
It’s a message that Fiddy knows all too well. Trump’s moves are often driven by self-serving motives. Like his reality TV days, Trump’s pardon game is all about ratings — he only plays hero when the cameras (and voters) are watching. Sure he’s pardoned other controversial rappers in the past, but the benefits to his image (within the younger hip-hop generation) and to his past presidential ambitions surely were worth the few strokes of the pen it took to exercise that part of his powers.
Some in the Black community — particularly Black males — cited his pardons of Kodak Black (commuted sentence) and Lil Wayne at the end of his first term in 2021 as reasons they supported the president in the 2024 election. Trump’s recent pardon of superstar rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again and commuted federal sentences of Michael “Harry O” Harris (co-founder of Death Row Records) and Larry Hoover (Gangsta Disciples gang leader) further endeared him to the hip-hop community and earned the attention of Trump convert Snoop Dogg. And let’s face it, the 37 felony convictions that the now-president himself faced last year didn’t hurt his campaign when he likened his status to that of how Black men are treated in the justice system. Above all, Trump wants to be liked — no, loved — especially by celebrities the likes of Diddy and other hip-hop kings. He also wants people to believe he’s done more for the Black community than any other president… and freeing imprisoned rappers, rightly or wrongly, feeds that narrative.
But 50 also knows that 47’s benevolence only goes as far as someone’s willingness to effusively praise the twice-impeached Commander-in-Chief. Or, conversely, his ire is directed at those who have done just the opposite. Trump has thrown some of his most powerful, high-profile former allies under the bus, including former vice president Mike Pence after the then-second guy didn’t follow Trump’s unconstitutional commands to get Congress to overturn the 2020 election of Joe Biden. With zero regard to whether he believes Diddy is guilty or innocent, Fifty knows it would take nothing more than the unearthing of a verbal dart lobbed at Trump by Diddy to thwart any hopes of a presidential pardon, especially after the current White House occupant offered the following explanation when asked last week by Fox News’ Peter Doocy if he would pardon the troubled rapper.
“Nobody’s asked… [but] I know people are thinking about it,” Trump responded, saying he hasn’t been following the Combs trial coverage closely. “I haven’t seen him, I haven’t spoken to him in years. He used to really like me a lot, but I think when I ran for politics he sort of — that relationship busted up. He didn’t tell me that, but I read some little bit nasty stuff in the paper.”
He followed that with, “It’s not a popularity contest… I would certainly look at the facts. If I think somebody was mistreated, whether they like me or don’t like me, it wouldn’t have any impact on me.”
Sure. And about the “mistreated” part, that usually means an outcome with which Trump doesn’t agree, regardless of its legal merits.
But 50’s intervention also says a lot about himself or the image the “Many Men” rapper is willing to forsake within the hip-hop community. In hip-hop, silence is loyalty. So when 50 essentially tells the feds — or the feds’ top guy in the White House — “don’t let Diddy walk,” he’s not just breaking the code, he’s rewriting the rules of the game. Rarely, if ever, do rappers insert themselves — especially with no real stake in the outcome — in the legal proceedings of their fellow MCs, especially to the other rapper’s detriment. It violates the unwritten ‘no-snitching’ code that’s long shaped hip-hop — and even destroyed careers.
But 50’s beef with Diddy, which has largely been one sided of late, runs so deep that he’s willing to play the snitch role — the snitching in this case being reminding Trump of the bad things that the “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” rapper has said about 47 in the past with the hopes that it would end any talks of a potential pardon. Like this Instagram post from 50 Cent yesterday (June 3):
The crimes of which Diddy is being accused are serious. But 50’s insertion and Trump’s potential reaction to it all sounds kinda petty, especially considering the gravity of the charges against Diddy and the lives it allegedly affected, based on court testimony that has been released by the media so far.
But petty is the currency of the moment — whether in politics, hip-hop, or social media warfare. And in this three-way power play between Fiddy, Diddy, and Trump, everyone’s betting that clout — not justice — wins the day.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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