Taylor Swift’s mentioning of 50 Cent: diss or genuine shout out?

WEB DESK: Rapper 50 Cent has responded warmly to Taylor Swift name-dropping him in her latest album The Life of a Showgirl, and says he’s open to working with her someday but basically because he does not harbour the feelings another rapper and pop artist Kanye West has shown in the past many years.

In Swift’s track Ruin the Friendship in Life of a Showgirl, she sings, “But as the 50 Cent song played, should’ve kissed you anyway,” a nostalgic nod to early 2000s pop culture when 50 Cent dominated the charts. Speaking to Extra TV, the rapper, whose real name is Curtis James Jackson III, said he appreciated the shoutout. “It’s cool because she’s referencing a moment in culture you couldn’t miss back then,” he said. “At that point, no one was more prominent in music.”

Asked about a possible collaboration, the In da Club hitmaker said he’d be open to it if Swift initiated. “We gotta ask her, she’s in the driver’s seat,” he joked. “Taylor’s huge right now; she’d have to find a record that fits 50.”

Once a defining voice of 2000s rap, 50 Cent has shifted focus to producing and acting, including his recent true-crime series 50 Ways to Catch a Killer on Fox Nation. Still, the idea of a 50 Cent–Taylor Swift crossover has fans buzzing, and the rapper doesn’t seem to be ruling it out.