Rumors have persisted
in recent weeks that Brownsville, New York rhyme posse M.O.P. has been on the
verge of signing with 50 Cent’s G-Unit Records.
Group member Billy
Danze confirmed with AllHipHop.com that the group is now officially signed with
50’s label.
"It’s a beautiful
thing, it’s working out," Danze told AllHipHop.com. "We’re doing new
joints for the album and we’re currently on the Anger Management tour with G-Unit."
The group was originally
signed to Roc-A-Fella, but when the label was broken up and sold off to the
Island Def Jam Music Group in December of 2004, the group was caught in the
crossfire.
M.O.P. ended up
on Dame Dash’s Dame Dash Music Group, but in May of 2005, group manager Laze
E. Laze told AllHipHop.com that M.O.P. planned on a clean break from all parties.
Danze explained
that the new situation with G-Unit has afforded them lots of new opportunities
and he’s looking forward to creating some new, dope music, which should come
out in early 2006.
"We got a
new situation, so we wanna start fresh," Danze said. "We cover all
the grounds we need to cover now."
With the recent
signing of Mobb Deep to G-Unit confirmed as well, fans of the group should expect
the possibility of some high-profile collaborations. According to Billy, no
matter the label, it’s still all about the hardcore.
"It doesn’t
matter who you’re making music with or what label you’re signed to, as
long as you’re doing it the way you’ve done it for years," Danze explained.
"We listen to dudes from everywhere, it don’t make a difference who you
are as long as you got good music."
Still, many loyal
M.O.P. fans may feel like the group might change now that they are aligned with
an international star like 50 Cent. Billy feels that fans should embrace the
new label deal.
"Because you
don’t like the situation that I put myself in – which is a better situation
– you don’t wanna f**k with me no more? That doesn’t make sense to me. What
it means to me is you weren’t really down with us anyway," Danze told Allhiphop.com.
"We do music from the bottom, we represent the parts of society that people
try to forget about, and we will continue to do that, regardless of our [label]
situation."
As Billy puts it,
true fans will ride or die and keep showing the love. "If you’re a real
fan, you’re gonna want me on the winning team," he said.
You can currently
catch M.O.P. performing at various venues across the country performing on the
Anger Management Tour.
