Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 10/02/2012 at 3:36 PM News

The Popdust Files: 50 cent, chris lighty, Fat Joe, feuds, funerals

Hard to believe in the year 2012, but there was a time when a beef between 50 Cent and Fat Joe was at the forefront of hip-hop current events. (Remember how big “Candy Shop” and “Lean Back” were back in the mid-’00s?) It resulted in a couple dis tracks—”Piggy Bank” off 50′s The Massacre being the biggest—and a couple awkward public moments, including Fat Joe joking about feeling safe at the 2005 VMAs “with all the police protection—courtesy of G-Unit.”

Their feud has since faded from the headlines, but simmered behind the scenes, until the two were reunited recently at an occasion that transcended petty hip-hop sparring, the funeral of hip-hop industry titan Chris Lighty, who discovered both rappers. Joe told Philadelphia’s Hot 107.9 about how the two rappers met at Lighty’s service, and finally did what he always bugged them to do—bury the hate:

While we were there, 50 whispered some things in my ear that was gentleman-like…He just said the right things and a handshake was involved and that was that. It was two grown men that just said, ‘This is for Chris Lighty, this is for hip-hop, let’s move on with our lives.’

Well, cold comfort for the hip-hop world after a loss felt as deeply as Lighty’s, but the late executive would probably be glad to know that he was eventually able to bring the two heavyweights from his home city back together.

[MTV]