One of the bigger headlines of the music night was actually occurring away from the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday. At midnight (technically Monday we suppose) hip-hop supergroup G-Unit dropped six new songs on an EP titled The Beauty of Independence. It's the group first release since 2008's T.O.S: Terminate On Sight.
G-Unit's first surprise of the year was when the group—comprised of 50 Cent, Lloyd Banks, Young Buck, Tony Yayo and new member Kidd Kidd—took the stage at the Hot 97 Summer Jam in New Jersey. Based on recent interviews with Billboard and other publications, the fact that new music was forthcoming seemed inevitable, but the group opted to release the EP without any press.
So what's new? For one thing, G-Unit is no longer represented by Shady Records, being released independently on Caroline Records, the same imprint where 50 dropped his own Animal Ambition earlier this year. The headlining rapper in the group isn't the only one writing hooks anymore either: Tony Yayo reportedly handled the chorus for two tracks.
Yayo made it seem to Billboard that he was the most frustrated of all that G-Unit had split.
"So when Banks stop talking to 50, I'm not talking to Buck, nobody's talking to nobody. Now I'm lost. I'm like, 'What am I going to do?'" he said. "And bad enough, your friends you think are your real friends - the 40-man entourage you paid for dinner for, you took to this and that - where did they go? They're gone. They're out the picture."
