Is there any actual beef between former G-Unit soldier Young Buck and 50 Cent? According to Buck, though there are differences between the two there's no beef.

After airing out their situation over the past couple of weeks, Young Buck appeared on XM radio this past weekend and dropped his two cents on various situations including 50 Cent--his chain snatching, G-Unit, Sha Money XL and more.

"A lot of this shit that 50's doing towards my situation, I'm just not used to," he tells Mz. Kitti of XM's Raw 66.

"I'm a street nigga, I ain't used to nigga's just saying shit and just doing any of this shit I'm like 'Hold up.' ... I'm focused at this point and I'mma stay this way. I'm more happier than I've ever been in my career. I ain't lying." He continued.

Buck also took the time to reach out to The Game, acknowledging his support but says he hasn't managed to link up with the L.A. rapper as of yet.

"To the homie Game. I'm aware of you reaching out. I haven't gotten on no phone conversations and actually spoke to Game, but he's reached out to a few people that's around me just to show his support like 'Yo Buck, fuck whatever's going on, I just wanna see your well being, as long as you aight.' "

"That's love and I ain't even got that call from Banks and Yayo, and we ain't got no issues with each other. The issue was from 50."

There is no longer any excuse for making mindless hip-hop. New albums from both Philadelphia's Roots and Sudanese rapper Emmanuel Jal are politically and musically engaging, invalidating other rappers' whiny claims that it's just way too hard to be thought-provoking and topical and still make money, too.

With respectful, artful storytelling, Jal's "Warchild" and the Roots' "Rising Down," their best disc since "Things Fall Apart,"delve into broad issues of poverty, drugs and government corruption, and also tackle more specific ones, such as the plight of child soldiers in Africa.

On "Singing Man," from "Rising Down," Black Thought recounts the life of a physically and emotionally scarred child soldier in Sierra Leone. Jal, throughout "Warchild," tells a similar tale, but the story is his own: He was recruited in his own country's horrific civil war around the age of 11. Given the current rap landscape, the documenting of such atrocities on two separate hip-hop records is nothing short of amazing.

On "Rising Down," the Roots give their tried-and-true sound a huge dose of electro enhancements layering synthesizer effects over their instrumentals tempers heady subject matter with much-needed thump. Exploring topics such as greenhouse gases and tax hikes against a less relentlessly driving backdrop might've resulted in a wan hip-hop folk album.

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Ever since 50 Cent went public about booting Young Buck from the G-Unit group, the Tennessee rapper has been kind of quiet outside of his response record "My Interview."

On Friday (May 9), Buck resurfaced on XM Radio's Raw with Mz. Kitti for a special Cashville Radio show, and spoke his mind on several situations. In particular, the rift between himself and 50 Cent.

"A lot of this sh** that 50's doing towards my situation, I'm just not used to," he said on the air. "I'm a street n****, I'm ain't used to n****'s just saying sh** and just doing any of this sh**. I'm like 'Hold up.' ... I'm focused at this point and I'mma stay this way. I'm more happier than I've ever been in my career. I ain't lying."

While Buck wasn't clear about whether or not he's spoken to 50 since then, he did reveal that it caused problems for him across the board. One problem he pointed out, specificly, was with his longtime manager, Sha Money XL.

"The minute that 50 went public and said 'Yo Buck, you kicked out of G-Unit,' Sha Money pretty much disappeared from me for like two, three weeks. No contact at all," he admitted. "After that situation, I went to calling Sha, because he's my manager, and Sha just disappeared."

Despite the momentary disappearance from Sha, he still considers him a friend, and the pair on back on speaking terms again. "Sha Money was more than just a manager to me. At the end of the day, Sha Money was ... still is my friend. Sha's in a situation dealing with both of these things he's a friend of 50 Cent, he's my manager. Outside of that, we've growed our friendship. I'm Sha's best man on his wedding," explained Buck.

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With his debut album slated for a fall release, SOHH sat down with R&B sensation Ryan Leslie to find out what's in store for fans and learned why it was a gift and a curse to have a co-sign from 50 Cent.

On the heels of his hit single "Diamond Girl," 50 Cent and his G-Unit crew remixed the track for themselves. SOHH asked Leslie how he felt about the song.

"The 50 Cent [remix] joint that was actually a blessing and a curse in a lot of ways," he said. For the triple threat, singer/song writer and producer, an endorsement from 50 led some fans to associate the hot track with the G-Unit front man rather than the actual mastermind himself.

"I was walking through an airport like maybe three or four weeks ago and somebody says, 'Hey man, you look familiar,'" Leslie recalled. "And I was like, 'Oh maybe you know me, I got a song on the radio. I got a single called 'Diamond Girl.' And my man literally just shut me down and was like, 'You frontin,' that's a G-Unit record."

The 50 Cent remix apparently affected Leslie's iTunes sales since the track was available as a free download on the G-Unit mixtape and because 50 beat him to a video.

Despite all of the controversy surrounding the lead single, Leslie still admits "for 50 to jump on it was like a dope co-sign."

As for his next single, "Addicted," fans can expect an appearance from Brooklyn rapper Fabolous and Leslie protégé, Cassie.

"I really just wanted to still let everybody who had seen us come up together and were fans of us as a team, I wanted to introduce a record that still had that sort of conotation to it," he said.

The South Carolina Senate gave key approval Wednesday to a 50-cent per pack increase to the state's cigarette tax, setting aside much of the new money for health care for low income residents.

South Carolina's cigarette tax is currently 7 cents, the lowest in the nation. It was last raised 31 years ago. The vote to increase the tax was 30-11 in the Senate, with one abstention.

The tax is expected to collect $159 million yearly. Nearly all the money would be spent on expanding the state's Medicaid program and creating a new voucher system for the state's lowest-income residents to get private health insurance.

The measure is expected to get final approval Thursday before heading to an uncertain future in the House and a promised veto by Republican Gov. Mark Sanford.

The House bill started out last year as a tax swap that raised the cigarette tax by 30 cents in exchange for eliminating the sales tax on groceries. The move allowed Republicans who had signed no-new-tax pledges to support the measure.

The Senate version makes no attempt to balance a tax increase with a break, leading Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer to say the governor's veto promise stands.

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A young man who attended 50 Cent's Angola concert last Wednesday night has been turned in to authorities by his parents and arrested.

According to the local media, Bruno Carvalho is accused of jumping onstage during a G-Unit performance and taking a necklace from around 50 Cent's neck before jumping back into the audience.

The rep for the rapper commented about the incident on his website saying, "Being that security was limited, fans were able to interact with the group onstage. However one fan had a different motive, and bit off more than he can chew, as he attempted to run up on 50 and snatch his chain."

Carvalho's parents handed their son into police and is expected to face criminal charges according to MTV.com.

A spokesperson told The New York Times that Carvalho was prevented from leaving the concert and that 50 Cent's necklace had been returned.

The parents of the man who is accused of snatching a necklace from 50 Cent during a G-Unit show in Angola on Wednesday turned their son in to the police on Sunday to face charges in the incident. According to the Angola Press, Bruno Carvalho, whose age was not given, was handed over to police after the widespread footage of the chain grab leaked out over the weekend.

Carvalho, who is accused of grabbing the chain during a concert at the Cidadela Pavilion in Luanda, is expected to face criminal charges. In a statement to the Angolan News Agency, Carlos Mota, head of the National Police Analysis, Information and Studies Office, thanked the thief's parents for handing him over to the authorities. The incident occurred during a show that was part of the first day of the International Peace Festival.

In the widely circulated fan video that captured the incident, a man can be seen climbing onstage and ripping what appears to be a necklace from 50's neck, then jumping back into the crowd. On Monday, 50 addressed the matter on his personal Web site, ThisIs50.com, writing, "Recently 50 Cent, Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo were performing in Angola, Africa. Being that security was limited, fans were able to interact with the group onstage. However one fan had a different motive, and bit off more than he can chew, as he attempted to run up on 50 and snatch his chain."

According to the post, "50 pushed him off the stage and jumped into the crowd and then all hell broke loose." The site promised more on the incident soon, including live footage from the chain grab.

An unnamed G-Unit insider reportedly told TMZ.com that what isn't seen in the fan video was that 50 jumped off the stage "and punched the man who tried to jack him." The insider also reportedly said, "The chain is around 50's neck right now." A spokeswoman for 50 Cent at Interscope Records told The New York Times that the interloper had been prevented from leaving, and that 50's chain had been recovered. 

With his massive entourage and security team, it's been a while since rapper 50 Cent has had to deal with any real-life street crime.

But he was taken back to his old days as a street hustler recently, when an African man ran on stage to steal his diamond-encrusted chain during a recent concert in Angola.

Fiddy, or Curtis Jackson as his mother named him, was performing in Luanda when the overzealous fan crashed the show and nabbed Fiddy's booty.

The incident caused a ruckus, and Jackson's entourage chased after the wanna-be gangster and caught him.

TMZ reports that 50 Cent wasn’t going to take the theft lightly. He reclaimed his beloved bling-bling, only after dealing out a Jackson special king hit to the crim.

The chain was unharmed and did not make a formal statement.

Lyle “Lefty” Meeks has been cutting hair in the town of Cass for the past 60 years. His barber’s pole still hangs where it always has in a shaded, quiet corner of the 107 year old lumber company town, now preserved as Cass Scenic Railroad State Park.

            On May 10, Lefty Meeks will celebrate his 60 years as the barber in Cass by giving 50 cent hair cuts, the same price he charged when he started barbering in 1948. Meanwhile, his family will offer hamburgers, hot dogs and soft drinks as a warm-up to the reopening of Cass Scenic Railroad State Park for the 2008 season on May 23.            

            Lefty never ran a steam engine or operated a saw in the mill, but he has watched the town of Cass change from a busy, booming company town to a pastoral state park that appeals to our yearnings for a time that echoes with the whistle calling the men to work and of trains bringing news and supplies in from far away places. Lefty Meeks is considered by many to be as much a part of the town of Cass as the trains.

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50 Cent was supposed to do a 90-minute set last night in Johannesburg, but the people at the sold-out Coca-Cola Dome wanted more. So he and the G-Unit obliged, performing an extra 40 minutes, even taking requests (not that they were audible). Women threw their bras onstage, and 50 stripped down to his skivvies, just for a second.

Despite the late night, we were out the door early this morning, flying 45 minutes northwest of Johannesburg on a little private jet 45 to a region of the planet none of us ever thought we’d see. And then … more traveling: 40 kilometers by car and a journey 150 meters below the earth’s surface. The reason? Platinum mines. A day after meeting Nelson Mandela, 50 Cent wanted to learn about where his platinum plaques came from. (Kidding! Sort of.)

We changed into blue jumpsuits, packed some light gear and descended into the earth. Super-producer Nick Neofitidis and I shot a segment on 50’s spelunking, but Nick gets extra credit for blindly navigating tough underground terrain while still swashbuckling with the camera.

It was amazing, though, that even in this remote part of the country, 50 is still a star. I kinda get why he pushes that point in his lyrical battles with other artists; it’s gotta be intoxicating to be that recognized. The miners even played 50’s CD on the mineshaft soundsystem as we rode the chairlift down.

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