50 Cent Believes Hov Retired To Avoid Competing With Him. "Where Was Jay Z From 2003 To 2006? I Sold 23 Million Records. He Said 'I Quit'"

Competition is what drives most hip hop artists. The desire to be number one has produced many great battles between between rappers throughout the history of the genre of music.

50 Cent and Jay Z haven't gone toe to toe for an extended period at any point during their careers, although they have jabbed at each other a few times.

Everyone remembers the G-Unit mogul's 1999 song "How to Rob," where he called out the names of people in the industry he would stick up, including Jigga. Jay responded on a track entitled "It's Hot."

After 50 Cent dropped his classic Get Rich or Die Tryin' album in February of 2003, Hov released what was supposed to be his swan song, The Black Album, in November of that same year. The Brooklyn, New York emcee didn't officially return to the game until November 2006, with the release of Kingdom Come.

While speaking at SiriusXM's "Town Hall" on Monday, March 17, 50 said that Hov purposely avoided competing with him during the years he was absent.

Where was Jay Z from 2003 to 2006? I sold 23 million records from 2003 to 2006. He stopped making music. He said ‘I quit. We’ll get back to what we got later. I quit. Timeout. I’ll come back to play later.’ When he signed that Beyonce contract he was like ‘men lie, women lie, numbers don’t.’