The legendary rapper Prodigy, who was one-half of Mobb Deep, died far too young. He was only 42 when he passed away on tour in Las Vegas in 2017, and, naturally, the news was met with terrible dismay at the time.

Tributes from all across the hip-hop world poured in for Prodigy, who, alongside his Mobb Deep partner, Havoc, had been a pioneer of hardcore East Coast hip-hop throughout the 1990s. A lot of rappers had been shaped by Prodigy’s work during his lifetime, and some of those people—those who knew him personally—missed the man behind the songs a little more. Among them was 50 Cent.

The music that Mobb Deep produced at their height was cold and dark, detailing, in quite a chilling, visceral way, how difficult life could be for young Black men in a ’90s America that subjected them to violence, racism, and poverty. Police harassment was a constant presence in Mobb Deep songs, and it was not for nothing. Prodigy himself actually spent more than three years in jail after being found to be in illegal possession of a firearm. He understood what it was like to be on the wrong side of the law, and his songs reflected that.

A few years before he was sent to jail for that three-year stint, Mobb Deep released their sixth studio album, 2004’s Amerikaz Nightmare. This not being quite their heyday, the album didn’t sell especially well, and the following year, they left their label, Jive Records, and found a new home.

They signed with 50 Cent’s G-Unit Records, on which they released their next album, Blood Money, in 2006. It featured a lot of people associated with G-Unit, including 50 Cent himself, Lloyd Banks, Tony Yano, and Young Buck, but it would prove to be the duo’s only G-Unit release. They left the label in 2009 but still seemingly enjoyed a fine working relationship with its owner.

When Prodigy died, 50 felt moved to tell the world a story about the sort of person he had been. And, if nothing else, it proves that all the stories Prodigy had rapped about, especially the tales of police harassment, had been drawn from his actual life. His disdain for them was well-earned. As 50 Cent told it, the cops had, at one stage, tried to convince Prodigy to betray 50 so they could trap him by asking him to plant a gun on him.

Had the cops ever actually listened to Prodigy’s music, perhaps they might have been able to predict the response he’d give them. That is to say, he most certainly didn’t help them. As 50 explained on an Instagram post, “The police tried to get P to set me up. They asked him if I keep any gun or drugs around. They wanted him to put a gun in my car.”

It’s a twisted story, and a telling one that demonstrates what young Black men can go through in their dealings with the cops. But Prodigy was never going to help them. He held strong, and 50 Cent knows it and was grateful for it. “He didn’t do it,” he wrote, “Instead, he told me what they were trying to do. My man P”.