50 Cent: 'Headphone rivalry made it difficult to work with Dr. Dre'

Rapper 50 Cent quit his former record label last year (14) amid tensions between him and his pal Dr. Dre over their competing headphone brands.

The In Da Club hitmaker was signed to Interscope for 12 years before he parted ways with the label in February (14) and later joined the independent Caroline Records.

50 Cent, who set up his SMS Audio headphones brand in 2011, has now admitted clashes over his reluctance to promote Beats by Dr. Dre, the rival range created by Dre and Interscope boss Jimmy Iovine, were partly to blame for his departure.

He tells Telegraph.co.uk, "Everyone's competitors watch the people they're competing with, but there was a point when they were a little more conscious of me than I felt comfortable with, because we're friends.

"We have two companies that do the same thing, but so do plenty of other companies, so there was nothing to make him feel like he was supposed to be the only person in the category. They just identified how effective the marketing (of Beats) could be when I was connected to it, so it kind of made it difficult for me to work with him and I had to leave the label."