Talking with 2 Fast 2 Furious director John Singleton, Grantland details the depressing story of how Ja Rule lost out on his huge chance to be in the Fast & Furious films. He was in the first one, playing a street racer named Edwin, and in one scene he sets up what could’ve been a nice ride in the franchise’s following six films — but he didn’t know that. When Singleton reached out to the rapper about the sequel, he was basically shut down:
“Ja got too big for himself. He turned it down. He turned down a half a million dollars,” Singleton said. “He got 15 grand to be in the first movie. He was really big at that time. I guess Murder Inc. was throwing out hits and were making money hand over foot. He was acting like he was too big to be in the sequel. He wouldn’t return calls. I went to the studio to go see him — that’s just my mantra, I deal with a lot of music people. He was kinda playing me to the side and I was like, ‘What? What is this shit?’ This was all initiated by me. I then made a call. I called Ludacris.”
Yep. Singleton reached out to Luda and the rest was history:
“Ja Rule not doing 2 Fast 2 Furious changed Ludacris’s life,” Singleton said. “Years later I saw Ja Rule at the Source Awards and we joked about it. I took him under my arm and said, ‘Man, when I call you, you listen. I ain’t calling you for no bullshit.’ He said, ‘Yeah, man, I’m sorry about that.’ He apologized. I love Ja. I still think Ja has a lot of personality and can come back in a different way.”
Damn.
