50 Cent says Eminem walked away from the Street Fighter soundtrack to finish his own album, and the reveal came straight from the red carpet. Speaking at the Los Angeles premiere on Monday, October 12, 50 told reporters his longtime friend had started building pieces for the film’s music before choosing to step back and lock in on his next solo project.
“Em, he put a couple pieces together for it and decided, because he got closer to his album, he kinda fell back on that, because he’s preparing his presentation for the next album,” 50 said in the interview carried by the Associated Press. Billboard flagged the quote as the clearest signal yet that a new Eminem record is in the pipeline, delivered with what the outlet described as a sly smile.
The backstory stretches back months. 50 first promised in December that he would get Eminem on deck for the movie’s music, then sent the internet spinning in July when he teased a posthumous collaboration with 2Pac featuring both of them. “I did something currently: me, Eminem and 2Pac,” he told Today at the time. HipHopHero traced that timeline, and Vice’s take notes the exit does not kill the earlier material, only Em’s continued involvement.
50 has plenty riding on the film himself. He plays Balrog in the live-action Street Fighter reboot, which stars Jason Momoa, Noah Centineo, Andrew Koji, Roman Reigns, Cody Rhodes, and Andrew Schulz, and opens in theaters this Friday, October 16. iHeart’s coverage of the premiere notes the movie gives him the acting vehicle while the soundtrack seat he hoped to share with Em goes unfilled.
Fans of the duo have heard reunion talk before. Hypefresh has covered 50 Cent paying for Lil Meech’s acting classes before BMF and the wider Shady and Aftermath orbit, including Dr. Dre’s warning to Drake over Kendrick Lamar’s family. The Detroit mentor-protégé bond that started in 2002 keeps generating headlines exactly like this one, where a single red carpet answer resets expectations for an album nobody has officially announced.
No title or release date exists for the Eminem project yet. What is confirmed is the trade: soundtrack placement out, solo album focus in. For a rapper who has spent 2026 dodging feature requests, clearing the deck is the loudest hint that the presentation 50 mentioned is coming sooner rather than later.
