"They think I'm crazy," 50 told MTV last week in his Connecticut mansion, chuckling about what

Eminem and Shady Records tell him about giving away so much material for free. "Sometimes [Em] misses why I put it out. He goes, 'Why did you put it out?' But I can't be as hot as I'm gonna be if I don't play around. I gotta spar before I go fight the champ. That's my concept of it. If I don't go out and make material and lock in, I'm not gonna make the best possible material for the next [official] project."

Lately he and Fat Joe have been going back and forth in interviews, songs and Photoshopped pictures on the Web. "The Hip-Hop Weekly [a fake cover] came out, and it was a thing with [Benzino] supposed to be [sleeping] with Fat Joe's wife," 50 said. "I didn't make that. I didn't have anyone [Photoshop] that. Why would you do that? I work for Hip-Hop Weekly? They'll know that there are issues between me and Joe, so when he approaches them, they'll say, 'Nah, it must be 50. You know how 50 is.' But I didn't care, 'cause I don't like Joe neither. It doesn't matter to me that they did it, but it didn't come from me."

 Fans can expect a new album from G-Unit, tentatively titled "Lock And Load", to hit shelves by the end of the summer.