JAY-Z, Mal and Joe Budden, photographed backstage at the final
D'USSÉ Palooza party of the year at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan by Raven Verona on December 22, 2018. Mal is the brother of both the Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Kareem “Biggs” Burke and Kyambo “Hip-Hop” Joshua, who was the A&R behind many of Hov’s albums during the Roc-A-Fella era. Joe Budden and Jay have of course had issues in the past, which I will cover here.
The beef begins with the creation of Joe’s Grammy-nominated “Pump It Up”. Produced by Just Blaze, the upbeat club banger featured notable horn sample from Kool & The Gang’s “Soul Vibrations.” A skeleton version of the beat was played for Hov, Beanie Sigel and Freeway as a proposed “Roc The Mic” follow-up before the Jersey City rapper eventually got his hands on it during a do-or-die studio session with Just Blaze—Def Jam Recordings had been threatening to drop him if he didn’t deliver a hit.
When the single hit the streets in April 2003 and had immediate success, Joe and his team started to think about how they could keep the record going once it was released to radio. He and Skane decided that releasing a remix would continue momentum; and knew they wanted to ask Jay-Z, who was Joe’s labelmate and “favorite rapper in the world.” They got in contact with Dame Dash, who soon informed them the King of New York was currently recording at Baseline Studios and wanted to speak to them. The pair headed to
26th Street in Midtown Manhattan to meet with the Roc-A-Fella Records team.
Upon arrival Joe and Hov chopped it up for a while, with Joe telling Jay how he was a “huge fan” and they would love for him to do the remix—with Hov telling them “I’ll let you know.” A few days later and a number was given to Skane for the cost of Jay hopping on the remix. According to Budden, the number was one that Jay knew “good and goddamn well that a new artist could not afford.” To him it felt like not just a “No,” but a “fuck outta here” response.
Two weeks after their conversation at Baseline, Jay-Z dropped his stop-gap mixtape The S. Carter Collection with pairs of his new Reebok “S. Carter I” sneakers. The now-classic mixtape featured a freestyle over Just Blaze’s “Pump It Up” beat as the second track, and had the opening lines “Gimme that beat fool, it’s a full time jack move; don’t worry Skano I’ll give it back soon!” Hov went on to call himself the “Mike Jordan of mic recording” and likened his competition to less-decorated players such as the “washed up on marijuana” J.R. Rider (Joe had his own drug issues, so took offense to this most) and the tall-but-not-so-athletic Shawn Bradley. Hearing the remix made Joe irate, with him believing Jay was “gloating and show-boating” about him not being able to pay for the official remix verse, especially when he had refused to keep the beat when Just Blaze had played it for him. Joe decided he was “going to take his beat back” and began writing a new verse. He put his response together with Hov’s freestyle and released it as the remix.
The supposed beef between the two East Coast rappers simmered down, with them being pictured together at a Hip-Hop Summit’s rally in June 2003. However, when Jay-Z became the President and CEO of Def Jam Recordings in December 2004 a new can of worms was soon to be opened. Budden’s sophomore album, then titled The Growth, had been facing set-backs when the label didn’t understand the musical direction he was moving in. When Jay-Z became President Joe Budden’s grievances about the album delays were transferred to him; with him claiming that Hov had intentionally had his project stalled. While in limbo Joe did however self-release two volumes of his acclaimed Mood Muzik series.
In a November 2006 interview on Shade45, Jay would make reference to the artists upset with him sitting as the President and CEO of Def Jam and how the challenges Def Jam were facing under his tenure “were dissimilar to any other label, but of course I am who I am so it is on everyone’s radar and is magnified. You just can’t please everybody, especially when you have over 70 artists. And it’s not like I’m the only person there working—it’s a whole company.”
Shortly before Jay-Z was appointed as the President of Def Jam, he, Dame Dash and Kareem “Biggs” Burke announced the sale of their remaining 51% stake of Roc-A-Fella Records to its parent label, Island Def Jam. A week later Joe Budden’s name was interestingly included in a list of acts Dame said he planned to continue to work with and executive produce projects for, even though they were still signed to the Roc-A-Fella name that Hov would control as President. In March 2005 a Joe Budden verse featured on “Roc Café” alongside Memphis Bleek and Beanie Sigel. In a then-dated interlude, Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Dame Dash appeared before Joe’s verse, announcing that “I’m not sure if it’s too early, but
fuck it I'ma do it anyway… Joe Budden is officially on Roc-A-Fella!” Nothing came of the supposed deal, but in an October 2015 interview with Eric and Jeff on their A Waste of Time with ItsTheReal podcast Joe said they were “pretty close” to making it official and he “was down with Roc-A-Fella for like a week and a half.” However the talks came at a time when Jay and Dame were ending their working relationship, so Joe was “left in a funny predicament. I was looking to mess with Roc-A-Fella but they were breaking up and it was rumored that Jay was going to be the head of Def Jam. I was already on Def Jam, so it made for a sticky situation and it didn’t really work out.”
In October 2007 Joe Budden was released from his Def Jam Recordings soundtrack per his request. In an interview with AllHipHop a few months before the release, Jay had admitted that he wasn’t exactly sure how to release Budden as an artist, saying: “I never heard an album. If you just want to throw an album out there then next week, fine. [But then] you will be recording [songs] about how we didn’t support it. So we could do that, we could do that tomorrow. But I don’t think that what he wants. I don’t think that what he needs.” Answering Joe’s claims that he had tried to block his album release, Hov replied that he was “way too big of a person to [do that]. I would never block anyone’s blessing because of anything personal. If I didn’t want to deal with him, there’s other people [in the building].” He also touched on the source of the beef, addressing Joe’s anger at him jumping on “Pump It Up” four years earlier: “I mean, why do we have a problem? I just freestyled on his record. He probably made his career off of freestyling over other people’s records. But if I start freestyling over other people’s records—Lord forbid!”
In December 2007, Budden signed a multi-album deal with Amalgam Digital and released the third installment of the Mood Muzik series. on “Talk 2 ‘Em” Joey reignited the feud, going at Hov for still rapping at 38: “I mean, are we hustling or are we grown up? Everytime I hear you, you changing ya tone up/When the new generation think about Jordan all they remember is when Iverson crossed him/Take off the blazer, loosen up the tie, nigga fell in love and Superman died.” The last bar is of course a play on the “I been up in the office you might know him as Clark; but, just when you thought the whole world fell apart, I take off the blazer, loosen up the tie, step inside the booth, Superman is alive” lines from the title track of Jay-Z’s November 2006 post-retirement album Kingdom Come.
Jigga was also subliminally mentioned on “Ventilation” with the lines “How you sit so long when you spew classics, I tell niggas I can’t understand, that’s that blue magic …
Wishing all these old motherfuckers would stop rapping” referencing the lead single from Jigga’s newest album American Gangster; and Joe took shots at Def Jam and Jay’s time as President on “Roll Call.”
In an interview with MTV upon the mixtape’s release Joe Budden explained the meaning behind “Talk 2 ‘Em,” explaining “I don’t even attack Jay-Z. I attack Shawn Carter, the man in the suit, the man behind the desk. When I come in to have a conversation with you in search of some kind of guidance or information and get a whole bunch of bullshit in response, there’s no other way for an artist to respond.” He continued, “But the difficult part is that you’re the greatest rapper. It’s like the bully who comes to school, and because he can beat everybody up, he beats everybody up. So that was me saying, ‘Fuck you.’ If it comes down to going bar for bar with you, I’ll do that too. Whatever it takes to get some type of respect on this label, or off the label for that matter, I’m not afraid of you lyrically."
In an exclusive interview with Rhapsody.com in December 2008 Joe was asked about his current feelings towards the man who would step down from the Presidency at Def Jam just four days later. “If you look at it today, a lot of these younger people didn’t experience Reasonable Doubt, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, and the things that people my age have come to love Jay for. The younger generation is like, ‘Meh, fuck it, whatever.’ They don’t really respect [him],” he reasoned. “I don’t think he puts that fear in any artists like he once did. It’s like Shaquille O’Neal now. Shaq was one of the most dominant people to ever play. Nowadays, he’s still worth something, but it’s just not the same.”
“Yeah it was disrespectful, but it was a diss with a point: Stop rapping. Hang it up! You’re getting paid to be a president. Be a president. We loved you as a rapper. One of the best to ever do it. Now it’s time to do some other things,” Budden said as he explained the decision to release the diss track two months after leaving Def Jam. He would however acknowledge that it was the “President” title that caused him to blame Hov directly for his troubles, saying "If the title of President wasn’t on him, then there wouldn’t be anything for me to say [about him]. But I heard the complaints from Beans, LL Cool J, Freeway, DMX and Ludacris. If a million people are calling you a duck, then you probably need to look in the mirror.”
He continued, “If you look at it today, a lot of these younger people didn’t experience Reasonable Doubt, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, and the things that people my age have come to love Jay for. The younger generation is like, ‘Meh, fuck it, whatever.’ They don’t really respect [him]. I don’t think he puts that fear in any artists like he once did. It’s like Shaquille O’Neal now. Shaq was one of the most dominant people to ever play. Nowadays, he’s still worth something, but it’s just not the same.”
After a quiet few months, during the group’s set at Rock the Bells in Washington, D.C. in July 2009 Joey previewed one of his new Slaughterhouse verses, with the reference to “old-timers” and the bar
“Too many blueprints, not enough architects” seemingly a shot at Hov. In September the Roc Nation founder responded on The Blueprint 3′s “Reminder” with “Young Hov, tell them ordinary Joe’s button up.” In a November video uploaded to JoeBuddenTV, Mouse claimed that “I did not diss Hov recently. Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t send one line at Hov [this year] … ‘Too many many blueprints, not enough architects’ wasn’t a diss to him. When the fans made it into a diss, I certainly didn’t run to correct them because it helped. Joey also spoke on Hov’s BP3 response, saying “If you take Jay-Z away from Hip-Hop, it’s really boring and wack. Is it the same? No, it’s not the same. He definitely dissed me on Blueprint 3, I don’t care what he says; and he definitely probably blackballed the shit out of my career. But I love Jay-Z the artist. Just remember, if you go against Jay-Z, the fight is automatically fixed.“
On April 3, 2014 it was noticed that the only person Jay Z followed on Twitter was Joe Budden. This online message came after Joe had a day earlier tweeted that he believed Drake could step in the ring with Hov, and suggested that the rap mogul had fallen off. A few days later he was unfollowed, with the subliminal “Tweets Is Watching” message having been received.
In the October 2015 interview on the ItsTheReal podcast, Joe said he assumed he and Jay were cool now, and that time passing has meant they didn’t have any issue. Upon being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in June 2017, Hov tweeted out a list of rappers who have influenced him throughout the years. Included in the list was “Slaughterhouse (yes mouse too ha).”
In an interview with Billboard in May 2018 for the song’s 15th anniversary, Joe Budden was feeling better about the events of 2003, telling the interviewer that Hov jumping on the “Pump It Up” beat “was amazing. That was an amazing moment in hip-hop. I went to him for a remix, and for whatever reason, it didn’t happen. So when I heard it—I mean, I’m a huge Hov fan, so that was real big. He started spitting and he wouldn’t stop. Then I kind of was nervous a little bit. Now you got the best rapper on your ass with a hundred bars. Boy, that was nerve wracking.”
On The Joe Budden Podcast the now-retired rapper has been very open about his respect for Hov as the greatest rapper alive. For many of us a reunion was inevitable, and it was fitting it happened at a D'USSÉ Palooza event. On the last podcast episode for 2018, Mal shared the story of the explanatory “Pump It Up” discussion between JAY-Z and Joe Budden: “Actually it was Jay that brought it up. He said ‘You know, now that everything is cool, everything is good… Why was you mad that I rapped on your beat?!’ Everyone laughed. Joe says ‘Nah, you know, it was because at the time Dame was tryna get you to do the remix, and…” Before Joe could finish Jay was like ‘So what?!’ To Jay it was like ‘So what? It was a beat, I thought it was dope, I rapped on it. It wasn’t a shot at you [to do that].’ When we left and we were speaking in the car he did tell me that he wasn’t dissing you at all. He didn’t even know Joe like that, he hadn’t met him. [Jay] was just getting his bars off and rapping. That was a shock to me because all these years I have thought it was a diss to Joe. But he swore none of it was directed at Joe.”
While any issues have certainly been settled and left in the past, Joe still felt he was in the right for being mad, saying, “if somebody comes to you for the remix and you tell them some astronomical number that’s not in the budget, but then you go rap on the beat for free and happen to just wordplay the nigga’s whole drug experience? That sounds nuts. But, I mean, after speaking to him you gotta believe him.”
