Joe Budden has issued an apology to NBA YoungBoy and walked back his prior comments calling the younger rapper’s music “trash.”
The switch-up came on the latest episode of Joe’s eponymous podcast, released on Wednesday (December 6). Though it’s behind a paywall, TMZ got their hands on the audio and Joe admitted he needs to be more responsible with the platform he has.
“I owe NBA YoungBoy an apology too. Let’s talk accountability,” he began. “I owe him an apology. He don’t even bother nobody. And the pod was over! The pod was over. I was in my notes! My notes is for my brain. That ain’t to put out there like that and if you’re gonna have the conversation, there’s a much better way to articulate what you’re tryna say and have the conversation. That’s just lazy to do that at the end of the pod.
He continued: Voices too strong, back to that strong voice shit. You gotta be more responsible than that. That was totally wrong. Not cool. You wanna be the OG that is the bridge. They only snatch my shit when I’m kicking somebody’s backs in. I need to stop kicking peoples backs in. That’s what it says. So yeah, he didn’t need that.”
Budden joked that, out of curiosity, a rant about YoungBoy’s music had been on his bucket list of achievements for the show. But concluded that he didn’t get the pleasure he expected out of the experience.
“Yea, I didn’t like that,” he concluded. “I didn’t feel good about it. It didn’t sit well in my soul, in my spirits as I watched all the biggest blogs [cover it]. You forget this shit is on and you talk like how you talking to your friends and then you listen back and it sounds like shit.”
On an earlier episode of his show, Joe Budden initially said NBA YoungBoy’s music was trash, declaring: “He’s horrible. He is horrible. He is really, really, really, really, really bad. I don’t know him as a person; I’m only speaking about music.”
He added: “That thing happened with him where when he was out, the label pushed the button and did some YouTube shit, so then all the little kids had to come to the gathering and tell you about NBA YoungBoy’s views and how great he is. Now that the label’s backed up a bit, and now that we’ve done had about three or four projects while he’s been in Utah on house arrest.”
In response, NBA YoungBoy went off on Joe Budden in a fiery rant, calling him a “pussy ass bitch” and inviting him to pull up on him in Utah.
“The last thing I dropped was Decided 2 — my album’s still in the top 10, pussy ass n-gga!” he said. “Don’t speak on me, I don’t play that shit. Don’t rat on me neither, you pussy bitch!”
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He added: “And I don’t want to argue with your bitch ass! Bitch, you do all them interviews — come on Grave Digger Mountain and talk to me n-gga. If you can’t do that, you’re bitch made, n-gga. Shut your fucking mouth!”
NBA YoungBoy’s mentor and collaborator Birdman also hit back at Joe Budden by issuing a stern warning.
“@joebudden you fukin with somethin you should leave alone,” he wrote on his Instagram Stories. “Stunna Corleone Gotti NBarg @neverbrokeagainllc.”
Despite the warnings, Joe had more to say online, claiming he’s “way bigger” than him during an X Spaces on Monday (December 4).
““I just wanna say, I’m way bigger than him. Stop this. Dawg, you young idiots get fooled by these label metrics and these digital tricks. Would you like me to read you the numbers on YoungBoy’s last six projects? Alright. I mean, I don’t want to. I didn’t think I had to do this. ‘Cause I’m sure someone here is recording.”
After running down the numbers, he added: “The point is, you doing a lot for somebody that don’t sell more than 60,000 records. Stop it. Enough of young people just saying stupid shit in Hip Hop. We get it, you like who you like, awesome. But it’s not this dominant force that you n-ggas keep tryna make it out to be.”
