How Joe Budden Became Hip-Hop’s Most Powerful Media Personality

By Tess Douglas On Apr 3, 2023

OK, so we did a ranking and you came out on top. I didn’t wanna show you our full ranking, but I wanted to show you—

How many people did y’all rank?

Twenty-five. [Hands Joe the list of unranked names.]

Oh, whoa. Y’all gonna get people fighting.

It’s in no particular order. So take a look at it. I just want to hear what your thoughts might be.

Yeah, you know what? You could do 25 now that you look at this.

We could have done 30. Some people who you know intimately well were, like—

Teetering.

Yeah, teetering. On the edges.

These are the names here. Can I read? You got Sway, the O.G.

Yeah, got some O.G.s on there.

Caresha, who somehow won the new podcast award? She won some media award recently.

Everybody loves Caresha, but she got knocked for consistency because she only has eight or nine episodes a year.

And that’s why she probably shouldn’t have won the award. She didn’t have enough gas in the tank. But I fuck with the show, I love her. [Angela] Yee, another O.G. N.O.R.E. Big Boy—yeah, that’s those L.A. guys. Gillie & Wallo, for sure. Math. Pete… Pete still scrapping over here?

You’re talking about Rosenberg?

Yeah. [Laughs.] What the fuck he got going on?

He’s active! Juan Ep, Hot 97.

I don’t want to sound like a hater ’cause that’s my man.

There was some pushback on Pete and I actually advocated for him because I feel like whether you love him or hate him, his opinion does matter. Like when he says something on the radio or Twitter or on IG about rap.

I agree with you. It causes a little, a little stir.

It does.

I can see your point. Jinx, my man. Jason Lee, Elliott Wilson, me, Jazlyn. OK. Narduwar. How many times did Narduwar drop?

Yeah, Nardwuar was a controversial one.

Nardwuar? I hate to be the guy, because he’s a legend—

One thing we were talking about was like, do you get props for just going to festivals and red carpets or whatever?

No!

But—Nardwuar got Hov, and he’s got Tyler, Uzi, people that we can barely get, you know? So he has power, in that sense.

And he’s just been around forever, and he has his own shtick that nobody else does. So, I mean, I can’t argue with him there. But I don’t see Narduwar enough. I don’t want to get to his age and people say that about me, too.

You’re saying you’re younger than Nardwuar?

I’m 100 percent younger than Nardwuar. Please, please fact-check this for me. He’s been around forever. He’s from radio in the ’90s. [Editor’s note: Narduwar is 54; Joe Budden is 42.]

My mind is blown.

Vlad. Can’t hate on Vlad. Ak, Ebro, Fantano—Anthony’s here—Charlamagne, uh, Kai. Yeah. I’m anxious to see how y’all ranked this out, this top 10. Well, Angie and Nadeska, Angie is making a really strong late push. She’s been going crazy the last few months.

Yeah, her booking power.

She’s a mentor. I think we mentor each other.

Back in ’04 when you were doing your broadcasting debut for Hot, she was there, right?

Yeah, but fuck that. Angie was my friend somehow. Like I had met Angie back then and we clicked, and we became friends that lived down the street from each other. So while I was in my deepest, darkest days of independent rap, struggling check to check, trying to make things work, I saw Angie thriving as the voice of New York and media and interviews and just class. Just the way that she was moving was inspirational to me. Yeah, she’s great, yeah, she’s a legend, yeah, all of that history—but how she impacted me on a personal level, and still does to this day, I’m forever in debt to her.

Yeah, she’s a legend.

A few people on this list that inspire me, actually.

Peter Rosenberg?

Yeah. I mean, at one point, Pete helped me get my podcast number one off the ground. So, I mean, I can never say a bad word about Pete. Look at Flex! Oh yeah. This is gonna be… y’all are gonna get a lot of people fighting.

Yeah, we are. You know what’s interesting too, when we were putting the list together—you see Angie, Angela Yee, and a couple of wild cards, but for the most part, and especially in the top 10, it’s mostly men over 30, over 35. There’s not a lot of young people and there’s not a lot of women who are in punditry.

Well, in rap.

In rap, for this particular genre of talking, it feels like there’s not a lot of young people who are throwing their hats in the ring in terms of commentary. But you have someone like Kai [Cenat]. So I’m actually curious about your opinion of someone like Kai or Adin Ross, even if he didn’t make the list—

Adin Ross should’ve been on this list before a few people.

I think Kai trumped him though.

Yeah, but he still should’ve beat a few other people that made this list.

What’s your opinion on Kai and the rise of the streamer? That’s the next evolution of this entertainment journalism, where Kai just gets Lil Baby to hang out with him. He’s not even asking him questions, really. They’re just chilling and conversating, and that now is how people wanna see their rappers.

I love it. I love it. I think that that is part of the evolution of this thing, and where this is headed, where it’s going. It’s part of the ecosystem. Everybody gotta feed off of each other. So to see this guy sit in whatever room that is and have everybody in the world go there and just sit there and listen to him—I can’t even critique it, because I don’t know what’s happening. But I know there’s a large audience and all of my nephews, little cousins, and everybody fucks with him. And I seen him in the strip club a few times. Cool little dude.

They get sturdy on his streams.

Listen—I say all the time: We gotta stop beefing. Because everybody here has a place, and it’s important. Every rapper don’t want to go to the same people to say the same thing or do the same thing. Right? Like, Nicki [Minaj] will call me however many times because she’s comfortable with me and how we deliver or present her story. [Lil] Durk will go to Gillie with a million dollars and take him to Chicago and I’m sitting in my house like, “Oh my God, what the fuck? [Laughs.] How are they doing that?!” But we need that, ’cause I wanna see it. Jason Lee, he’s got Cardi, right? Like I know Nore was a little tight at that for a second, because we all have these inner little wars who gets who, who does what. But everybody here has a very important place. And all the musicians, we need them.

So you’re generally congenial with your competition?

I don’t think I have any competition. I don’t think none of ‘em could fuck with me. I don’t put myself in that. I’m like a deranged, psycho, perfectionist Virgo with OCD. So the bar that I set for myself is gonna be higher than whatever bar these people could set for me. Like I need to be in competition with my last interview, or my last outing. I need to see how this looks from the Yachty interview on Everyday Struggle, which was my very first sitdown with somebody—

You were moving around for a lot of it.

—to how do I listen more when I’m talking to Rob O’Neill from the Navy Seal Team Six. Like how do I listen and just be engaged in that? It’s just different things that I wanted to learn, and I’ve learned from a lot of these people, but I’m competing with me and me only.

Someone whose name came up on the N.O.R.E. episode with you is Taxstone. If Taxstone hadn’t gotten into the trouble that he did, do you think he would be on this ranking?

I say all the time: If Tax was out, he would be at the top or very near the top of this list. He was a force, he was a force to be reckoned with. I was gonna have to deal with that for a few years. And, if he’s lucky enough to come home, I’m still gonna have to deal with it, because he’s great. He’s great. No doubt about it.