Eminem and Joe Budden haven’t had the healthiest relationship over the years with various shots going back-and-forth between them. Despite their history, former Slaughterhouse member KXNG Crooked is hopeful the two artists can talk things out and bury their Shady Records beef once and for all.
During a recent interview on Smoothvega’s Nothing Beats Experience podcast, Crooked talked about the possibility of Budden making music again and why he wants him to reunite with Slim Shady.
“I think Joe is gonna get in the booth,” he said. “There are some things that happened and we ain’t gotta talk about old shit. But there’s some things that happened and he said some things. He gotta understand, this is what I always tell him, ‘You have a huge voice in the game, so if you say something, that shit’s gon’ resonate.’ If he says something that I disagree with, as far as like how some shit went down on Shady Records, and you know you say, ‘Yo, it happened like this’ and I say, ‘Nah, it didn’t quite happen like that,’ you would what I mean? He just got to be careful, his voice is big.”
KXNG Crooked continued, “One day I’m hoping that him and Em will be able to sit down. They don’t gotta be friends again, they don’t got to be none of that. Just be men and sit down. Because guess what, they’re two, they cut from the same cloth. They really deep artists, they love their craft. If you listen to an Em stan and a Joe fan, it’s a lot of similarities. And they’re good dudes tryna to do the right thing. I just feel like all that was for no reason. I really wish that they would sit down and it might happen.”
Eminem took shots at Budden on the Anderson .Paak-featured “Lock It Up” off his Music to Be Murdered By album in January, rapping, “Tryna save at Kroger, so why would I give a fuck about backstabbin’ Trader Joe for?”
Budden responded to the diss on The Joe Budden Podcast by telling Em to stop calling him out.
“The same way I feel like he should stop dissing Lord Jamar, he should stop dissing me,” he said. “Hey, whatever we had, that exchange, when you did all of the videos … and when I said whatever I said on the pod, it was a moment in time, we had our exchange, and it’s over. In 2020, I can’t harbor negativity toward, not only one of the best rappers, but somebody I’m not angry at. That’s what I gotta stop doing. I don’t be mad at the people I come in and kill … There’s no hostility after that.”
Earlier in January, Joe Budden appeared on Math Hoffa’s My Expert Opinion show, where he spoke on his good relationship with all the Slaughterhouse members, but refused to reunite with them under Eminem and Paul Rosenberg’s Shady Records.
“Those are my brothers and I love them,” he said. “Royce just did the podcast, so I spoke to him. I haven’t spoken to Joell but I just liked a picture a few days ago and he liked one back so we alright … and the same with Crook, those are my guys forever. We just not making music because Joe is not making music.”
He continued in third-person, “In Joe’s mind, there’s a world where we can co-exist. But not in that situation. In Joe’s mind, I’m not a worker. I’m not going to work for something that didn’t exist before I got here. And that’s how feel about wordsmiths. If we can’t put this together, y’all can’t monetize until we do. And that’s how I act. I’m not putting nothing out with Slaughterhouse until Slaughterhouse is away from Shady and we own our own shit.”