Joe Budden loves to tell stories from various moments in hip-hop history. His tales range from the time he rejected Kanye West’s request to open for his concert to the time when Jay-Z charged him $250,000 for his verse on a “Pump It Up” remix. In a recent interview with the Flip Da Script Podcast, Budden recalled another interesting encounter with a rap legend.
When asked if he had ever battled any up and coming rappers, Budden initially said no, but then added, “I used to say I battled DMX.” He clarified: “That wasn’t really a battle. I was battling, he wasn’t battling.”
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Apparently, Budden approached DMX on the set of Belly, the 1998 crime thriller that DMX starred in alongside Nas, Method Man, and Taral Hicks. Budden tried to get a battle going, but the legendary New York rapper wasn’t taking the bait. “It was me just rapping,” Budden admitted. “But he was supposed to rap.” According to Budden, they were shooting the film outside of his mom’s building in Jersey City, so he had seen it as the perfect opportunity to approach X. The only catch: “He had to go shoot a scene.”
In the same interview, Budden also recalled Swizz Beatz trying to put him in a group with Cassidy and Drag-On. He didn’t remember too many details, however, saying, “That was super early. That was before y’all came into play.” Of course, he was then asked why he didn’t join the group. “It just didn’t work out,” he said. “I didn’t even learn about that until a few years later. I was just coming around rhyming… This was before anybody was anybody.”
Check out the portion of the interview below.
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