Joe Budden is no stranger to controversy. In fact, the musician-turned-media figure’s takes on trending topics on his namesake podcast often land him in hot water. In fact, his past opinions of women rap stars Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, and Megan Thee Stallion had fans pulling out their pitchforks. Well, Budden’s recent hot take will have them on the attack yet again.
Yesterday (March 2), in a teaser clip for a forthcoming episode, Budden boldly claimed rap fans shouldn’t get excited about the push for women acts. “Y’all ain’t gonna want to hear it from me, but the girl rapper wave is over,” he said. “Just telling you what it is. I’m normally a few months ahead with this stuff, sometimes a few years ahead with this stuff. The girl rapper wave is finito.”
Budden went on to share the reasonings behind his claim. “I think labels are looking at it like, ‘Very few of y’all are selling records, it’s too much work to get your coin back, we got to go do brand deals all over the world with y’all, y’all are expensive, some of y’all are annoying,’ and none of these records are working,” he said.
But all hope isn’t lost, according to him, as there are a select few recording artists that he expects to have longevity. “The cream rises to the top,” he said. “So, Latto shall remain; Flo Milli shall remain; Rapsody will always be there, but she wasn’t really a part of [that scene]. But all of that, ‘Go find a girl, send her to Columbia, get it done, put her in the studio with fucking Mike WiLL [Made-It] or any one of them n****s’ … all that planting the girl in the scene, getting the record and it taking off — that wave is over.”
Watch the full video below.
Joe Budden proclaims “the girl rapper wave is over”: “Very few of y’all are selling records”
🎥: @JoeBuddenPod pic.twitter.com/TdT2lUQb50
— HipHopDX (@HipHopDX) March 2, 2024
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
