Joe Budden Believes He Played Role in Drake’s ‘Takedown’: ‘I Passed the Baton’
Joe Budden is finding new ways to wedge himself into the Drake and Kendrick Lamar feud. The rapper-turned-podcaster claims he played a role in the “takedown” of the 6 God dating back to his 2016 beef with Drake.
Budden hopped into a Twitter Spaces on Monday (June 24), where he took credit for starting to chip away at Drake with their feud before “passing the baton” to Pusha T and ultimately K. Dot earlier this year.
“It may sound narcissistic, but I don’t think any one man takes down Drake,” he said. “I think I passed the baton to Push, I think Push passed the baton to Kendrick, and the job is done now. That’s how I feel in my head and my heart.”
Drake and Budden’s feud heated up in 2016 following the New Jersey native’s criticism of Drizzy’s Views album. The OVO boss took shots at Budden on “4PM in Calabasas,” and Budden fired away at Drake with a series of diss tracks including “Making a Murderer, Pt. 1,” “Wake” and “Afraid.”
Drizzy didn’t respond directly with a diss track, but replied by sniping at Budden on “No Shopping” with French Montana.
Two years later, Pusha T left a stain on Drake’s résumé in 2018 when claiming that Drizzy had a son named Adonis — well before Drizzy himself confirmed the news — on the scathing “The Story of Adidon” diss track, which Drake did not respond to.
The great rap war of 2024 was seemingly kicked off by K. Dot’s atomic verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That” in March, which jabbed at both Drake and J. Cole.
Drake stepped up to deliver “Push Ups,” the AI-assisted “Taylor Made Freestyle,” “Family Matters” and “The Heart Part 6,” while Kendrick unleashed “Euphoria,” “6:16 in L.A,” the diabolical “Meet the Grahams” and the Mustard-produced kill shot “Not Like Us.”
The hip-hop community declared K. Dot to be the victor against Drake, and Lamar figuratively took a victory lap at his Pop Out concert on Juneteenth. He celebrated with thousands of fans inside the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., where Kendrick performed a few of those Drake diss tracks for the first time and ran back “Not Like Us” five times in total.
Find Joe Budden’s full answer below.
Michael Saponara
Billboard
