If you’ve been hanging around ER wards or perhaps black market opium parlors, you may have crossed paths with Joe Budden recently. His critics would argue that you wouldn’t have noticed him, for he’s a social hermit, a perpetual loser. His recent scuffle with Wu-Tang, specifically Raekwon and Inspectah Deck, has added fervor to the plethora of anti-Budden sentiment that has residualy festered ever since Budden dropped “Pump it Up” in ’03. What can come of all this collective hate?
This latest Budden installment, the “LP” titled Escape Route, recently dropped and screams one word: introspectiveness. My review may startle some of you; the new Joe Budden is more than listen-able, it’s outright good. Perhaps this is a testament to subjective taste rather than artist development, but Budden has never sounded genuine to me, till now. Right off the bat he comes hard on Intro, spitting the following steel bars:
Look psychotic it’s what they call you ignore you going by my logic
That a law will secure you looking through my optics
Lead and steel put pillow in front of me i pop it
Tried to stop it but couldn’t look at my eye sockets
The rest of the album you anticipate him to come across as flaky, failing miserably to represent dirty Jersey with genuine filthiness. Well you’d be wrong, as I was, simply put, Budden is pissed. And you push any man to his limit, regardless of street credibility, that man will crack. When that breaking point occurs, two things can happen. One, the artist self-implodes, spinning into a downward spiral reminiscent of Canibus post LL Cool J beef. Alternatively, they may channel their frustration into their artistic realm, maximizing the god given talent that they do objectively possess, regardless of hate.
I’d argue Budden kills it and that we should all watch Budden TV for updates about the conclusion of his musical trilogy , The Great Escape drops next year, but that’d fall on deaf ears. But believe this, Budden is not the man he says he is, nor the man many wish to him fail to be. All we can ask from an artist is to leave themselves on a track, the proverbial blood and sweat. That, Budden did, thanks Joey.
Joe Budden – Intro
Joe Budden – No Comment
Joe Budden – Clothes on a Mannequin
