Joe Budden Believes Hip Hop’s Future Is ‘Dark’: ‘We Need A Meeting’

Joe Budden isn’t one to mince words, and he’s predicted a tough time ahead for Hip Hop by claiming the genre’s future is bleak.

The rapper-turned-podcaster joined The GAUDS Show on Wednesday (September 20), where he listed a myriad of factors in the rap business — and music industry as a whole — that he believes will contribute to the genre’s downfall over the next decade.

“Dark,” he answered bluntly when asked what the next five to 10 years look like for Hip Hop. “Bad dark. I think we already there. Everybody can’t go do a show, everybody can’t put a song on a playlist, everybody cannot access their fans or the information behind these units that they’re moving.

“It’s dark out there. N-ggas don’t know how to respond to AI, label people are leaving for the tech companies and they playing all types of stock games at the top. They selling IPOs, their artists aren’t getting one red penny from it. It’s disgusting out there.”

When asked for a remedy that will put Hip Hop back on the right path, Budden called for a “meeting” with the decision-makers and industry vets to share valuable information in the ever-changing music business landscape.

“We need a meeting,” he continued. “We need a meeting to share our own information and come up with our own plan. We need to figure out who wants to be with them over there, which is whatever labels, and who wanna be over here.

“It’s gonna be tough to do that. People are voluntarily giving their rights away. I feel like I’ve been a broken record for years with so much of this shit. You get older and you just watch it play out.”

Meanwhile, Joe Budden also didn’t hold back when trashing Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s new single “Bongos” earlier this month. He compared the track to a “science project” that sounds as if it was created by AI and questioned Cardi and Meg’s ability to make a song.

“Remember, I said all the top, top, top, top, artists make songs like a science project? That’s what this sounds like,” he offered candidly on his eponymous podcast.

“This beat is undeniable because it’s already worked. We gonna put two of our biggest women rappers on it, talking they normal shit, but I don’t think this song is gonna work at all.”

He continued: “I hate the song. It’s not better than any of the songs like it. ‘WAP,’ ‘Up,’ it’s not better than Cardi B feature. This is Cardi getting ready to follow-up her debut album… They not gonna spend the money to keep this rolling into the fourth and first quarter.

“The music business is reactionary. They’re gonna wait to see what the research is on this song… This record don’t seem like it has lasting power… There’s nothing in it to make it stay.”

Despite Budden’s criticism, “Bongos” is already making a splash commercially having debuted at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100.