On Thursday (July 18), the Bronx rapper Cardi B took to X Spaces (formerly Twitter Spaces) to express her frustrations about the constant criticism she’s been receiving from Joe Budden regarding her highly anticipated album. “Joe Budden is obsessed with criticizing me up and down,”
Cardi said. “It’s really getting me frustrated because it’s like, bro, leave me alone… I don’t understand this about Joe Budden, right? First, you always claim you have a source from Atlantic [Records] telling you about my album, and that’s a lie. First things first, you said that if Atlantic doesn’t drop my album, they’ll drop me.”
She continued, “They can’t do that… I don’t send my music to anyone. Only two people have possession of my music, and that’s me and my engineer. Nobody that personally works with me has it. I have a manager… He doesn’t have any of my music.”
The “WAP” hitmaker added that during meetings, there are no more than five people in the room, making it impossible for information to leak. “Every five, six months, you compare another female rapper to me. You compare new artists, you compare old artists. You compare every single artist to me, bro. If you love these other artists so much, why aren’t you talking about their albums? Why aren’t you talking about what they do? You compare females to me, yet my worst records beat their best records all the time,” she said.
Cardi continued: “But you really want my album to come out so you can criticize it,” she said. “Because every time I drop something you don’t like it. Every time another artist drops something and it’s mediocre, you say they’re doing better than me… What are you talking about? The s–t is in motion. Merch is in motion, the box sets are in motion. You don’t know s–t.”
She added that if Budden wanted to hear the album, he would have tried to attend one of her studio sessions. “You really sat up here in December when I was going through it with my husband. It was a tough time for me and my n**ga,” Cardi continued. “You really said that I used my issues with my husband for publicity because of another artist? You think I have a baby daddy or boyfriend? I’m in a marriage, n**ga. I’m in a marriage. Whether it’s my personal life or my music life, you’re always talking s**t about it… You’re not thirsty for my album. You’re thirsty to criticize it. You’re thirsty to tear it down… You never compliment me. When’s the last time you complimented me? You were so eager to interview someone who almost made me suicidal in 2019.”
Budden joined the X Spaces and responded on his X account. “I promise you and can assure you, I will not cover a single thing this girl does for the remainder of her career… Peace and love,” he wrote. “I really just wanted an album from someone whose music I love.”
