Game Speaking on Budden (Interview)

[Young Griff]

Game tells his side of the story behind the beef with Joe Budden. Read on.

AllHipHop.com: Let’s just talk about the whole beef situation and how it started. You know Joe has already kind of said what he felt how it started but, what’s your view on how it started?

Game: Everybody wants to know how it started, right? It started with me and Stack Buddles, who I knew and respected as a young emcee like myself way back before we had deals - on the mixtape circuit. I was doing my thing early before the Aftermath thing. Clue came to me one time when I was out here [in New York] and said, “Can you come out here to do a freestyle.” I’m still trying to finish this album, I’m up-and-coming So I’m like whatever. Stack is in the studio and I’m like “Yeah that’s my ni**a, I f**k with Stack Bundles.” I’m in the studio we get in and we do the freestyle mix me and Stack Bundles, and that’s a wrap. Whatever and I’m thinking just me and Stack Bundles on the song. And like a month or two pass and it’s the All Star Game out in L.A. We outside at the W [hotel], me and my entourage and it’s a Fab and a couple celebrities like [basketball player] Sam Casselle. Joe Budden out there and he come up to me to shake my hand but like its like almost like it’s a different handshake. It’s like he’s thinking in his mind “Did Game hear me say that fly shit on this [Clue] tape?” So he shaking my hand kind of phony. I noticed that, but I didn’t really pay no attention to it I’m like “I don’t know maybe he just a little weird.”

So while they Clue is passing out the mix CDs which I’m on, but we, we take it everything is going on it’s All Star, so you put it in your back pocket whatever. So that shit passed over and everybody went back home All Star was over. I’m working out in the 24 hour fitness two weeks after the All Star Game 50 called me while I was working out in the gym asking me “Did I do a song with Joe Budden?” And I’m like “Hell no.” I wouldn’t do no song with Joe Budden that’s like not even my genre of rap. I’m a gangster rapper more like a lyricist and I mix that with my gangster shit. I’m an emcee. Joe Budden is like a rapper. Like I don’t mean to say call out names but I don’t even give a f**k, like Chingy and Ludacris those are rappers. You wouldn’t classify those as “Aw he got ill lyrics to Biggie and Pac.” Like these are rappers. Like Busy Bee was a rapper. And Kool Moe Dee is more like a lyricist. So that’s the way that I separate myself from different categories and s**t.

So anyway I tell 50, ‘No, I ain’t did no song with Joe Budden.” 50 like ‘Yeah you did do a song with Joe Budden. It’s on the Clue Mixtape. Joe Budden is on the third version and he taking shots at G-Unit in the song.” 50 expressed to me that like, he didn’t think it was a good look. I’m agreeing like Nigga you right. It ain’t a f**king good look but I ain’t heard it. So I tell 50 I’m a call him back. I go downstairs to my truck and I pop the CD in and then sure enough this ni**a is taking subliminal shots. I can understand if you got beef with somebody [like 50], if you got beef with that man call that man out if that’s who you got beef with or if its them. All you got to do is call them out and they going to come answer. I understand the competitive nature of Hip Hop, of battling and rhyming. But he didn’t do that. And I kind of felt like he disrespected me in the sense that he took a he knew when Clue said I got this song, he looked at it like Game do business with G-Unit. Game is the newest member of G-Unit and he on the song with somebody from Desert Storm and I can come on here and I can certify myself by taking shots at G-Unit. I will look bigger because Game is on the song.

AllHipHop.com: Right.

GAME: The public doesn’t know how you can just throw a ni**a on a song. They thing we were all there and we did it. To the public eye, it looks like I did a song with Joe Budden and condoned him dissin’ G-Unit, which I don’t. I sat down for like a day, a day and a half. I thought about it what I should do. I talked to Jimmy [his manager Jimmy Henchman] about it. Everybody agreed that he took a shot. In that, there was no defending the fact that I had to come back at him. That’s what I did.

AllHipHop.com: Joe said that people in your camp got calls from people in his camp to make sure there was no beef. If I am correct, he said this happened before All-Star weekend.

GAME: No, that is false. That’s 300% false. The calls were made because we didn’t want to over-judge the situation and really end this dude’s career when we didn’t have to. Basically, we were trying to save him. It didn’t end up that way. I know Joe Budden as an emcee that likes to take subliminal shots. He did it with Jay-Z. He did it with 50 Cent. He did it with G-Unit and he’s just that type of emcee. You don’t do that and just jumping on a song – that was phony. I lost a lot of respect for him. I did have respect for him. He’s a young Black rapper coming up in the game - whether he sold five records or 300,000 like he did – I still respected him as a Black man trying to better his life. He lost that respect when he did what he did. I feel like he a coward. He made the response to my record like he a real street ni**a when he really just a punk. He started it. I want everybody to know that I didn’t start this. My hand was forced.

AllHipHop.com: He said he felt that with you on the track, it basically was saying that it wasn’t a diss for the fact that you were on the record. He said he wouldn’t diss you with you on the same song. Does that make sense, what I am saying?

GAME: Do me that could make sense if it came from anybody but this fool. He is know for taking subliminal shot. He used the G-unit video to cover up his diss for 50. He did it on a song with me so I automatically had to respond.

AllHipHop.com: He said that he had deaded the beef with 50 a while ago so there wasn’t a situation there.

GAME: I hear all that, but even if he deaded the beef with 50 and he said I’m sorry or whatever he did to squash it, he still took a shot at G-Unit, my team and business partners with me on the song. That was a total disrespect. On the radio, he said if it was reversed would he do [the same thing I did]. He said, “I would think about doing the same thing Game did.” It’s like copping a plea, but whatever. His career was over from the beginning of the beef.

AllHipHop.com: Did 50 Cent put a battery in your back and tell you to roll on him?

GAME: Me and 50 never discussed until today that Joe Buddens dissed me on that song. 50 came at me and said, “Did you do a song with Joe Budden.” He was just implying that maybe I should listen to it. Anybody that knows me, knows you can’t put a battery in my back for s**t. At the end of the day, I’m living for me. If I wake up and I don’t feel like going in the studio, I’m not going. I don’t care who say go. At the end of the day, I got to sit in a corner and die by myself. I’m a leader and never a follower. But a battery in my back? That sounds foolish. I think that they put a battery in his back like, “Ni**a, you better get at Game, you soft coward. You better say something.” The only thing he could do was reply. The s**t was wack anyway.

AllHipHop.com: On the other side, we’ve lost a lot of our favorite artists. You are on the rise and Joe has a lot of fans too. Can we keep this on wax or is it going to lead to something else?

GAME: At his point, I would say that, for the most part, everybody in the world knows that Joe is not that type of dude. So, to harm him or to bring any type of street antics on his side would be to belittle myself because he’s not even that type of dude. So, why even give this dude just do. Its like RuPaul dissing Shaq and Shaq wants to put money on RuPaul’s head – why? You know he’s a faggot and he might be mad at himself for being the type of ni**a that he is. And I use the RuPaul to Shaq [comparison] because I am up-and-coming and come in the game so I can beast it and I used that because he’s a feminine guy. Used to be a go-go dancer. We discovered that. He used to sing in a group with songs like “Butter Love” and s**t like that. He was doing the pelvic thrust. His new name is Go Go Buddens.

AllHipHop.com: Is it true that you invited him to the radio station?

GAME: Yeah, he said, “I’m not coming, because I’m a scary b**ch.” His diss record, I took it serious. He mentioned my manager’s name. I got on the next plane smoking like, “I’m here.” I knew if anything New York was going to be, this ni**a Game is serious. He didn’t want to come to the station and embarrass himself. He don’t want them type of problems. I’m the next ni**a to blow. He tried to use me.

AllHipHop.com: I heard he changed the lyrics like the reference to Jimmy Iovine, I think.

GAME: No, he was talking about Henchmen.

AllHipHop.com: Oh, I didn’t even realize that.

GAME: He was talking some real slick s**t. He changed the lyrics but it’s too late for that. We heard the real version, live uncut. We heard how you really felt. The first thing you say is how you feel. Then you get to analyze your s**t. That’s why I don’t let just anything come out my mouth if that’s not how I really feel or my heart is set on. My heart was set on “F**k Joe Buddens.” It whatever you want it to be.

AllHipHop.com: Earlier you mentioned you have a son, how is that?

GAME: My son, he’s eight months old in April.

AllHipHop.com: Oh, that’s what’s up.

GAME: This lil’ ni**a man…I don’t want no problems just like with this Joe Buddens beef man. I didn’t want it to get out of hand, because the type if ni**a I am and I know the type of ni**a he is. I don’t want ni**as in L.A. or people in my camp to think its bigger than that, because if it gets out of my hands, somebody might do something to him… Who are they going to point the finger at? Me. I try to stop the shit. They didn’t want to pick up the phone. They wanted to act like they were big and bad and almighty. So I did the record.

With my son, I’m living for somebody and it’s not me. So I am never in selfish mode. I’m grinding. The reason I do this shit is I have a son to feed. This is the only way that I feel I can secure my family’s future without dying. I was never a rapper from the beginning. I guess this is was God bestowed on me. I thank God I don’t have to be out here robbing, stealing and killing, drug dealing no more.

[Conan]

Damn, I think Joe Budden came off a lot better in his interview than Game did in this one. It totally seems to me like Game had 50 & Jimmy Iovine in his ear telling him to go at Joe. Makes it seem like a little publicity stunt or something. And I think that Game was struggling to justify why he dissed Budden in the first place, especially when AllHipHop pointed out that the Joe Budden/50 beef had already apparently been squashed way before this feud began.

And LOL at Game claiming he is a better lyricist that Joe, saying he's an MC and Budden is a rapper or whatever. I like some of Game's tracks, but come on - I think we all know who came harder lyrically in this battle so far. Lets just say I don't listen to Game for the deep lyrical meaning he puts behind his tracks  

[CRAFTY]

And LOL at Game claiming he is a better lyricist that Joe, saying he's an MC and Budden is a rapper or whatever.

Yeah, that stuff about "a rapper" and "an emcee" was ridiculous.

[JTSimon]

And LOL at Game claiming he is a better lyricist that Joe, saying he's an MC and Budden is a rapper or whatever. I like some of Game's tracks, but come on - I think we all know who came harder lyrically in this battle so far. Lets just say I don't listen to Game for the deep lyrical meaning he puts behind his tracks  

Read it again.


24 hour fitness... thats gangsta.

[BIGGBOYY2002]

I'm with the game on this fuck the least coast!!!!

[TobyTizzle]

yeah...fuck bad boy as a muthafucken crew, and if your...

oops wrong beef  

[UKnowWhatItIs: welcome to my traps....game over]

What The Game said was true about him bein an mc and Joe being a rapper.I mean,The Game always comes good lyrically on his songs,I admit,I think Budden came harder on the diss song but The Game is coming hard lyrically on every song he has done.Almost the whole east coast are full of rappers.& why didn't Joe Buddens bitch ass show up in the radio station that The Game was in?