The Joe Budden–Eminem beef didn’t start with a single diss track. It grew out of *Slaughterhouse’s time on Shady Records*, then exploded in public when Joe started ripping Eminem’s music while still signed to him‼️.
The Slaughterhouse era (2011–2010s)‼️
Slaughterhouse (Joe Budden, Royce da 5'9", Joell Ortiz, and KXNG Crooked) signed to Eminem’s Shady Records in 2011. Their Shady debut, *Welcome to: Our House* (2012), was executive-produced by Eminem‼️.
Joe later said the problems started there:
- He felt Eminem and Paul Rosenberg tried to apply Eminem’s commercial formula (hooks, certain beats, a more “stadium” sound) to a group that was built on raw lyricism and independent mixtape energy‼️.
- He complained they kept getting sent Eminem beats that “weren’t for Slaughterhouse.”‼️
- He believed the group could have done better independently and that they were mismanaged / left in Eminem’s shadow (promotion, tours, etc.)‼️.
- There were disagreements over business terms and creative control. Joe has said he was fighting for a better situation for the whole group‼️.
KXNG Crooked later confirmed Joe had been holding a grudge over how Slaughterhouse was handled‼️. Joe’s 2015 song “SlaughterMouse” addressed some of this — he later said it started as a diss but was rewritten into something more respectful/tribute-like‼️.
Slaughterhouse never released a proper second Shady album. The group eventually fell apart‼️.
The public explosion (2017–2018)‼️
The beef went public when Joe, by then more of a podcast/media personality than an active rapper, heavily criticized Eminem’s 2017 album *Revival* on Everyday Struggle and his own podcast‼️.
He called “Untouchable” one of the worst songs he’d ever heard and accused the camp of using racial/political talking points as a sales gimmick. Because he was still a Shady artist, a lot of people (including some in the Shady camp) saw this as crossing a line‼️.
Eminem responded:
- Subliminal shots on the “Chloraseptic (Remix)” in early 2018‼️.
- A direct namediss on *Kamikaze* (2018) track “Fall”:
“Somebody tell Budden before I snap, he better fasten it / Or have his body bag get zipped / The closest thing he’s had to hits is smacking bitches.”‼️
Joe fired back on his podcast with a long rant, claiming he’d been better than Eminem for the entire decade and criticizing Em’s music, relevance, and character‼️.
Aftermath⁉️
Eminem took a few more shots on later projects. Joe has since said (around 2020 and later) that he doesn’t have ongoing beef, that Em should stop dissing him, and that he doesn’t regret it because his intent was trying to get a better situation for Slaughterhouse. He still acknowledges Eminem’s influence on him as a younger artist‼️.
50 Cent reveals he was scammed out of $6 million in an agency fee scheme and has invested $70 million into his liquor company to pass down to his son
"They put agency fees on the product. To give you an example of the scheme that they put together, it's like, say you wanted to sell T-shirts and I go to China for you."
"I tell the people in China, 'How much can you make the shirt for?' and they tell me $4, and then I come back and I tell you, 'They say $8.'"
"And then every time you send the check to the producer, they just put $4 on the side for them. They siphoned off about $6 million from me in the very beginning."
"The legal fees, it's been almost a whole another $10 million. So I put $70 million into Branson and Le Chemin du Roi as a company."
"This is for my son. This is so later he can take this one."
50 Cent explains why he regretted buying a massive mansion and questions Nick Cannon having 12 kids
50 Cent: "The more you spend on the property, what you get is an entrance. It's supposed to be so breathtaking, right? But if the rooms in the house are too big, you're not going to like the house. When you look down the hallway and you don't want to go down there 'cause it's like down the block, you're calling people on the intercom instead of going over there. I'm looking, going, 'What the fuck made me buy this shit?'"
Brian J. Roberts: "That sounds like an actual experience you had."
50 Cent: "This is real life, bro. I'd rather go into a condo than the big house. If I had Nick Cannon's 12 kids, then you could put them all in a bedroom, everybody's here, and it would make sense. But I'm not going to have kids like that. I don't want the responsibility of that many women that you got to deal with emotionally. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with Nick Cannon."
Tupac Shakur died with $105,000 to his name in 1996. He's sold over 75 MILLION records since, most of them after he was already dead.
> Tupac was murdered September 13, 1996, in Las Vegas. He was 25 years old.
> A forensic accountant went through his estate weeks later.
> He owned no real estate, no stocks, not even a retirement accounts.
> He didn't even own the house he was living in.
> His entire net worth: two cars, a small life insurance policy, and $105,000 in a checking account.
> He died with no will, nothing planned, nothing protected.
> Everything went to his mother, Afeni Shakur, a former Black Panther who did prison time before he was even born.
> Death Row Records still controlled his masters. Suge Knight wasn't handing anything back.
> Afeni spent years in court just to win back her own son's music.
> "All Eyez On Me" became the best-selling double album in hip-hop history.
> Afeni didn't stop at one album. She released seven full posthumous albums from his vault.
> In 2012 a hologram of Tupac performed live at Coachella next to Snoop Dogg. Sixteen years after he died.
> His estate has earned tens of millions since 1996, built entirely on music he never got to see paid for.
> He made Death Row Records rich while he was alive. He made his mother rich by dying and leaving her a fight worth winning.
He had $105,000 when he died. His name alone has made more than that every single week since.
Charlamagne gives Keefe D “Donkey of the Day” after his conviction in the murder if Tupac Shakur - “You gotta work hard to get yourself convicted of a murder no one was looking at you for - If you give a man enough microphones, he’ll create exhibit A
(🎥 TheBreakfastClub)
Keefe D on the night Tupac was sh0t & kilI3d.
Keefe D: “He just looked like he was breaking dancing and bullets was hitting him” 😳 (2021 interview)
Today, Keefe D has been found GUILTY of Murder with a Deadly Weapon for his role in kiIIing Tupac Shakur in a 1996 drive-by in Vegas
Insane.
(via @ArtOfDialogue_ /YouTube)
In 1997, #Eminem went to Los Angeles to complete in the Rap Olympics, a competition he desperately needed and wanted to win, but ultimately lost. This is what he had to say, in 2020, about the loss, but also, what happened after.
‘I come off stage. I'm like, that's it. It's over for me. This kid from Interscope, Dean Geistlinger, walks over and he asks me for a copy of the CD. So I kind of just chuck it at him. It was The Slim Shady EP. We come back to Detroit, I have no fucking home, no idea what I'm gonna do. Then, a couple weeks later, we get a call. Marky Bass said, ‘Yo, we got a call from a doctor!’