During a recent episode of his podcast, Joe Budden shared his take on some of the lyrics from Kendrick Lamar's new album, GNX. In the song "wacced out murals," for example, Budden speculates that the Compton rapper indirectly calls out several of his peers. He believes this could include Ice Cube, who dropped on the same day as Kendrick. Ice Cube also recently claimed he was "Kendrick before Kendrick."
This sparked a debate between Budden and one of his co-hosts, Marc Lamont Hill. .." Not me, but if I'm Kendrick? N***a, mute it up. Mute it up. Who gives a f*ck what your opinion is? Shut up, silent solidarity time. Red and blue in the air, West Coast against all." Hill proceeded to push back, arguing that Ice Cube could feel like he hasn't gotten the recognition he deserves for his contributions to West Coast hip-hop.
Joe Budden & Marc Lamont Hill Disagree About Ice Cube
"I think a lot of times with Kendrick, Snoop gets the love, Dre gets the love. I think sometimes Cube feels boxed out of that, he feels like he don't get the mention when he put the West Coast on his back for a long time," he explained. Budden then insisted that this doesn't matter, claiming that Kendrick is on some "anybody can get it type sh*t."
During a conversation with SiriusXM’s Rock the Bells Radio earlier this month, Ice Cube discussed his lyrics about being Kendrick before Kendrick, revealing exactly what he meant. "Just, you know, a provocative artist," he said at the time. "An artist that said what I felt, put it all out there, very critical of the system and the government and what we have to go through as Black people in this country. I think he's the same kind of artist: a thought-provoking artist. I was that before he was."