Joe Budden Shows Huge Love to Eminem’s Verse on Kid Rock’s Song

On a recent episode of The Joe Budden Podcast, host Joe Budden delivered a scathing critique of a controversial collaboration, sharing his unfiltered thoughts on the track’s overall quality. Expressing his strong disapproval of the song’s production and hook, he said, “Okay, the song is absolutely horrible cause of Kid Rock. It’s Kid Rock’s song and whoever is doing the chorus it’s trash. Kid Rock’s verse is trash. All of these s–t is trash. It was horrible.”

Despite his disdain for the overall track and the choice of collaborator, Budden still acknowledged Eminem’s performance on the record. He added, “I don’t love the choice of Em. You didn’t have to rap with Kid Rock but outside the song being trash and horrible and it being Kid Rock and not agreeing with the decision, I thought he [Eminem] absolutely smoked that verse. I thought that verse was great. Kid Rock’s verse was so bad on it that I was anticipating hearing what the f–k Em was about to do. But if you f–k with Em, this is 2008 Em. If you put better hook on it and hip-hop producers do the drums and put Skylar Grey on the hook that would sound much better.”

Elaborating further on Eminem’s storytelling ability and technical execution despite the awkward pairing, Budden highlighted how Slim Shady navigated the situation. He continued, “I thought Eminem smoked that verse in terms of rapping ability. Most people would say, ‘Who the f–k did he choose to do that song?!’ So hearing him take the approach of trying to explain not only why he did the song but how Kid Rock helped him early in his career, how they met here and then ended up over here and just happened to be in the studio…He told the few different stories in it and to keep going with that flow and if I’m only judging Eminem as an MC, I thought he did better than anybody else can do on that.”

Diving deeper into the mechanics of Eminem’s delivery, Budden emphasized the extreme difficulty behind maintaining such precision on a challenging track. He said, “It’s tough to do that s–t what he does. It’s very very very very hard to do that. To keep that syllable flow on beat like a metronome, he’s unbelievable even when the song is the worst it could possibly be.”

To conclude his analysis, Budden compared this verse to other eras and features in Eminem’s extensive discography. He added, “I hated Em with Kendrick. When I heard that record I was like, ‘Let me close my ears.’ But I also don’t love the Rap God Em but it’s a skill to it. But Em, when he’s saying something and not just showing you that he could rhyme every syllable in the galaxy, when he’s saying something, I don’t think anybody can f–k with white boy.”

Eminem Joe Budden