Joe Budden Considers Coming Out of Rap Retirement

June 3, 2025

Joe Budden is considering taking his talents back to the rap game and possibly putting out a passion project.

Joe Budden Talks Returning to Rap

On Sunday (June 1), the latest episode of The Joe Budden Podcast was uploaded to YouTube. During the weekly chat, Joe revealed that he is feeling like getting back into rapper mode.

“I want to rap,” Joe Budden says around the 1:09:57 timestamp of the podcast below. “I do, I ain’t gon’ lie. The only thing stopping me is I don’t have the beat packs and I don’t request them. But if I ever ask Alchemist or Chad West or one of these ni**as I love…Jake One…I just start hitting up ni**as that I love, that I know got something, it’s gonna make me do something.”

Joe revealed a verse from Ransom recently put him in that mode and a DM from Ran telling Joe to get back in the game only put the battery in Joe’s back even more. “I’ll call Ransom, Royce, 38 Spesh, all them ni**gas. We back!” Joe says.

“I feel like now, I’m almost to the point where I can do a passion project,” Joe adds. “I’ve never in my life been in a place where I could do a passion project. What does that even look like or sound like?”

Joe Budden released his breakout single “Pump It Up” in 2003 and would go on to put out multiple projects as a solo artist and member of Slaughterhouse. Since he started podcasting in 2015, he has only put out one album, Rage & The Machine, which dropped in 2016, before bowing out of the game.