Joe Budden f/ Royce Da 5’9”, Crooked I, Joell Ortiz, & Nino Bless “Slaughterhouse” (2008)

Producer: Scram Jones

Album: Halfway House

Label: Amalgam Digital

Royce Da 5’9”: “[At the time] there was something in the air, where [me and Joe Budden] were taking shots at each other. So it was kind of like a point where we came to like, ‘Okay, either we’re going to beef or we’re going to get together so we can do something.’ Like every day things were getting said in interviews and we were like, ‘What are we going to do here?’

“One day I get a call, saying, ‘Joey wants you to get on the phone.’ I was like, ‘Nah.’ But my manager Kino was like, ‘I think you should do it. Y’all would be better together than you would be beefing with each other.’ But I was like, ‘Man, I just don’t like the nigga.’ Kino talked me into it, saying it would be good for the Internet and about putting Crooked, Joell, and Nino Blessed on there. I was like, ‘Okay, if he’s gonna put them on there then fuck it, I’m going to do it.’

“This was around the time that my daughter was being born. In fact, I was in the hospital when I was talking to Kino. I left the hospital real quick and did the song because of course his deadline was that day. That’s how every MC does me, they hit me like, ‘Yo, I need a verse but I need it yesterday.’ I had to shoot to the studio, lay a verse down, and send it. He put it out and it kind of exploded on the Internet.

“After that, I got on the phone with Budden. We didn’t talk nothing about the beef, we didn’t even address it. It was just, ‘Yo, did you see the response to this record?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m just seeing it.’ He was like, ‘Yo man, we gotta do more shit.’ I’m like, ‘Yo, I’m with it!’ And from there, talks of forming a group started happening because a lot of comments on the Internet were saying, ‘They should be a group.’ One thing led to another and…here comes Slaughterhouse.”