Joe Budden and Royce Da 5’9” have offered their take on the Rise & Fall of Slaughterhouse project, from their former groupmates KXNG Crooked and Joell Ortiz.
On Budden’s self-titled podcast, as pointed out by Ambrosia for Heads, Budden defended his decision to quit rap while Royce said, “This shit don’t look nothing like Slaughterhouse.” Budden said his “takeaway” from listening to the album was, “At the end of one of them songs, Crook says, ‘If my brother tries to stop me from getting paid or don’t wanna see me get paid, is he my brother?’”
The hip-hop four piece known as Slaughterhouse officially disbanded in 2018, around the same time Budden announced his retirement from rap. Despite the collapse of the group, Crooked and Ortiz saw fit to name their collaborative project after the group and its eventual fall from grace. Crooked recently made it clear that the group didn’t come to an end on amicable terms, while Royce and Budden have expressed their disapproval of the new record.
When asked if he stopped anyone from getting paid, Budden replied, “I don’t know! … I don’t understand that line, but I don’t understand a lot. We were four solo acts, when would one person ever stop another person from getting paid? You can go do a project whenever you want, you can rap whenever you want. Why does that weight and pressure fall on me, because I retired because I didn’t like the situation I was in? … I didn’t try to make anybody come with me, I just stopped.”
Now that Budden has heard the project, he said he’s not as “emotional” about the collapse of the group and is just “sad” about it. “I’m sad—not about nothin’ creative; n***as could do whatever they want to do. I’m sad that that was the end of the movie. I ain’t expect to see that end of the movie, and that’s what it is,” he said.
Crooked has said that he attempted to get the group back together for one last album, but Budden didn’t want to come out of retirement even if it meant giving fans closure.
“I’m real big on my time [and] people valuing my time. When I seen that shit, and I heard that music, it’s the end,” added Royce, who seemed less than impressed with the record. “The life of Slaughterhouse flashed before my eyes—all of the memories, all of the time, all of the sweat equity. It’s everything that we put into it. It was a lot of work, man.” Royce said he felt as though the record “insulted with compliments,” and all four members are “taking the same L here.”
“We grew apart!” Budden added.
Royce explained that he feels particularly wronged by Crooked’s attitude, and that he thinks they rushed the album out rather than waiting for the group to come to an agreement. “He acts like he was our connect to the labels or something. N***a, we can go to talk to anybody at any label, bro. We hadn’t even went and spoke to anybody,” he continued at the 31:00 mark. “Joell, Crook, just stay away from me with that energy. Don’t come nowhere near me.”
Later on in the interview, Royce conceded that he’s had his fair share of issues with Budden over the years, but they’ve always been able to work it out. “He didn’t take it upon himself to tell the world that the group is over—without talkin’ to the group. That’s some hoe-ass shit to do. If he did that, it would be world war 5,” he said. “These n***as is playing the victim now, and it’s hard to believe they would just lie like that. So it just makes us look liars. To me, I take that as disrespect.”
Hammering the nail in the coffin further, Budden concluded, “I don’t want no relationship that’s only there for what they can gain from the relationship.”
Royce, meanwhile, suggested that the two rappers relinquish their rights to the Slaughterhouse name. “As bad as y’all want to be away from us, we want you n***as away from us just as bad,” he said. “So sign off on that, and I guarantee you that nobody will miss you. I’m gonna make sure of it, with the art. I’m gonna show you the right way to do what you were trying to do.”
Watch the full discussion above.
