I can remember in my mid-to-late teens having virtually no life experience but wanting so badly to have life experience. The closest thing I had to anything resembling social interaction was talking to “friends” that I had met in AOL chatrooms. Hey, that story isn’t all so cringe. A lot of them I still communicate with today. In fact, sometimes, I still communicate with my virtual crush from fourteen years ago. Isn’t that something? Every time she logged on, I would play hard to get. Nah, I’m not instant messaging her first. If she wants this virtual d.. Er, communication, she is going to have to work for it. “But tell me can you log on like a porno star?” Foreshadowing, that. Eventually, she got a boyfriend in real life. I picked a real bad time to be strategic. My virtual world came crashing down. Sadness. Pain. Down bad. Not really, though, huh? It wasn’t real. There is another way to put this: I wanted so badly to feel. I wanted so badly to suffer. Somehow, I innately understood what Dostoevsky meant by “to love is to suffer.” Joe Budden’s music pulled out of me the emotions that I so desperately wanted to feel. To me, he was the greatest hip-hop artist ever, and I let people know that I thought that way. Almost insufferably at times.
Every article about Joe Budden starts by letting you know he was the one responsible for “Pump It Up.” There. Now you know who I’m talking about if you didn’t before. Want to know who else Joe Budden is? A google search will have you taking a short walk with him, from Jersey to New York with him. It seems that his whole life is on display for the world to see. You can read about his substance abuse issues. You can read about the domestic violence allegations. I think you can still read the rumor of a fan buying a verse from Joe, only for Joe to not send the verse and using that money to buy drugs. Only longtime Joe Budden fans know about that one. A lot of people think Joe is a slime ball. A lot of people think Joe will use you and, when he is done with you, will not only throw you to the curb but curb stomp you. Two people in particular, at the very least. Guess what? When your whole existence is an open book, a lot of people are going to think a lot of bad things. They might even be right about the things they think, but to think that I, or you, would be scot-free from public backlash if our secrets were out there the way Joe’s are, is naïve at best. Practically nobody would dare let the whole truth about themselves be visible to everybody. Point of all this being that, through his music, Joe Budden tells his story, bro.
Considering everything Joe has been through and his willingness to tell all, his music became very personal. He earned himself the moniker as a sort of “emo rapper.” A bit of a ridiculous phrase. “Emotional rapper.” What? Because rappers aren’t supposed to have emotions? Was Kurt Cobain an “emo rocker,” or did he simply articulate his feelings well through his music? The people who talk about toxic masculinity haven’t a clue what it is about. Apologies for the tangent. It is easier to write through tragedy than it is triumph. Why? Probably because we know so much more about tragedy than we do triumph. We can formulate our thoughts on tragedy better than we can triumph because we have been through more of it. That is also probably why triumph is ever-so-sweet when it comes; it only comes for a split second. The duration of Stuck in the Moment is only five minutes and fifty-eight seconds. Enjoy it while it lasts.
At the age of 20, I got my first real girlfriend. Late bloomer, me. I can remember her first boyfriend was sort of “around” still. Maybe he caught wind that I had the hots for her. He stuck his hand out to shake mine, and I disrespectfully declined. I swear to God this hip-hop shit is a trap, y’all. There was not much need for Joe Budden music anymore. That emo-rap nonsense becomes unrelatable when you’re happy – when you’re one line away from the Tetris. Unfortunately, happiness is just an emotion. It is not some state that you can ‘reach’; it comes and goes just like any other emotion. Away it went when I was sent the Tetris L. Game over. Finally, I had received what I always wanted. Real, true suffering. Lying in bed by myself at night wondering where it all went wrong. You end up painting a sick picture when it is just you and your imagination. Of course, nobody wants to suffer. That isn’t exactly what I mean. What I really wanted was love, and to suffer is the only way to know if you have – or even can. Joe Budden became great to me again just as fast as he became ineffectual.
If you are wondering what this is all about – that makes sense. I’m not entirely sure myself. It’s a bit of a brainstorm of sorts. The original idea was how I relate to Joe Budden music when I am in a certain mood. His Mood Muzik series was aptly named. Miss Paula told me that readers and listeners want to be brought home at the end. If you have made it to the end of this piece, we have wandered into the middle of the nowhere together. Allow me to bring you back home. Here are a few of the underlying themes: “Pain is the touchstone to all spiritual progress,” and “the opposite of happiness is not sadness; the opposite of happiness is hopelessness.” Somewhere out there is a girl with a tattoo on her inner thigh that reads, “I’m doing better than I’m feeling.” I understand that. Being sad does not mean being unhappy.
There is something very powerful about the relationship between author and reader and between artist and listener. Every individual interprets their respective relationship with the author or artist differently. I am sure there are happy people out there that enjoy Joe’s music and have a completely different take than I do. If happiness is the finish line, I guess they beat me there. But happiness is no finish line. Happiness as the finish line is a vending machine in the middle of the Sahara. An illusion. Are you in that mood yet!? A peculiar mood I find myself in today. So happy to be a little sad. For no other reason than at least-
Joe Budden’s Music is Great Again.
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