Joe Budden makes bold claims about Kendrick Lamar: ‘I know he used bots’
Joe Budden has always been critical of artists and has never been afraid to share his opinions. That said, during a recent episode of his podcast, The Joe Budden Show, the former rapper followed up on recent comments made by DJ Akademiks surrounding Kendrick Lamar.
During a recent Twitch stream, DJ Akademiks invited a guest to appear who, under the pseudonym ‘Epic’, insisted that Kendrick Lamar’s manager paid him to inflate the streaming numbers of his number-one single ‘Not Like Us’.
The unknown individual posted a screenshot and showed DJ Akademiks and his fans how he did it and stated, “I wasn’t in direct contact with him, that’s just the name that was on the account I got paid by. They wanted me to do 30 million [streams] early.”
Following on from this, Joe Budden has insisted that Kendrick Lamar uses bots to skew numbers and ensure that he is ahead of Drake on the charts to make it appear he’s winning. During his most recent episode, the ‘Pump It Up’ artist stated, “Not only do I not care that he used bots, but I knew he did!”
He then addressed Drake’s diss record ‘The Heart Part 6’, questioning his co-hosts, “You thought miraculously that this was the first time a Drake record had more dislikes than likes?” The host asserted that bots were responsible for this unusual ratio, which had never occurred before.
As he continued to dissect the feud, the podcaster justified the use of underhand technological tactics and told his friends that not only was it a necessary action to win but suggested that if Lamar hadn’t taken the route he did, the Scorpion emcee would have done the same.
Explaining this, he declared, “Bots to me was a part of how you win the war versus Drake! If you [Kendrick Lamar] didn’t do it Drake was gonna do it.” From Budden’s assessment, it seems that irrespective of the winner, bots would have inevitably been part of the battle.