The deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis and the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have drawn widespread protests across the country. As loud as it has been from protestors from everyday walks of life, Joe Budden is wondering why hip-hop is quiet about what is going on.
“It’s sickening,” Budden began around the 2-hour and fifteen-minute mark of his eponymous podcast on Wednesday (Jan. 28). “It’s sickening to think of the hip-hop I came from, and the hip-hop I was introduced to, and think of the hip-hop other people were introduced to, and how silent hip-hop is on certain matters. It’s too silent for me. It’s too silent when you see Americans getting executed by America on American soil. And then they get on TV and tell you what you saw isn’t what it is.”
When the JBP cast discussed the issue and why there may be general apathy from the show’s commentators in that the actions ICE were committing weren’t publicly and widely recognized against Black people, Budden doubled down.
“The rappers I came up on were community leaders,” he said. “I’m not having a ‘Hey, what’s your opinion on this situation’ conversation. We have too many voices and if all of them are silent? I’m going to assume some of them are and have been complicit with what’s going on. As a Black person, it should be more frightening that they’re doing this to white people.”
He concluded, “Y’all’s hip-hop is scared, timid, afraid, down, compliict. Just a bunch of f–king bums, wanna fight for music rights but not human rights. You wanna pop out and sell some sh-t, but when your voice can actually matter? Ugh. It just dawned on me the other day how quiet all this sh-t is.”
Traditionally outspoken members of the community, like Vic Mens, have been widely critical of ICE and their actions in Minneapolis. During a red carpet stop at the Billboard Power 100 in Los Angeles on Wednesday (Jan. 28), rapper Pusha T flat out told the interviewer, “Jan. 28, 2026, f—k ICE,” Push said. “Gotta keep it 100. Got to.”
Tyler, the Creator also had sentiments for iCE in his Instagram Stories, posting a scene from the 2002 film “Paid In Full” that repeatedly says “f–k ICE.”
It remains to be seen if those comments kick off a tidal wave of rappers publicly calling out the Trump Administration and the Department of Homeland Security but Budden continues to press hip-hop to do moore.
