Several of Gucci Mane’s artists have found themselves in trouble with the law or worse…and Joe Budden says it’s no coincidence.
“Who people are signing, how people are signing them and why people are signing them needs to be under thorough examination from all parties involved in the music business. The same way that in sports…Last decade, when injuries started happening at a rate that they had never seen before. And studies and new science showed the game was affecting players’ bodies differently. So they started coming up with these new theories like shortening the season or making the playoffs shorter or whatever they was doing. The same thing has happened in rap in the last decade where we have never seen this many people die. We’ve never seen this many shootings, stabbings, clique beef, arrests, RICOs. I have never seen it in hip-hop,” he said.
He continued: That conversation runs concurrent with the death of the A&R. The death of musicianship. Those are together for me. So, when I say Gucci Mane’s scouting needs to be under examination, it’s because this is now what eight, nine, 10? I don’t know. A whole roster that is suffering from the Diff’rent Strokes curse. And I don’t think it’s coincidence anymore,” he added.
Budden says it doesn’t matter how much money an artist makes, if they don’t know how to move in the space…they will get themselves into trouble.
“Life expectancy for rappers is short already. For me, as a rapper, it’s scary as shit out there right now. These n-ggas sign n-ggas. They get they money. They take they money. They do something else with it. Now we went and bought a bunch of guns,” he added. “We went and bought tanks. Now, we have reasons to be in every city around the globe. We got reasons to move around with 80 or 90 people. SWAT protection. There’s a reason this sh-t is going on and it ain’t music based and only in the music business and only here.”
