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Joe Budden Tackles Ari Lennox Vs. MacG Podcast & Braces For The Backlash

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Dreamville Records artist Ari Lennox ignited a firestorm of controversy earlier this month following her appearance on Podcast and Chill. At one point in the interview, host Macgyver “MacG” Mukwevho asked her if “someone was fucking [her] good,” a reference to one of her lyrics from the 2019 song “Pop.”

Lennox was visibly startled by the invasive question and soon swore off interviews via Twitter. But fellow podcast host Joe Budden apparently doesn’t see anything wrong with MacG’s line of questioning and went on to explain why he sides with the South African podcast host in a recent episode of The Joe Budden Podcast. 

“I think I have the license to say this,” he begins in the clip. “As probably one of the most introspective artists ever, a rule of thumb for me was if I say it in a song, it’s in the world. It’s on board to be discussed from people.

“If I go in the street and a fan see me, they might say, ‘Yo that verse in ‘Only Human’ when you was talking about such and such and such and such,’ like it can be brought up. Once it’s documented, it lives. It exists. That was something I used to battle with as an introspective artist.”

Joe Budden goes on to say he wants to remain neutral on the topic but continues to make his point abundantly clear.

“I’m not saying the South African podcaster was right or wrong ’cause it’s not my place to say it,” he continues. “But Ari Lennox’s last nine verses have been sexually explicit. If you’re sitting with a shock jock, you have to know that anything you have ever said in a song is on record to be discussed. Now, could he have done that in a much more classy and tasteful way? Of course.

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“But for Ari Lennox afterward to act like where did he even find the nerve, courage and gall to ask me such an explicit question? I’ve listened to all your guest verses. I love them shit. Part of why I love them is because you’re talking that talk.”

As Budden started to get blowback for his remarks, he hopped on Twitter to say, “I said whatever you think I said, do what you want with that.”

Joe Budden quickly became a trending Twitter topic on Friday (January 28) as a result of his commentary, with many pointing out Podcast and Chill is actually bigger than The Joe Budden Podcast. According to an article from Kaya959, Podcast and Chill is among the Top 3 urban podcasts in the world with over 53,228,724 YouTube views on the platform and nearly 500,000 subscribers.

Check out some of the reactions below.