Video Producer: Steve Raze

Videographer: Antione Charles

When Mood Muzik 2 (Can It Get Any Worse?) dropped last year and the mixtape’s rapture spread through the country, Joe Budden firmly solidified his lyrical ability in the Hip-Hop game. Yes, he had a gold selling album and plenty of mixtapes to his credit, but MM2 elevated Jump Off Joe’s status from the latest punchline wonder to one of the rap game’s prime lyricists. Forced to sit on the Def Jam shelf month after month, The Growth his 2nd LP, has yet to see the light of day. With a tormenting time at Hov’s home and fans screaming for music by the self appointed "King of New Jersey," Joe Budden's options became very clear. After over a year in the making, Joe's position was to give the people what they want, Mood Muzik 3.

AllHipHop.com and Joe Budden spent an afternoon at Fight:Klub studios to get an exclusive listening session with the newly freed from Def Jam artist. Joe gave us a sneek-peek at Mood Muzik 3 along with some of his thoughts on a few of his favorite songs.

Joe Budden: The song that we about to play now, it’s called “Dear Diary,” and there’s no hook on the record. It’s about five, five and half minutes, maybe six minutes, I’m not really sure, of just bars. It’s straight spittin’, there’s no hook, just the way a lot the songs on Mood Musik 2 came out. Actually I feel like this song could have been a lot longer. It’s one of my personal favorites because of that exact reason, because it’s so personal to me. I’m not going to give it away too much. I’d rather play it. I’d rather play it first. Where we at? We are here ...

Joe Budden: Chill, we good, we good. You can see where the direction of that was going. I’m actually, in that song I’m talking to maybe three or four different people in particular. The people will know who they are when they hear the record. But uh, in dealing with those people, you learn certain things. Well, I learned certain things and I talked about it and spoke upon it and people can apply those things to other areas of their life. I try to do that a lot in my joints. The song will be personal about something that I personally went through myself but I try to expand it and make it a bit broader so other people can pick up on some of the things that I picked up from a certain situation. It’s crazy, like I said it’s about six minutes long, 5 and half minutes long and it’s one of my favorites. I play it over and over. This was actually one of the last joints that we ended up recording for the tape. I just felt like this was definitely needed. And my man Sultea/TK came through with the beat and we blazed it.

Ya know, the Joe Budden fans enjoy the personal music and enjoy the jewels and the gems that I would drop inside of it even though they may not actually be able to relate to the experience. I’m anxious for people to hear that, definitely. It’s called “Dear Diary”. The title is pretty much self explanatory. It’s a nigga just opening up a book and talking about some things that are heavy on his mind .

Joe Budden: This next song that we about to play is called “Hiatus." Again, the title is self-explanatory. It’s one of the first joints that we did. I couldn’t even tell you exactly who produced the beat cause that’s how early in the process we recorded the joint. A bunch of producers sent me tracks, this one stood out the most. I was gonna save it. This one I was gonna save for the album but once the situation started looking like an album was not coming, I said okay, I’m not just going to keep holding on to this record. It’s another one I’m excited for people to hear. Let’s get into it. Let’s do it. Let’s play the crack. 6:18

Joe Budden: I got um, I got phone calls playing in the beginning of this record because it just adds to the imagery, adds to the scene, adds to the mood, the feeling that I’m trying to give off to it. When it actually comes out on a CD the phone calls will be a separate track and then the song will be a separate track but as of right now it’s all together. Again, this track is pretty long also. There’s a lot of long joints on the CD. It’s maybe about five plus, or four plus no hook, straight spittin’.

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Joe Budden: Umph, definitely one of my favorites. That’s crack right there. Again, everything is in the title. The name of the song is “Hiatus.” I think it explains a lot of things. And when it’s not explaining, it’s more so spiritual, to me. It’s basically just talking about some of the reasons why I haven’t been putting music out. Totally aside from my label situation. People have grown accustomed to me releasing music just pretty often and out of the clear blue sky I stopped. Some people around me where actually questioning whether rapping was still something that I wanted to do. Whether he was built for it…ya know, just a lot of questions that were surrounding Joe Budden and his approach to music, and a few perspectives were fucked up.

Some people got the impression that I just didn’t want to do it or people got the impression that I was lazy or my work ethic was fucked up and even when meeting with some these labels, it’s a question that they asked. So obviously it’s not a knock that you could ignore. The beat just took me there. The beat took me there to speak upon it and to talk about it and even deeper than that talk to my higher power about it. And basically what’s the next step. Where do we go from here? That’s the gist at the end of this record.

The state that Hip-Hop is in at right this second, and me being the lyricist that I am, and the type of person that I am, do I even fit in here? Even if I do or if I don’t, what is the next step to take? I think that’s where that song ends at, and it’s crazy. Got some length on it and I like I said it’s amazing I can’t wait…the same way on Part 2 “Dumb Out” was one of the songs that I couldn’t wait to perform and I couldn’t wait for people to hear in its entirety and then when I performed it, just the way I pictured it in my head that’s the way it happened. Everybody went crazy and it was insane. I think this record will have that some effect, but it’s a totally different record. It’s not Dumb out at all.

AllHipHop.com: Why did you go with the approach of no hook, just straight rhyming?

Joe Budden: I’m just…to me right everything is based around a hook. Everything is based around your beat and your hook. So when you on a label you have to kind of conform to that. The song has to be structured a certain type of way. Even in you trying to freak it…like 50 tried…he doesn’t try he freaks it. He stays within the structure but he always does something different. Like “In The Club” that record is probably two minutes and 30 seconds long. “I Get Money”, verse-hook, verse-hook, the bridge is the third verse He always does something different in there. But aside from a nigga like that, everybody pretty much does the exact same thing. So on the mixtapes, and I can’t really continue to call this a mixtape cause everything is original on it, it really is like an album, but on the mixtapes or when I’m in my own zone and I don’t have those restraints on me, I like to do shit a certain way. I know that when I sign my deal I’ll have to do things a different way. So I like to try and take advantage of it.

Most of the times when I’m writing, and you can hear it on this tape, you’ve heard it in the past, I’ll start out with a certain mindset for what the record should be and by the time you get to the 16th bar, the record is talking about something totally different. The topics continue to change depending on the mood. I kind of just let the pen go. So I don’t ever want to stop that to put a hook in there to tell you what the record is about. 'Cause that’s basically what the hooks is for. The hook is to give people a general idea of what the song is about. And I can’t really do that on Mood Muzik. Not on this one anyway because the topic is going to change every few bars. You lose the momentum when you do that, and I don’t want to do that.

My mixtape niggas, this is for them. I’m catering to them at the same time doing the things that I want to do. I don’t want no hook. I don’t want to do the club, the bitches, I don’t want to do anything in the norm. that was the whole idea of Mood Musik in the first place. Cause everybody wanted to think, everybody seemed to think there was no audience for this type of music and I been successful in putting this type of music out. I always try to do something different.

There are a few songs with choruses on here but the ones without choruses tend to be my favorites. And I mean honestly if I started with choruses on some of these records they’re going to come out to be like 8, 9 minutes long cause I’m just spitting bars right now and if you notice as soon as that beat drop, bars came on. It’s not a nigga taking up space on the beat. It’s not me talking. It’s not me bullshitting around, not even on the end. On the end of that record when the bars go off the fade is coming, I’m not talking shit. So that’s about 5 minutes of bars. To the artists out there, the niggas that rap, you can do the math on that. I don’t have one verse on here that’s just 16 bars. Maybe three songs are stuck to that formula, with 16, 16, 16. Everything else, when I start going off, everything is about 60 bars minimum, the minimum. On there that’s probably about 84. I mean I’m not sure, I’m just going off of what I remember writing in the pad cause I always mark it down. It’s a lot of bars. I’m just trying to get some things out, so that’s all. Those tend to be my favorites, and that right there, definitely one of my favorites.

Joe Budden: This next track is called “Send Him Our Love.” I mean it’s really hard when you ask a nigga to pick favorites cause it’s like trying to pick your favorite child or some shit like that. All of the records have a different meaning to me and they all my favorites. But this one again is personal and I’m speaking to somebody directly and it just came out crazy. It’s one of the earlier joints that we did and it’s another beat that I was going to hold on to and I said, Ya know what, fuck that. I’m a let it all hang out, like I’m not going to hold on to shit. Even though I ended up holding on to like five or six. But um, yeah, I’ma blast off. Play damn it.

Joe Budden: Yeah, you get the gist of that one. Another one that’s pretty self-explanatory. That’s my $tack Bundles tribute. But, it’s not really a tribute. It’s not one of those records like “We’ll Always Love Big Poppa” or one of those. That’s me just directly — how you gonna come in late and not have the phone on vibrate, nigga! — that’s just me directly speaking to him. When I get in the booth I act like it’s just me. Act like I’m not actually releasing the music and people aren’t going to hear what I’m talking about. That’s me just talking to my nigga, let him know I miss him. Let him know I love him and that’s pretty much it. That’s one of the songs that are in the format of 16, 16, and 16. Niggas will appreciate it because he was loved by many. Loved by many.

To pre-order Mood Muzik 3, visit www.JoeBudden.org.