Following his fellow Slaughterhouse emcee Joe Budden with an appearance of his own on the AngryFans Radio Show, Crooked I spoke about the Battle Rap industry at large and addressed the recent rumor mill surrounding the group’s involvement on the scene.
Talking about the much-talked-about planned match-up pitting Joe Budden against Hollow Da Don, Crooked I explained feeling like Budden has more to lose.
“I salute Joe for going into that arena because he doesn’t have to do that,” Crooked I said. “He stands to lose more. A lot of people think he’s gonna lose anyway.
“Well, you know, this industry is about perception a lot of times,” he added. “It’s sad to say the fans feed off perception. For him to go in there and if he take an L, depending on how bad it is, it could really tarnish his reputation and the things that he’s built up as a ‘mainstream’ artist trying to go back...He’s on TV, man. He got more access to be ridiculed. He got a major deal over here with Shady. It could make a stain or something if he went up there—which I doubt would happen—and just totally choked. Now they looking around at Shady like, ‘Okay.’ It’s a lot.”
Crooked I also talked about the planned battle when asked about dream match ups he’d like to see play out.
“The Hollow [versus] Joe, I gotta see that,” he said. “I ain’t going to even lie to you, just thinking about that, at first I was like, ‘Damn.’ But then I started thinking, let me tell you something, Joe got an elephant memory. When we doing our tour, he could listen to a song one time and he got it. He do shows at the House of Blues and all that shit, six hour sets. Doing like 30 or 40 shows until he damn-near passing out on stage sweating and shit. That’s a strong-point for him. I’m just sitting back kind of dissecting his abilities and what I feel his abilities are and his strong points are, wondering how he’s gonna utilize them when he get into that ring with Hollow. That’s what I wanna see. It’s kind of fucked up ‘cause I really wanted to see the Mook and Lux again but this is a wild card. I gotta see that.”
Early in the interview, the Apex Predator emcee touched on his opinion that Loaded Lux is one of his favorite battlers.
“I just respect him because his technique,” Crooked said. “His approach. He got the syllable flow. He got the different cadences. He got the grown man bars that can compete with anybody’s punchline. I just really think the dude is—he is what he is. Everybody knows he’s an OG. Everybody knows he’s one of the greatest to do it. That’s just who he is.”
When asked about the recent call-out from SMACK/URL co-manager Norbes for Slaughterhouse to enter a battle as a group, Crooked seemed to jokingly cite Joe Budden’s upcoming battle as the start of the response.
“I been hearing about people trying to line us four up with another four because Joe,” he said. “I blame Joe. He got this talk going. Now all of a sudden Slaughterhouse gonna turn into this Battle Rap group. That’s not even what I’m trying to do. You know how it is when you’re an emcee, you get tested you’re gonna get down.
“I don’t think it’s a rapper alive that could walk all over me,” he later said. “That’s not my arena. I could absolutely prepare and go into that arena because I’m a scientist myself and I like to consider myself a student of Hip Hop from the beginning all the way to the fucking end. I’m gonna put my money on myself if I go in on anybody. That’s not my forte. That be like telling all the Battle Rap dudes, ‘Yo, let’s see who could write the illest song out of you and Crooked.’ They gonna be somewhat out of their element if they just been battling, battling, battling.”
Asked about his perception on a Joe Budden loss, Crooked alluded to the possibility that Budden could turn to his music in response.
“Nah I don’t think so, ‘cause you know one good thing about Joey?" he said. "Joey is very good [at] making songs about his pain, his own failures. He can go up there, lose badly, and make a whole fucking mixtape about that shit.”
During the interview, Crooked I also spoke briefly about some of his other favorite battlers, rattling off a Top 3 that started with fellow West Coast emcee Dizaster.
“Right now I like Dizaster because you never know what he’s gonna say or do,” he said. “I like T-Rex, man. The last time I saw T-Rex, he spit something that was so crazy. I just sat there like, ‘Wow.’ Right now I feel like T-Rex is one of the most focused battle rappers. When people see what’s to come they gon’ feel me on that even more. Let me see. That’s kind of tough because I like Calicoe. I like Hollow. I like Lux. That’s tough. I’ma give it to Lux, but Hollow is right up there, too. I just wish my man Tiger Ty would come back.”
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