Jay-Z Charged Joe Budden $250,000 For a Verse

Rapper Jay-Z is widely regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time, and has been a respected emcee in the hip-hop world for over two decades. And although he doesn’t charge rappers for a guest verse today, when Joe Budden wanted to hire Hov for a feature, the “Brooklyn’s Finest” rapper hit him with a hefty price tag.

‘Pump It Up’ is Joe Budden’s biggest song

Joe Budden released his self-titled debut album in 2003, fronted by the lead single “Pump It Up.” The song reached the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and remains his highest-charting song to date, boasting over 50 million streams on Spotify today.

Budden wanted to recruit Jay-Z for a remix of the song. Interestingly enough, Jay turned down the beat to the song before it ended up with Budden.

When Jay-Z hit Budden with a $250,000 request for a verse, he had to turn it down because he couldn’t afford it.

Jay-Z wanted $250,000 to be on the ‘Pump It Up’ remix

Budden spoke about the failed collab in a 2022 interview on the Flip Da Script podcast.

“I don’t think [$250,000] was a big number, I think that was his number,” he said, adding that Jay-Z told him, “‘That’s my number to rap on this new artist’s remix.’”

“It was just big in my world, but it wasn’t a big number,” he conceded.

When looking back, he chalked it up to his naïveté as a new rapper. “Listen, I’m super young in that moment,” he said. “I wasn’t in the studio when [Jay and Budden’s A&R Skane] had the conversation. I knew that they had some type of relationship. It was a Just Blaze beat, and I was green behind the ears. I just thought that it would get done.”

“I didn’t know anything about the business and how things like that are supposed to go. That was par the course,” he said. “It was big to me because it was unattainable… but the blessing was that he gave a number.”

Despite not joining Budden for a remix, Jay-Z recorded a freestyle over the beat, with many claiming he outdid Budden on his own song. Some felt that the song was a sly diss aimed at the rapper.

Budden blamed Jay-Z for shelving his album

Budden’s revelation came after Jay-Z’s 2022 interview on Kevin Hart’s show Hart to Heart where he spoke about never charging for a feature and worked with rappers based on relationships.

Jay-Z later became president of Def Jam, which Budden was signed to when he released his debut album. Budden’s sophomore album was shelved for years, and Budden believed it was because of the strained relationship between the two,.

“I didn’t know anything back in the day, and when you don’t know enough all there is to do is feel, to just be sensitive to things, be reactionary to things,” Budden said. “If you don’t know. I didn’t know s*** about s***.”