Joe Budden - All Love Lost (2015)

On the verge of his new album All Love Lost, a project that Joe Budden will admit is the darker of the No Love Lost and Some Love Lost trilogy, the Slaughterhouse founder doesn t want anyone thinking he s quite as close to the edge as his music (and tweets) may sometimes suggest.
Says Budden:
I m great. I m happy, I m wonderful, football season starts soon, the team is looking great... My skill level is still very, very, very, very high. My team is ok. I m ok. Everyone is ok. I m blessed.

If Joey is a bit annoyed at the extra scrutiny applied to his paragraphs, he s got no one but himself to blame. As one of the pioneers of putting personal life and feelings on wax, tales of woe on everything from shaky situations and substance abuse to family drama and failed relationships have been the norm since his Def Jam debut. In the years that followed, Joe has taken the Budden faithful down plenty of dark rides. And in the space between his last album to now, life has returned the favor, providing part of the backdrop for All Love Lost.
Budden continues:
When I say dark... My grandfather passed, my mother fought cancer, my father fought cancer, my father had a knee replacement. I could go on and on and on and on about different things that took place in my life over the last two years but it s nothing that should be alarming to anyone who s been there before. And, throughout this entire album the theme is love. Just with a dark twist on it.

Joe Budden may seem odd to fans that just caught on over the past few years. The dark and brooding mind that created the love gone wrong anthem Broke, the first single off All Love Lost, may seem in sharp contrast to the non-stop joke machine they ll see on his Twitter account. The artist who writes about break-ups and substance abuse relapses doesn t really match up with the witty, insightful Hip-Hop head that fans of his I ll Name This Podcast Later podcast have come to know. But in a business where execs, managers, marketers and more are telling rappers to extend their reach with Twitter, podcasts and every other app available to attract more fans, Joey isn t looking for any extra approval.
He continues:
I m all right with not appealing to everybody. I m all right with my music not being for everyone. I m not a promoter, I m not a marketer, I m not any of these things. I m an artist true to form so my main concern is always the music. Not how to push it, not who s gonna hear it, not how much will it sell, not what s the radio joint. If you hear it and you re with it, great. If you don t, it s not for you.