Friday Face-Off – Joe Budden vs Method Man

As we're sure everyone is aware, former psych patient Joe Budden and veteran actor Method Man are embroiled in some sort of a rap beef. It stems from Vibe.com's asinine attempt to bite Fish & Spaghetti's own April Madness/Spring Cleaning tournament.

Only instead of television domestic help, Vibe decided to focus on emcees and crown the Best Rapper Alive.

Real classy Vibe.com.



Anyway, Joe Budden took umbrage at the completely ridiculous seeding and dropped Bow Wow and Method Man's name in his online rant. Method Man responded in kind and the two have been bitching about it on the radio this week. Which brings us to this: Method Man vs Joe Budden.

Watch your step, too late; you're knee deep in the Friday Face-Off.


For this week's Face-Off the two combatants will match up in four criteria; Associates, The Def Jam Years, Skills and Shameful Past.

Lets take a look at thier Associates:

Method Man has not only been in the game longer, but he's a founding member of Wu-Tang. So, just as a point of clarity let's list the Wu. Rza, Gza, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Inspectah Deck, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, U-God, Masta Killa and Cappadonna.

On the other hand, Joe Budden is associated with quite a few "Generation Next", slept on/underground emcees. Joe's got Joell Ortiz, Crooked I, Royce da 5'9" and Fabolous who are famously his friends.

But let's got back to the Wu Tang for a second. ODB is dead. We defy anyone to defend U-God, Inspectah Deck or Masta Killa on their post 1996 output. Seriously, those guys are basically riding on Wu coattails. Honestly, if Wu-Wear hadn't folded those three would be shift managers at a Wu-Wear retail outlet. And if you live in Charm City, Cappadonna is like the one American cabbie in town. So basically the Wu is whittled down Rza, Gza, Ghost and Raekwon. Plus Red(man) and Meth are nearly inseparable so we'll throw him in too.

Thus you've got Raekwon, Ghostface, Rza, Gza and Redman vs Joell Ortiz, Crooked I, Royce da 5'9" and Fabolous.

We would pay good money to see that battle but sadly, for the purposes of our comparison, it just comes down to classic material, and Meth's associates have tons and Joe's associates are really lacking in that area for now.

Advantage: Method Man

Lets look at the Def Jam Years:

Joe Budden's time in Def Jam was a rocky one. He released one hot single, one bloated album and a critically acclaimed series of mixtapes. It's widely accepted that Def Jam treated Joe Budden like they were characters in a John Hughes-esque 80's movie; the abusive boyfriend (Def Jam) who squandered and under appreciated the girlfriend (Joe Budden) who clearly deserved better. The turbulance between Budden and Def Jam is documented on Mood Muzik 2 and seriously, there couldn't have been more angst and drama if it was written by Judy Blume.

Method Man, meanwhile released four albums. To paraphrase Jay-Z though, two of them were due, one was "nah" the other was Tical. That's one hot album every twelve years average. Not that impressive.

However, Method Man did manage an impressive string of guest spots and features. In fact it could be argued that Method Man works better when he's sharing the spotlight. Blackout was such a strong album it spawned a sequel, albeit a decade after the original, but a sequel nonetheless.

Also, Method Man's still on Def Jam and Joe was dropped.

It's really close. How do you measure the substance of Joe Budden's Mood Muzik (inspired by and recorded while on Def Jam) with Method Man's decade and a half of stellar guest spots? All things being equal, they're pretty much equal.

Advantage: Tie

General Skills:
Method Man is damn clever. He'll make you laugh or "wow" you on any given track without morning. You give him the briefest guest spot and he'll find a way to shine. He's held his own with B.I.G., Gza, ODB, Ghostface, Raekwon, Redman, Mary J, Tupac, Shaq, Busta, Pharoah, Canibus, Limp Bizkit, and the Beatnuts.

Meth is a great collaborator. If this was a grade school report card he's get props for "playing well with others."

He also is one of the best regarded live Hip Hop acts around.

Joe Budden can battle, tell a story and supply punchlines. Joe Budden can also freak a concept and get personal, about himself.

As much as we love Meth, we just don't see him coming up with songs like "Three Sides to a Story" or "Who."

Does anyone honestly think that Method Man could come up with a 15 minute song that was not only NOT a waste of time, but genuinely dope? Seriously, try to find three consecutive good songs on any of Meth's last three albums. Here's a hint; you can't. To put it bluntly, his solo shit sucks compared to his features.

Joe Budden's a more diverse emcee who's stronger in more areas than Method Man.

Advantage: Joe Budden

Shameful Past

As far as we know Joe Budden, with the exception of his flop of a debut album, doesn't really have too much to be ashamed of; he airs out most of his own dirty laundry on his albums so the guy's an open book. Whether it's drama with his baby's mom's, his past drug abuse or mental instability issues, Joe's addressed it all in his Mood Muzik series. He even addressed his lamentable Def Jam debut.

Method Man has got some shameful stuff on his resume though.

Along with shitty musci, there's some pretty bad movies on his resume. Cop Land and One Eight Seven are acceptable because the guy was getting his foot in the door, he couldn't be picky. But Soul Plane and Meet the Spartans both came out after his role in the Academy Award nominated Garden State. Those two movies alone are enough for him to hang his head in shame.

Plus there was the abomination that was Method and Red.

Never has a show wavered so wildly between awesomely inspired and diarrhea inducing awfulness. More often than not it was the latter. It was so bad that Meth himself told people not to watch it before it aired. It's like if some made Leonard Part 6 a television series. It was that dreadful.

But easily the worst skeleton is the story floating around that former Def Jam Executive Kevin Liles actually asked Buddens to ghost write a verse for a Method Man Song. Meth claims he didn't use the verse but the fact that Liles decided to ask Buddens for a verse may be indicative of an everyday practice at Def Jam. Is it possible that Liles asked Buddens for a verse for Meth because he was used to acquiring verses from ghost writers for him?

We've got to give this one to Joe Budden.

Advantage Joe Budden.

And there it is. In our ridiculous battle between Joe Budden and Method Man, Joe wins. Method Man may have the better crew of associates and a good Def Jam career, but Joe's time on Def Jam was just as good albeit not as long and he's a more talented emcee and he's got fewer failures in his past.

We're also pretty sure that in the inevitable battle the two are going to have, Budden is going to destroy Method Man and it's going to be embarrassing.

Speaking of the inevitable battle, we're going on record as saying that this is only happening because Method Man is putting out an album soon and Hip Hop has never looked more like wrestling to us, but whatever. It should still be fun.

Next Week: Sea Salt vs Table Salt vs Epsom Salt!