Image via Complex Original
Joe Budden is one of those rappers who might be bigger on Twitter than anywhere else. You probably don't hear him on the radio all that often (he's essentially an underground/independent rapper), he doesn't sell the most albums, or perform in the biggest arenas, and before joining the cast of VH1's Love & Hip Hop, you probably didn't see him on TV all that much. But despite his seeming lack of media presence, Joe is the kind of rapper who always ends up on your Twitter timeline—even if you don't follow him.
You really should though. Joe doesn't just retweet compliments and tweet about where you can buy his latest album. Instead, he actively engages with fans, sharing whatever comes to mind. Just yesterday, he tweeted to his nearly 850,000 followers about how Spanish girls shower and whether he should join ChristianMingle. Whereas most celebrities treat Twitter like a scrolling billboard, Joe uses it to give fans a 24/7 inside look at his life.
And it's been working. He's so popular, Jay Z—someone he's had a contentious relationship with in the past and doesn't even follow Beyonce on Twitter—recently started following him on Twitter. But once we reported on it, Jay unfollowed him (according to Joe, Jay followed and unfollowed him last year too). So when trying to figure out who to speak to about being heavy in these tweets, we figured Joe would be a good person to speak to. Here's Joe Budden's Guide To Twitter...
As told to Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin)
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Don't Always Be Selling
Joe Budden: "I don't wanna just be seen like I'm selling something. Actually, I try not to even go hard on anything I'm selling, I try to rely on other avenues for that. I try to utilise social networking for what it is: networking socially. I've been so interactive with my fans that I've developed a unique relationship with them for over ten years now. So that online dialogue is important.
Ignore The Haters
Joe Budden: "Hate would have me go that much harder, I would never get angry at it. It's entertaining to me. As an artist, it should be second nature to develop thick skin. There's nothing strangers commenting online could say that would bother me. It just wouldn't happen.
"However, my brother Stack Bundles-who no longer is on this earth, rest in peace-wouldn't be able to understand how I deal with it. For him, those comments would have the opposite effect, he'd want to kill everyone who said something negative.
"You gotta realise that people just say shit. I have to actually care about you to give a fuck. But these people are strangers so I don't care. They can say whatever they want online."
Tweet Up With Fans
Joe Budden: "There's so many memorable [fans I've met off social media]. It's so nice when you get to meet some of the people who follow you so intensely online. These people are invested in you, they've grown up with you. They'll show you tattoos that they have on them or they've got you as their phone wallpaper. It's really special to see it for yourself.
"For the last few years, I've actually thrown Twitter fan kickball games in the summertime, just to meet some of these people. This is the fourth year coming up. I'll wake up on a hot day, tweet the location of the park and the time, and like 50 kids from online show up at a park you tweeted two hours ago. People bring their dogs and kids, it's like a family day."
You Can't Hit Unsend
Joe Budden: "I got my regrettable moments, [my tweet about the Sikh man at the airport] is definitely one of them because I was being ignorant about other races and not considering the things other people have to go through. Or that Eddie Murphy tweet where I said he was dead, I take that one back. That was a bad one.
"There aren't any others that I would take back. The amount of discretion I try to use on most of my tweets is funny because most people say that I seem so unfiltered. But that's actually a very filtered version of what I'm actually thinking. [Laughs]
"But once it's out there, it's out there. You can't take it back, you can't hit unsend. You've got so many different people following you, like damn near a million, so things travel quickly."
When to Respond to a Controversy
Joe Budden: “For me, controversy is like the pimple versus cancer. If you have a pimple and you just don’t do anything to it, it’ll go away. But if you have cancer and you don’t do anything to it, it’ll kill you. So I have the same kinda way to deal with controversy and respond to it. It’s worked out pretty well.”
Stay Ahead of the Game
Joe Budden: "When I got my first major deal in 2001, I noticed there wasn't enough attention being paid to the new media side of things. I was trying to advocate that really early and now it seems like that's part of everyone's role now, to focus on social media and the blogs. Now it's like, I can pinpoint when my lyrics happen based on [the date of] the tweets. A lot of the context [for songs] on the blogs are strictly from tweets. You give it away. You can see how that's changed throughout the years.
"As an artist that's part of my job, to try and stay ahead of the curve. I couldn't have the fanbase and the appreciation I do online without mentioning the relationship over the years. My following has grown immensely [since Love and Hip Hop]. I couldn't have done any of it without social media. Things like my pool parties couldn't have popped off the way they did without Twitter and social media."
Rap About It
Joe Budden: "It's part of pop culture so you'll end up rapping about social media in some way. Nobody's exempt from that. Hov has done it. I could name tons of rappers that have rapped about a reaction, a hashtag, a trending topic, or Instagram. Anything that's going on, somebody's gonna rap about it."
On Whether You Should Follow Your Ex
Joe Budden: "I normally unfollow my exes as soon as I'm off it. And I'm normally off it pretty quickly. There's some exes who I follow today though, like we're friends. So I guess it depends on how it ends."
Basic Rules of Sub-Tweet
Joe Budden: "If it were clever I wouldn't be mad at [a sub-tweet]. If it's done cheesy though, I would advise against it at all times. It just has to be done cleverly."
The Cardinal Sin of Twitter
Joe Budden: "Vanity annoys me. Vanity and attention seeking. Narcissistic fake shit. You can tell the fake shit online."