Internet Responds to Joe Budden Calling Out Rappers for Being Too Quiet About ICE Raids

Joe Budden isn’t mincing words when it comes to hip-hop and the role it’s not playing as it relates to all the recent ICE chaos that’s been ensuing around the country. In fact, the often controversial hip-hop artist and podcast host recently let his thoughts off about it all—and it looks like some of his listeners agree with his perspective.

As we’ve been keeping up with on this side of the internet, more than a handful of artists decided to use their platform during the 2026 Grammys to add their two cents to the anti-ICE discourse. However, save for a few rappers like Vic Mensa and Chance the Rapper, not too many in the hip-hop community have done the same. And for Budden, that’s just something that he doesn’t respect.

Speaking during Wednesday’s episode of his popular podcast, he expressed his displeasure over how quiet hip-hop has been when it comes to ICE, describing it as a “sickening” sight to see.

“It’s sickening to think of the hip-hop I came from and the hip-hop I was introduced to and think of the hip-hop other people were introduced to and see how silent hip-hop is on certain matters. You niggas is pawns, p*ssies and f*cking puppets. All of y’all don’t have a voice to say sh*t,” Budden said. “Everybody is too silent for me. It’s too silent for me when you see Americans getting executed on American soil. By America. And then they go on TV and tell you every reason that what you saw is not what is. No time in my life could that happen and hip-hop not be in an uproar.”

Co-host Antwan “Ish” Marby then chimed in and said that that was likely due to the fact that most of the ICE killings have involved white people and Black people—and in particular, Black folks who leave comments on their page and in mainstream comments—don’t really care since it’s not happening to them. He also argued that for some, they feel a disconnect due to the fact that when Black folks were fighting their fight, white folks weren’t too quick to jump in there with them.

Co-host Marc Lamont Hill, he added that in hip-hop there’s been a “declining political consciousness” that’s been taking place that that may also be contributing towards the community’s apathy towards what’s going on currently.

“Hip-hop was born out of anti-establishment, ‘we’re gonna fight the power.’ Literally PE, we’re gonna fight the power. But then in some ways, we wanted to get rich, we wanted to be Donald Trump. Then at some point, ‘my President is Black.’ It’s like OK at one point, we’re fighting the white house, Ronald Reagan, f*ck George Bush, f*ck these people,’” Hill explained. “But now, we’re part of the infrastructure, we’re part of the establishment instead of fighting it. And I think our aspirations have changed a little bit.”

Interestingly enough, by the time Budden and co.’s words hit the social media streets, others were quick to side with them and listed other reasons why they feel hip-hop leaders and influential figures have decided to opt out of the ICE convos and other more serious discourse.

“Hip hop is too commercial now to have a backbone anymore,” wrote one user on YouTube.

“Hip hop, on a mainstream level, has been commodified, co-opted and sold out for damn near 20 years now. none of this is surprising. the silence speaks volumes,” said another.

“It’s not the same hip hop. You can count on 1 hand the number of artists that are socially conscious and mainstream,” one other user noted.

However, there were still some who felt like this wasn’t an issue Black folks in hip-hop need to concern themselves with.

“oe fallback. As a foundation of black American, we have our own issues. We fought for other people issues for far far too long. Just for them to turn around and undermine us. Talk to us crazy. This country was built off of my family, blood sweat, and tears, and it’s about time that we took care of ourselves first,” one user said.

Added another, in part: “Many in hip-hop — especially Black communities — are choosing to sit this one out because of generations of feeling ignored or mistreated. You can’t expect people to immediately show up in support while dismissing their long-standing grievances and telling them to put those aside for someone else’s needs, particularly when they feel their own needs were never meaningfully addressed.”