So, I was thinking the other day, who would win a battle between Lloyd Banks and Joe Budden? Y'all remember Buddens, right? Yeah, that light skinned Jersey dude that made the streets "Pump It Up" back in '03? Damn, it's been that long?!!? LOL. Despite the fact that Joe has a 5 (almost) 6 year hiatus from the music industry, he's still managed to keep his name in the mouths of avid hip hop listeners by releasing mixtapes such as Mood Muzic Volumes 1-3, releasing his most recent one in 2008. Joe's only studio album to date was the self titled, "Joe Budden" released in 2003 (
Def Jam/OnTop) and is currently working towards his 2009 release, "Padded Room" (
2009 Amalgam Digital).
Banks on the other hand has been putting albums out since late 2003, starting with his debut album, "Hunger for More", (
G-Unit/Interscope), and his sophomore album "Rotten Apple" (
2007 G-Unit/Interscope). Even though Banks has an almost 2 year hiatus from the music industry, he's been keeping all his fans busy with mixtape releases like, "5 and Better: Return of the P.L.K.", "Halloween Havoc", and various G-Unit mixtape and album releases, such as "T.O.S." (
2008 G-Unit/Interscope). It's said that there was a time when the fans felt Lloyd Banks had fell off, temporarily surrendering his self proclamed title, P.L.K.(Punchline King). But now Banks is back even hungrier than what his debut album's title suggested back in '03, and he's doing it!! My thing is, both artists are extremely talented. But I wanna know from the people's standpoint, who's hotter????
**Update** 7/6/09
With this new talk about Joe Budden saying that he wants to do a track with Banks, and that Banks fell off, I wanna know who's better. Banks done came out with 2 more mixtapes since I originally wrote this article. Both mixtapes were official. Joe Buddens done released his album, The Padded Room, and it didn't do well in sales, but was from what I heard a good album. His true masterpiece however, comes in the form of a group called Slaughterhouse. When those dudes get together, they're damn near unstoppable. But Banks is also a force to be reckoned with. The question still remains... who's hotter?