‘Pump It Up’ Rapper Joe Budden Pumps Bitcoin With Pomp

It’s a big day for Joe Biden, who was just sworn in as the 46th President of the United States—but let’s not forget about Joe Budden, the one-time rapper and Eminem affiliate whose podcast remains one of the weirder cultural artifacts from the last decade.

Crypto booster Anthony Pompliano swung by Budden’s show for a far-reaching conversation about cryptocurrencies, and used the opportunity to spread the Bitcoin gospel.

The episode was called “Pomp It Up”—a reference to Budden’s 2003 song “Pump It Up.”

Budden said that he first became interested in Bitcoin after scoring a sponsorship deal with Cash App, the digital payments service run by Square and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who’s been vocal about his support of crypto in the past.

“Let’s pretend that I took a portion of one of my deals in Bitcoin,” mused Budden. “How conservative or non-conservative should I be in that regard. And how stupid would I be to do that?”

Pompliano replied with some transparently unsound advice: “You should take 100% of your deal in bitcoin, and don’t sell it, and you will be an absolute gangster 10 years from now.”

Budden neglected to mention whether he was being specifically paid to shill for Bitcoin, though the timing of this crypto-focused segment (which comes just a couple months after the Cash App sponsorship) leaves it something of an open question. Cash App recently teamed up with Megan Thee Stallion for a promotional Bitcoin giveaway on Twitter.

Budden’s seeming embrace of Bitcoin is part of a larger trend in hip-hop: the late Nipsey Hussle was advocating for the asset before his death in 2019, and Meek Mill has promoted crypto literacy on Clubhouse, as part of a weekly conversation called Culture Currency.

“I fuck with people, Pomp, that think outside of the box,” said Budden. “And to really grasp this, I guess I have to really think outside of the box.”