Taxstone has taken aim at N.O.R.E. for comments he made about the late Combat Jack during a recent episode of The Joe Budden Podcast.
Appearing as a guest on a February episode of Joe Budden’s show, N.O.R.E. criticized Combat Jack and Taxstone for signing to Loud Speakers Network and “giving away YouTubes for free” at the start of their podcasting career.
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“It’s probably the best audio deal in rap podcast history,” N.O.R.E. said. “I’m keeping it 100. And we still own our IPO. I said, ‘Before me, they gave the YouTubes for free. Them IPOs, they didn’t own, only me and [DJ EFN].”
He continued: “A’lot of y’all dudes was out here giving y’all YouTubes away for free. Y’all was signed to… what’s that shit, Sound? What was the shit that Tax and all them n-ggas was signed to? What’s that label? A dude named Matt ran it. Combat, Tax, all of them was on this label giving they YouTubes away for free. I’m the first dude that had a three-deal for the same crack.”
The comments ultimately didn’t sit well with Taxstone, who is currently in prison awaiting sentencing for shooting and killing Troy Ave‘s bodyguard at Irving Plaza during a T.I. concert in 2016. Addressing N.O.R.E.’s comments in an interview with Complex, Tax had a lot of criticism to dole out.
“Nore’s Drink Champs is a legendary podcast. I still like it. I have my little issues with Nore, but I don’t hold on to shit too long like other people do. But I still enjoy his podcast because I like Hip Hop and I like rap legends,” Tax began. “But I don’t like when a person tries to act like they’re intelligent and they know what they’re doing all the time and somebody that tries to act like they’re supportive of the culture.”
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He went on to say that Drink Champs should have never released its highly controversial Kanye West interview, where the Yeezy mogul spewed antisemitic remarks and claimed that Geroge Floyd died from fentanyl and not Derek Chauvin kneeling on his neck for nine-and-a-half minutes.
Taxstone said putting out interviews like that ultimately hurt the culture, and then went on to speak about his feelings towards N.O.R.E.’s most recent comments.
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“I didn’t really address it because that shit is not even true. Like if you really do your due diligence to look at the Tax Season podcast, I didn’t post videos on YouTube,” he said. “And that was intentional because I wasn’t getting paid from it. So if you really see my podcast, it’s only clips of them. It’s only one full interview of Tax Season ever on video. And that’s the Meek Mill interview I did in Atlanta. So that’s false because I didn’t even post videos on YouTube of my podcast. I actually have all of my videos on my hard drive because I knew that that was a different form of revenue that I could get.
“But as far as getting paid and stuff, yeah. Combat got us ads. That’s how we got paid in the beginning. That was the very beginning of podcasts. You know how hard it was to even get a company to believe to put an ad [on the podcast]. But they seen these podcasts is doing 300,000 a week. And that’s when we started selling products like Casper mattresses and Bevel blades. And they seen the products really moving, and they was like, ‘Yo, this is another place to promote and advertise. It’s like, wow. Why are you happy that somebody didn’t succeed? Like why would that be a part of your agenda? This is your agenda and happiness?”
He continued: “Like when you go to sleep at night, you speak to God or whoever you speak to and say, ‘Yo, I want happiness. I want help for my family, you know, wealth and I want to make sure that nobody else survives in this genre?’ That just seems like one of the weirdest parts to be happy for. I have such strong opinions that I deal with people that try to use my strong opinions and turn them into something else. Like the notion, oh yeah, I’m a hater. No. I’m not a hater. I tell the truth.
“And the truth is an uncomfortable place for these people to live in. So a lie is like the best pillow on earth for these people. And it’s like when I say my truth, they get so mad ‘cause they don’t move me. It’s like I understand what’s going on. You’re not gonna insult my intelligence. What’s the point of enlightening yourself and trying to be smart if you could easily be manipulated? These guys are manipulators and they’re not even good at manipulating. It’s all see-through. It’s all transparent.”
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The comments come after a grand jury found Taxstone (real name Darryl Campbell) guilty of manslaughter on March 23 in connection to the 2016 shooting of BSB affiliate Ronald McPhatter, also known as Banga. Sentencing will take place on April 19.
