Cardi B has been criticized by Joe Budden for sampling JAY-Z‘s “Imaginary Players” on her new similarly titled single “Imaginary Playerz”.
Speaking on his eponymous podcast, Budden explained why he was not happy she chose to sample such a revered song.
He said: “She shouldn’t do that again. Don’t take any East Coast top three, four rapper beat, classic song, and redo that. We gonna shout out the writers. The writers killed. This is not about the writers. The bars are there. That wasn’t enough.”
The former Slaughterhouse rapper added: “That delivery, those punch-ins, how choppy that was … ‘Imaginary Players,’ for y’all that wasn’t there, Hov, when that dropped, was a much better rapper than that.
“It was just fly because of the cadence and the flow and what he was saying, his aura and voice control. Cardi is in the same pitch, same tone, sounding choppy, not smooth. Bars are there, but this is not the beat for that.”
Joe Budden, back from vacation, shares his thoughts on Cardi B “Imaginary Players” record and whether she can hit 200k first-week sales in today’s climate, where Gunna sold 80k, Clipse sold 118k, and Nicki Minaj sold 228k. pic.twitter.com/4P0YHF2rWL
— joebuddenclips/fanpage (@Chatnigga101) August 20, 2025
Cardi B recently defended her choice to include a couple of classic songs on her upcoming album Am I the Drama?
The project will include “WAP” and “Up” which were released in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
On X, Cardi explained why she put the old songs on her album: “This will be the last and only time I’m gonna address this.. ‘WAP’ and ‘Up’ are two of my biggest songs, my fans have been asking me to put them on an album, and people search for them on IOP all the time… they deserve a home..
“I let haters make me not submit ‘WAP’ for the Grammy’s and at this point I’m giving my fans what they want! These two songs don’t even count for first week sales so what are yall even crying about??? Do ya say anything when all these artist pull out all their little tricks and ponies to sell out??? Exactly….Now let them eat cake. Go cry about it!!!”
Am I the Drama? is the long-awaited follow-up to her debut album Invasion of Privacy which was released way back in 2018.
Am I the Drama? is scheduled to be released on September 19.
