(AllHipHop News)
It is still not exactly clear what is happening with The Joe Budden Podcast. The popular show’s longtime co-hosts Rory Farrell and Jamil “Mal” Clay have not been on the last two episodes with “friends of the show” Ice and Savon filling in on the B and C mics.
On Wednesday’s pod, Budden tried to explain Rory and Mal’s absence, but his explanation left a lot of listeners with more questions than answers. The retired emcee did say there is no beef between the three men and that Rory and Mal are welcome to return at any time.
The obvious tension surrounding the JPB Boys has led some fans to complain about the situation. Yesterday, “Rory and Mal” was a top trending topic on Twitter as social media users expressed their frustration that the group of guys they were used to tuning in for every week looked to be splitting up.
Negative reactions to the turmoil continued on the Joe Budden TV YouTube page. The “Tea Leaves” edition of JBP without Rory and Mal, which was published on March 24, has 4,900 dislikes on the video as compared to 3,900 likes.
March 20th’s “The Nine” episode was also missing Rory and Mal and included Ice and Savon. That show has a 5,800/715 like-to-dislike ratio. The most recent installment of The Joe Budden Podcast to feature Rory and Mal is titled “The Sources,” and it pulled in 6,800 likes and just 280 dislikes. “The Sources” episode arrived on YouTube on March 13.
On “Tea Leaves,” Budden told his audience that he pays attention to the numbers connected to his podcast, so between the comments and dislikes it is very likely that the New Jersey native is aware of how a large section of fans feel about the current status of Rory and Mal. However, yesterday morning, Budden did tweet, “Strangers telling me the value of my friends is nuts [loudly crying face emoji].”
Strangers telling me the value of my friends is nuts 😭
— Joe Budden (@JoeBudden) March 24, 2021