While this take is a pretty big and unfounded exaggeration in our eyes, the rapper and podcaster didn’t actually hate this track.

The titular host of The Joe Budden Podcast launched a scorching take on the latest episode of the program concerning Cardi B’s new single, “Like What (Freestyle).” However, the part that social media is reacting the most heavily to doesn’t even have much to do with the actual song itself. For the record, the rapper and media personality thinks that the record is a cool one, although he expressed as such in a slightly backhanded way. But the part that really prompted heated fan debate is his assessment that the “girl rapper wave” is over, which is obviously tough to imagine.

“Y’all ain’t gonna want to hear it from me, but the girl rapper wave is over,” Joe Budden remarked on the show after he and his colleagues played “Like What (Freestyle).” “All of that ‘Go find a girl, send her to Columbia, get it done, put her in the studio with f***ing [Mike WiLL Made-It] or any one of them n***as.’ All that planting the girl in the scene, getting the record and it taking off, that wave is over.”

Joe Budden Speaks On Cardi B’s New Song & Female Rap: Watch

Not only that, but the Slaughterhouse MC also posited that record labels aren’t getting their investments back on femcees. While there wasn’t really any data or analysis offered to back this up, he did separately bring up the long wait for Cardi B’s sophomore album, which one could interpret as an example of this. “I think the Cardi freestyle is cool,” Joe Budden conceded. “I mean, I’m gonna think it’s cool. Because anybody’s gonna sound good over the ‘She’s A B***h’ beat.”

Meanwhile, it’s understandable to think that some female artists in rap didn’t capitalize on their hype, but can’t we say that across any demographic? The wave that the media personality is specifically referencing, though, has been around for quite some time. As such, it’s up to these femcees, whether superstars or on the rise, to define the next era.