Joe Budden has been making moves since ending his exclusive Spotify deal last September, adding two new podcasts to The Joe Budden Network and inking a Cash App sponsorship. Now, he’s moving the network and along with his signature podcast to Patreon, and has been announced as an advisor and head of creator equity, reports The Verge.
While his signature podcast — The Joe Budden Podcast with Rory & Mal — will remain available for free on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and SoundCloud, listeners will also have the option to access additional content with a subscription to the Joe Budden Network Patreon page.
“Every step along the way in my career, I’ve been either underpaid, undervalued or just without the information because they don’t make it transparent to creators, especially young ones, the same young ones that they target,” Budden said, according to Billboard. “The goal since maybe my last album has been to find what true value is. The system is still all the way broken and we’re entering a new decade. At some point, somebody has to draw a line in the sand. I didn’t feel like any of my content was valued properly. That’s from Complex to Spotify to you name it, the story just continues.”
Budden announced on his podcast their three tier subscription costs ranging from $5 to $25 a month for two additional weekly episodes, bonus footage, behind the scenes clips, tour deals, and more. The Joe Budden Network plans to expand even further with new shows accessible only to Patreon subscribers, reports The Verge.
The $5 subscription includes one additional episode with bonus content, $10 listeners receive two additional episodes and their third $25 tier includes a full package of exclusive unfiltered content, he shared on his podcast.
Budden has become known for being a champion for creators. He tells The Verge that exclusive content deals, such as the one he had with Spotify, are “prehistoric” and are not the future of podcasting.
He has a standard Patreon plan where the company takes a percentage of their subscription revenue, according to the company’s CEO Jack Conte. In addition, his appointment as an advisor to the company and head of creator equity aligns with the model he set for creator ownership.
You can catch the the first Patreon-exclusive episode here on Feb. 8.
