The fire guests just keep on coming! This week, Brooklyn rapper and actor Joey Bada$$ joins host Jeremy Hecht for UPROXX’s Sound Check, a new weekly interview series revealing your favorite artist’s musical taste. Each high-stakes, 12-round episode features a carefully curated playlist of impossible choices, unearthing some never-before-heard stories and creative influences. This episode was recorded about an hour before Joey went into the booth and recorded his game-shaking verse during the Red Bull Spiral cypher with Ab-Soul and Big Sean at the Red Bull studios.

Everyone in the hip hop community is aware of the current East coast vs. West coast battle that Joey just so happens to be in the middle of. With that being the case, it only make sense that he was forced to choose between songs from two of his favorite artists of all time – “Changes” by Tupac ft. Talent and “Sky’s The Limit” by The Notorious B.I.G. ft. 112. Joey chose the Pac classic and said. “I think the Tupac ‘Changes’ one is definitely like, that’s probably number one…that’s a generational classic…That joint it just do something to you…I probably listen to ‘Sky’s The Limit’ more though, but I gotta give it to ‘Changes’.”

As a New York native, being a fan of both Jay-Z and Nas is almost embedded in you. Later in the episode, Joey had to pick which track he preferred from two of his favorite albums of all time – “Dead Presidents II” by Jay-Z and “World Is Yours” by Nas. The 30 year-old decided on the former: “Out of the two songs that you play for me, I got to go ‘Dead Presidents’…as much as I love Ilmatic, ‘World is Yours’ is not my favorite joint on there, you know what I’m saying. Like if you played ‘It Ain’t Hard to Tell’ then it would have been a different conversation you know what I mean but…it’s funny that ‘Dead President’ is not my favorite song on Reasonable Doubt either…’Friend or Foe’ is probably my favorite.”

In the final round, Hecht flips the script and turns the tables on himself by attempting to guess the track Joey says represents his entire life. Given two options—“Bag Lady” by Erykah Badu and “Something About Us” by Daft Punk—Hecht correctly guessed “Something About Us”. When asked about his song selection, Joey answers, “That’s my favorite song of all time…I can’t even remember when I found that song um, that’s on their Discovery album and uh I don’t know bro it’s just like it’s so funky but it got like a hip-hop kind of R&B element to it, and then it’s like when the words come it’s like the perfect words bro…like me and my daughter listen to that song, it’s one of her favorite songs now too.”

Check out the entertaining full episode featuring Joey Bada$$ below! Stay tuned as many more guests are scheduled to visit the show in the coming weeks. Fans can catch new episodes of ‘Sound Check with Jeremy Hecht’ Wednesdays on UPROXX’s YouTube channel and social platforms. For exclusive content, behind-the-scenes moments, and more, follow @UPROXX and #UPROXXSoundCheck on Instagram, TikTok, X and Facebook.