Here is footage from the Washington, D.C. stop of the Rock the Bells tour, when Inspectah Deck addresses the crowd and says that he’s got love for the rest of Slaughterhouse but “F— Joe Budden.”

Inspectah Deck called me after watching Joe’s recent BlogTV comments about the above incident, because he wanted to refute certain points:

1) Deck says: “No one was yelling for Slaughterhouse when I got on. I got on halfway through Raekwon’s set.”
2) Deck says: “After I said what I said onstage, I was never hid from nobody. I did Rae’s set. Then I jumped into the crowd and signed autographs. Then I hung out backstage. I was there for Busta’s sets. I was there for other sets. I was there until they started taking down the stage.”
3) Deck says: “I didn’t come to the show to perform. I came to the show to talk to Joe.“*

*Obviously, it was this last point that I found unsettling. And Deck and I had a reasonable conversation about how that could be problematic. My concern was that, the best case scenario during a face to face meeting is a calm discussion and resolution. But there are lots of other case scenarios that are more likely…and would be highly counterproductive for all parties. Deck said that he understood that, but didn’t necessarily cosign.

I hope this dispute gets talked out, maybe not in person, and maybe with a mediator…but definitely offline. (And I expressed that sentiment to both Deck during the call, and Joe afterwards) In some ways, the advent of livestreams and youtubes and cameraphones has created a new species of diss-tracks, minus beats, minus rhyme, but plus visual plus spontanaeity. And the results are far less forgiving and permanent.

On a related note: I would imagine that the Rock The Bells tour operators are making moves to prevent any more disputes from happening on or near their stage, yes?