Everyone has a podcast, but Vinnie Paz finally has one about the thing that changed his life: Music. “Pop the Trunk” is Vinnie’s first podcast where he’s actually going to talk about music and all the different realms it touches from pop culture to sports, movies, books...it’ll be a free-flowing conversation from his scattered brain. So, come join Vinnie , Brendan, and Billy for what’ll be an unhinged tour through a wide range of topics that all started with a career in music that is one of the more unlikely DIY success stories.
Today’s episode is a full breakdown of how "Uncommon Valor" actually got made — twenty years after it dropped, still one of the most talked-about concept records in hip hop. The making of that song, the friendship with R.A. the Rugged Man that had to exist before it could happen, and the real history and personal stakes behind the writing. Plus the usual detours you come here for.
In Loving Memory of Kristine Barlam aka “Krissy”. Before diving into the main event, Billy has some explaining to do after coming back from a three-day meditation retreat. Then, the guys jump into Jay-Z's record-breaking Yankee Stadium residency, the surprise guests, an old beef finally squashed, and what it means for hip-hop's legacy artists getting their touring moment. Plus: Michael Bay movies, crying at Armageddon, and whether Wu-Tang can still sell out anywhere. Pop the Trunk with Vinnie Paz streaming on all DSPs and your favorite podcast app. @popthetrunk.pod
Episode 22 is a summer heat wave of hip-hop history. The crew runs down the classic albums that dropped between May and September across the decades — the records that defined car windows down, block parties, and the last day of school. Expect deep cuts on why summer releases hit different, some contested "greatest ever" arguments. Pop the Trunk with Vinnie Paz streaming on all DSPs and your favorite podcast app. @popthetrunk.pod
The boys are back and the crew opens up talking hoops, the World Cup, and why American sports broadcasts hit different. From there it's straight into a milestone: Vinnie's debut solo album, Season of the Assassin, just passed its 16th anniversary, and the guys sit down to break down how it actually came together. Vinnie gets into why he waited as long as he did to go solo, the uncertainty of stepping out from Stoupe and the JMT sound , and the real story of the album's original title before it became Season of the Assassin. He walks through building the record from scratch, tracking down producers he grew up idolizing, and a session at a legendary New York studio that made the whole thing feel real. They dive into how the features and production actually got picked and, sixteen years later, we get Vinnie's take on what it means to him today. Pop the Trunk with Vinnie Paz streaming on all DSPs and your favorite podcast app. @popthetrunk.pod
Vinnie flies solo this week to break down Jaron "Boots" Ennis's dominant, multi-knockdown stoppage of Xander Zayas that unified the 154-pound titles at the DAZN’s Barclays Center PPV. He also covers the rest of that card (Jahi Tucker's win, a controversial Ben Whitaker stoppage loss), runs through news and notes — Usyk vacating his heavyweight belts, Floyd Mayweather's exhibition falling through amid his financial troubles, the WBC's questionable 154-pound rankings — and previews the July 4th weekend card topped by Abdullah Mason vs. Albert Bell. Pop the Trunk presents Knock ‘Em Out the Box streaming on all DSPs and your favorite podcast app. @popthetrunk.pod
Vinnie and Billy hold things down two-man-band style with Brendan out this week, and crack open the mailbag for a round of listener mail and recommendations — including no shortage of opinions on the top 50 list they've got cooking. They also bring back a beloved segment from Broad Street Breakdown and things get weird from there: a debate over psychics and mediums, an unexpected detour into a heavier real-world topic, and the usual cast of internet oddballs that keep this show interesting. Pop the Trunk with Vinnie Paz streaming on all DSPs and your favorite podcast app. @popthetrunk.pod
Boots Ennis and Xander Zayas finally collide for two junior middleweight titles, and the boys can't wait any longer to break it all down. From the questionable promotion (thanks, Knicks playoff run and World Cup chaos) to the undercard sleepers worth watching, no angle gets left on the table — including a few overdue predictions on exactly how this one ends. Plus: news on Joshua-Fury's bizarre venue problem, Tank Davis' next move, Floyd Mayweather's legal troubles, and a friendly wager that might leave somebody's hair a very different color by the weekend.
Hip-hop runs on competition and nothing fuels it like a good beef. In this episode, the fellas do a deep dive into the genre's most legendary rivalries, tracing the lineage from the earliest battles through the records, subliminals, and feuds that shaped rap history. Some squashed it, some didn't get the chance to. We break down who we think really won.
The boys are back, and this week there's an elephant in the room the size of Madison Square Garden. Vinnie and Billy are doing their best to ignore it, but Brendan isn't making it easy. The Knicks just won the championship and someone in the studio is way too happy about it — and it isn't the Philly guys. The debate over whether Wu-Tang's halftime performance had anything to do with the outcome is very real, and very heated. From there the conversation shifts to something that's been brewing for a while — the guys announce plans to put together their own Greatest 50 Rappers of All Time list, a direct response to the clickbait list culture dominating hip hop media. Names get floated and opinions get spicy. Don’t miss this one!
The crew weighs in on the NBA Finals and what it really costs to be a New York Knicks fan these days. From there, the conversation shifts into hip hop beef culture and where the line is between sport and disrespect. Then Vinnie tells the story of a journalist interview that spiraled into something far more serious — and why federal agents ended up at his show because of it. That leads to a discussion on cancel culture and why nobody is actually getting canceled in 2026.
The crew kicks things off with a tale of restaurant frustration that snowballs into a broader conversation about bad service, false promises, and the unwritten code between businesses and their customers. From there, the episode digs into Complex's viral Top 50 New York Rappers of All Time list — and the crew has plenty to say. They debate whether the list is a legitimate ranking, deliberate rage bait, or a mix of both, unpacking the criteria, questioning some of the inclusions, and making the case for the names that got left off entirely. From legends who should be higher to modern acts that have no business being on a "best ever" list, it's a deep, opinionated ride through New York rap history.
Vinnie holds it down solo while his co-hosts sit this one out in lieu of other shenanigans. He runs through a loaded boxing news cycle — Lomachenko's retirement reversal, Canelo's next move, the Wardley-Dubois rematch situation, and more — before breaking down the main event everyone's been arguing about: Usyk vs. Verhoeven at the Pyramids in Giza. Was Rico closer than anyone expected, or did the crowd and the rounds fool people? Vinnie's got a take. He also weighs in on Frank Sanchez packing up Richard Torres (told you so), Hamza Shiraz's breakout belt win, and previews a deceptively busy weekend headlined by Bevo's return and O'Shay Foster vs. Raymond Ford for the WBC 130 title — a fight Vinnie's not exactly hyped for, but picks anyway.
The mailbag is back! The crew gets into the creative process behind writing rhymes, whether a perfect album is a perfect album regardless of genre, and what happens when ego convinces someone they're an expert in everything. Billy's history with Heelys comes out, fan art makes its way into the studio, and a listener writing in from Berlin has some catching up to do. Tune in for Episode 15 of Pop the Trunk, with Vinnie Paz!
After the slept-on rappers episode sparked a wave of responses from the audience, Vinnie and Brendan discuss names that didn't make the original list, artists whose careers took hard left turns, and a few who quietly reinvented themselves in ways nobody saw coming. From Philly legends to Long Island crews to a Queens MC who ended up writing for Beyoncé, the conversation covers artists who deserved far more than they got, and tries to make sense of why the music industry let them slip through the cracks. Along the way, the crew gets into the Enhanced Games, a suspicious stat about NBA referees, the shiny suit era's collateral damage, and a firsthand account of one of the most chaotic nights in college basketball history. Tune in for Episode 14 of Pop the Trunk, with Vinnie Paz.
The crew kicks off Episode 13 fired up, sleep-deprived, and somehow already arguing before the intro wraps. They draw battle lines on AI and Brendan drops a Mother’s Day story of a dinner gone sideways. Vinnie and Billy express their Philly sports rage and a full indictment of New York franchises enters the picture. Somewhere between an argument nobody wins, a holiday that went completely off the rails, and a rant that earns every second of airtime, Episode 13 reminds you why you showed up in the first place.|
Pop the Trunk went live for the first time ever, and there was no safety net. What you heard was what it was. The crew wasted no time getting into it, from a big boxing weekend to the NBA playoffs, bad bets, and stories from the streets of South Philly that you genuinely had to be there for. From there it turned into exactly what Pop the Trunk does best: wrestling history, hip hop history, and the kind of arguments that don't have a clean ending. The main event was a deep discussion on underappreciated MCs — who got slept on, who got jammed by the machine, and who was simply too nice for the world to handle. The live crowd had opinions too, and they weren't wrong. Two hours of unfiltered conversation with nowhere to hide. The first live edition of Pop the Trunk. No rewind.
The boys are back. Vinnie and Brendan are back for a weekend of boxing you can't afford to sleep on. Before they get into the fights, there's no shortage of news — from a massive heavyweight announcement that's been a long time coming, to promotional shake-ups and signings that are quietly reshaping the landscape. Then it's fight time. Two pound-for-pound monsters. Two cards that demand your attention. Inoue vs. Nakatani and Benavidez vs. Ramirez get the full breakdown — the styles, the stakes, the odds, and where each guy stands heading into the biggest weekend of the year. Predictions are locked in. Pop the Trunk streaming on YouTube, all DSPs and your favorite podcast app. @popthetrunk.pod
No guest, no filter. Vinnie, Brendan, and Billy go deep on one of hip hop's most unspoken rules — everybody got put on by somebody. From The Jaz (Jaz-O) opening doors for Jay, to Dre's Aftermath becoming a graveyard for careers that never were, the crew breaks down the co-sign, what it's worth, and what happens when it doesn't deliver. Junior Mafia, Wu-Tang affiliates, Two Chains betting on himself — it's a full autopsy on who made it, who got left at the bus stop, and why. Before all that, the guys catch up on shed suspicions, IKEA assembly nightmares, and Billy's kids accidentally dropping slurs at the Dollar Store.
Scott Vogel, frontman of Terror, joins the crew for Episode 10, before heading out on a six-and-a-half-week North American tour behind Terror's new record Still Suffer . What starts as a technical difficulty turns into an instant PTT classic moment. Once connected, Scott and Vinnie go deep on the parallels between hardcore and hip hop culture, tracing their origins from Black Sabbath and Run DMC to Agnostic Front and DITC. The conversation covers Scott's upbringing in Buffalo, his stepbrother Jay as the gateway to everything, the early days of Slugfest and Buried Alive, and how those scenes mirror each other more than most people realize. After he signs off, the crew hits the mailbag — including pointed feedback about Brendan's background art choices — and gets into the unwritten rules of barbershop culture, the business of underground music, and why the "gift and the curse" of recognition hits differently at this level. Remember to like, review, comment, and subscribe to the show!
Vinnie finally gets his studio engineer and longtime collaborator Scott Stallone out of the lab and in front of a mic to talk about it all — the Ruffhouse era, the flood that destroyed his studio the night they finished Legacy of Blood , and what he's been building behind the scenes ever since. Twenty-one years in, they pull back the curtain on how their sessions actually work, why Scott barely takes outside clients anymore, and what he's been quietly building in the world of sync. One of the most private figures in Vinnie's world, and this is the first time he's talked about most of it.
