Questlove Supreme: Fat Joe

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. I'm your host Quest Love with Me is Laya Quarantined from the West Coast.

Hello, Hello, Hey everybody, I missed you.

And Steve from the top of his building in.

Manhattan, he TREADI Central. Where are you at pay Bill Westchester or neighbor? Okay, so I can visit?

Yeah, come on over hanging out with Break and Crack. It's the whole thing.

Light here. Don't improve it that aunt, Tegelo where you're broadcasting from now? Bro from the crib, Raleigh, North Carolina.

Okay, keeping it real, ladies and gentlemen, This this episode has been long, long overdue.

You know.

It's it's it's a rarity that anyone in hip hop culture can have sustainability and change with the times and still stay themselves facts in this culture without hitting a landmine. And our guest today, uh is I mean I call him Teflon and Joe I mean.

Yo yo, Me and my buddies have was saying if if a nuclear bomb went off, the last two rappers standing would be Fat Joe and bust A rhymes straight up, straight up, y'all brothers, don survive everything.

Man, Ladies and gentlemen.

Yeah, let's let's welcome uh the one and only, uh, the the the God Fat Joe exactly, exactly, Don Carteragina two quest love Supreme you much.

How you making out? How you making out in this current environment, sir.

I'm just you know, I'm happy to be home, man. I'm happy to be home, man.

I've been.

I go on the road for twenty five years, man, and the fact that I'm able to be with the family and spend.

Time at home with my daughter, my wife and everybody. Man, I'm actually enjoying it. To be honest with you.

Where is home currently? You're a Jersey resident right now? Correct?

No, no, no, no, I live in Miami. I known Miami for like seventeen years.

I've always known you as I'm sorry, I've always known you as a Jersey resident. I didn't know that you moved to Miami.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I lived in the Bronx my whole life, and then I moved to Jersey. My wife forced me to move to Jersey because I ain't want to leave the Bronx and she.

Was like, if you don't move, I'm leaving you.

So I had to go to Jersey, which was the smartest thing I ever did in my life. So when I went to Jersey, I finally heard birds chirping and little kids playing in the street. And then eventually, one time I got so frustrated with like the New York

Since around what time was that when you when you went to Miami.

Man, that's like seventeen years ago.

You know, I always said, you know, one day, you know, when I started, I started out digging into crates and if you go to them early videos, if you would go engine engine number nine on that you as I'm one of the guys jumping in the background. I was in everybody's video. Yes, I was in everybody's video. Everybody was my video we worked with each other. We didn't look at each other as competition. It was all love

We can't be over here like this. I don't know what's going on with New York hip hop.

And we came down here and we started, uh the Miami movement, like with the DJ Kelly, with the Pitt Bull, the Rick Ross, the Cooler Dre. You know, we set it off down the here and made that camaraderie. And then when Lil Wayne, when Katrina happened, he came down to Miami, him at bird Man. We embraced them, and that's when you get all those records. We was doing like taking over Brown paper Bag.

Yeah, so in in the Bronx.

In the Bronx, how would you describe your childhood for those that don't know your history in the Bronx.

Well, you from Philly, right, But there's there's different parts of Philly. There's North Philly, South Philly, Alleghany, Germantown, this, this that. So why I'm trying to make reference to that is, Oh he's from North Carolina, this Faidville, this Greensboro, this Charlotte's this abs. I'm from the Bronx in the part where hip hop was created. Right, So what I'm trying to tell you is there's many parts of the Bronx.

The ropes, back up from the ropes.

Then they playing Mary Married, Why you get on that funk is on?

Right?

And then they come back with I don't know if you've been told, but Santa Claus is.

A black man. A black man.

I'm like, I'm like, I'm in my room listening to the these cassette tapes like oh my, fuck me, y'all, and just because I was too small to go and then when they did it outside, I would go to outside. So I was privileged to be born in the soil, like you know, just no other way to explain it to you, Like I was blessed as a hip hop fan, as a hip hop fan, not just as the rapper or whatever.

Wow.

So as far as like it it calling you, I mean, were you rapping early as a kid or you just like I'm a fan. But at what point is I wanted to be At what point is it like, Okay, I want to get involved in the culture.

It's different. It was I was in. I was the culture.

When I'm trying to tell you I break dance, I wrote graffiti Terror Squad is a graffiti crew?

Okay, started out off graffiti Terror Squad?

So were you tagging up as all over the bronx on the walls on the train.

When I got older, I would bring out my house.

I'm talking too much in front of my daughter right now, but I would break out my house when my parents would sleep, go hit the trains, think and dangerous shit like cops chasing us under the.

Third round, like crazy shit. Come back to my house.

My sister would open the door like five in the morning, like damn man, like you might. And then you know, when I wake up, you know it's time for school. But writing graffiti, but rapping. I wanted to be like my brother. My brother was you know, he used to rap, and I wanted to be like my brother, and so I started to rap. So I was writing maybe nine ten years old, eight nine ten years old and my mother's table, where everybody was like what type of what am I doing? And I'm like, you know, I want

Was little Pop, Little Pop and uh and Uh.

We were saying ship like Joey rock Well and all that. And I had a little little fake rhymes like snigkings and cheap you know something you could.

Fill every rock you could like like I was just you know, learning the game. But you know, uh yeah it was real.

So as far as like in in the area that you grew up, were there any other notable hip hop luminarias that we would know of today, Like were.

You ever.

As an eleven year old or like.

Yeah, yes, yes, So what happened was so as I told you, was a hip hop whippy whip wip starsky, all of them living my block.

Uh. But when the guy who.

Inspired me to rap was Lord Forness, So I was already in the streets hustling doing all types of ship, you know, be in you know, a product of my environment in the worst way. And Finesse he used to sell us papers. So back in the days, they would bring the newspaper. So Fanesse would buy the newspaper at the store for a quarter when he was selling in

But Finesse would.

Always tell me like, Yo, Joey, I'm gonna be a rapper. I'm gonna get on and I'd be like, yeah, right, I locked the door. I'm like, man, he's so full of shit. And one day, one day, I'm just listening to the radio Red Alert. He's just playing the funky Technician. He's playing all the Foinisian I'm like, no way Foraness made it, And that gave me sometimes you got to see it. So that gave me the proof that we can actually make it out of the hood and actually

You're gonna go to jail, You're gonna get killed.

You out here doing crazy shit, y'all, Like, bro, why don't you put all the shit you do in the streets into your music. And actually, even though I had money.

At the time, actually crazy money.

He took me to the studio and pay for the session Diamond to like, you know, get me off the streets.

And so we went in there and.

We and we made the demos and then uh and one of them was flow Joe, my first single.

So I went, am I talking too long?

I don't know this now?

No, you weren't perfect, this is perfect, okay.

So we went We made like three demos in that first session.

One of them was flow Joe. Right, So I had when I wanted to earn.

Even though I grew up with show visit ag, I grew up with Diamond, they were already on, they were already on.

I wanted to earn my spot.

So I went to Amateur Knight at the Apollo and I performed that Amateur Knight, and I wanted four weeks in a.

Row, were to tell you truth? I got a question.

Yeah, yeah, that's how I got on.

I got a question because we rarely have actual Apollo Amateur Knight contestants on the show.

People who survived the apollogw is the truth?

What is the true way to rig the system so that you win Amateur Knight the Apollo?

Is it? The people you bring with you or like.

I can't tell you Rick, I asked some people in there, but it's the power was like the stadium compared to the people. I might have brun twenty people came to see Fat Joe, but it's two thousand and three thousand. But I'm gonna tell you something. And this is where, this is where no one can ask me if desert God, you understand what I'm saying. Because as I went back recently, maybe maybe a year ago, I really thought about that Apollo, Like I said, all right, you winning Apollo, what do you do?

So I went in there. It was one hundred and fifty groups.

And I remember looking at everybody saying, they don't have a chance.

I don't know what they're doing here. I'm gonna take this shit. Now.

What's crazy is if you want to talk about the elephant in the room, I was the only Latino in Black.

Colem with a hundred groups talk about that.

No, and then so when I think about it, I it went down. I just went out there. I had two girl, three girls from my projects, Michelle and Barbara and DC, and they came out with me and they were saying to behind me doing some fly shit, and I was walking through rapid but oh, the people just went crazy. They couldn't hear a bar or nothing. They just they fucking went crazy. And every time I came out, they just went crazy. And it wasn't because of my lyrics.

So I won. Four weeks, I met Red Alert. Red Alert was the biggest DJ in the planet Earth.

It was only two DJs at the time that were considered mainstream. It's Red Alert and mister Magic. Mister Magic Yup, Mister Magic Recipe. So Red Alert said, Yo, do you.

Have a demo? Can you give me a demo? So I gave him flow joke. About a month later, I had the flu.

I was in the projects laying down and the shit came on and I jumped to the ceiling. How I jumped from the flu? I put the peak on the window in the projects and told everybody, yo, right, Alard playing my ship. He's playing everybody going crazy in front of the building.

And then he.

Kept playing that for like close to like eight months every week. And then Chris Lighty rest in Peace came to the hood where I hustled, my block where I hustle and told.

Me, yo, you fat Joe. I was like yeah. I was like yeah.

I was like he said you know why am I said, yeah, you baby, Chris, And he was like, yo, I want to sign you on a record deal, like I think you could be a superstar. And I signed in the middle of the street and the rest.

You signed instantly to Relativity.

Yeah. I don't have no lawyer. Now I was, I was a drug dealer. What do you want me to do?

No, no, no.

I was just like, Wow, I ain't got no That was Peed So wait that and truck answers my second question. So that's definitely you saying you talking about on Domin D's Uh.

I am in every ad lib on that album. That's my claim to me, my fucking claim to.

Fuck you talking about.

Ship right that.

That ship?

I mean, Oh that's you. You're you're the guy all over.

Yeah, I am the ad list every song. I dare you to acts Diamond, I am. That's my claim to fame. I was there for that whole album, the whole process.

Slight confession, Like there was a point in my life where you know, there was enough base on my voice to be to be cursing and really intimidating people, So shut up, like you really? Yeah, I swear to God like every time post ninety three, and I'm saying fuck you talking about I'm literally just echoing fuck you talking about yo chill that is that is my favorite cursing on record ever ever. But you were Were you not involved on the Jazzy J record at all, the compilation that.

He died z J?

No, no, no, I was. I was from Diamond d on but I knew Jazzy J. I did my whole first album in Jazzy J studio, But I'm not that I think the compilation.

Was before me.

So when when did the official like the the uniting of digging in the Crates first?

Like? Was it then?

I think I always digging in the crates. I'm from the project, so I was digging in the crates. There's no way to explain.

It to you.

Like I grew up with Showbes, grew up with Diamond d, grew up with Finess.

Hey, I'm rapping, I'm digging in the crates.

I was, you know, getting a lot of money in the streets and I was at first the fat Spanish guy that stands on stage behind Lord Finance and Diamond D and you're looking like, who the fuck is the d boy standing behind these motherfuckers. Iiced out with the convertible bends outside like motherfucker's is like, that must be the big boy from the block. And so people knew me from that. But I was always digging in the crates. I don't think there was an initial annoying team, you know.

I do remember we was at the Fever in.

The Bronx when I got acts, could we make oh C digging in the crates?

And OC was.

From Brooklyn, and I was like, hell, yeah, man, he had he had to join.

You lack the miner us invitamins. I ain't in the suns.

Times out there like he was.

I was like, Yo, your time's up. I was like, uh, we better make that boy digging in the crates. And and so I remember.

That, And it was Big L around this timeeriod or.

Big I was there already, so so Finesse had met Big L doing the Big L used to battle everybody on one hundred and twenty fifth, all across the street from Apollo every day after school big Al was just killing dudes.

Finess met him, put him on a remix. Yes you may remix.

I was at the show the first time Big L ever rap at a show and he destroyed that motherfucker and I was like, oh shit. They was like YO signing, you know Big L. I was like, big motherfucker ol D I T C.

He was.

He was incredible. It was like it was like a Finesse on steroids. It was like, first of all, to me, Finesse is the best punchline lyricists at the time. And then he found like he found the Bravo of the superman like Big L.

So it was it was a no brainer.

Right.

So as far as the environment is now and what you're used to like when you're doing concerts, I know that it was like night and day with the twenty five year laps in between. But what were your early your early shows like promoting on the road and like back in ninety two, like from ninety two to light ninety.

Five, Like what was that like back then?

In the very way you ever heard of Steve Lobel, You know, Steve Lobel s we working. Steve Lobel was our product manager at Relativity. He had Fat Joe and Big Punk and the rest of the terrorist squad in the van driving through the whole America because at the time.

I was scared to fly.

So we drove everywhere to Shaw, We drove to Chicago, cal Breedy Greens.

With Pink House DJ Pink House.

We drove all around this country eating McDonald's and we was eating McDonald's. And even when Flo Joe was like klow Joe was number one in the country, it wasn't number one. And I was still getting like four hundred dollars a five hundred dollars a show. It wasn't no real money at the time. So it was like a struggle, you know, to get to the next level. But I had left like a fairy tale, and this is no bullshit.

They was in bent leads, they was in all that shit.

I wouldn't go back. If somebody got robbed in the crew, I wouldn't go back. If anything, I would not go in there because I knew this was my way out. Is the way I had to go, so I took a real pay cut, so I would do stuff like not only you know, do my shows, but then for promote parties, so I would poor Krs Karres probably came and performed for me twenty times for free in the Bronx. So everybody, I mean, like, yo, I gave Biggie his first show this b I G. I gave him his

Bullshit just came out.

Okay, So it's like the.

First show b I G.

Fat Joe and I was just promoting the parties, making a couple of grand on the side, then doing my show.

You know, it was real. It was a real struggle.

Yo.

I remember an episode of your TV raps where you had like your own clothing joint or like you like one of the first dudes to have your your venture.

And I think, I Ji j.

J five sixty, I think you know everything.

I remember this, he had the jacket.

So what happened.

What happened was and I'm gonna take you some real shit I never said before, but uh, it.

Was probably the first or the second.

I don't know if Wu Tang had their their brand first, it was one.

Of the but I remember we was making these.

So we were making these coats and these snorkels, the leather jackets almost like the averxes, and and I remember going to a party and Puffy and jay Z walking into the bathroom. I was in the bathroom where FJ five sixty snorkels on, and I was like, oh shit. They was like, yeah, we're rocking your ship. And I'm like allright, cool, yok. But the business partners that I had,

It was ahead of his time.

Yeahed to visit that, like y'all.

I remember you and Freddie were like live at that story and like, yo, I'm gonna go over there and see that joint like I always wanted to see it.

Never knew what happened to it.

Hey, Joe, I was just gonna ask I just I was just kind of curious since you were talking about you signed your deal in the middle of the street. You were new to the story. You didn't know anything some of those hard lessons that you had to learn on your way. Because now you are you are the business man. You know this business in and out. But before we were like a couple of them hard lessons that you had to learn.

Well, I really, I really ain't gonna lie to you. I did not get jerked by Chris Lady in the middle of the street. I was lucky, good, No, No, I was lucky. He did not jerk me. He was fared with me. Uh forever Relativity was good to be. But I did get jerked from my publisher. So I had signed a deal with h This guy's name is Jellybean Ben.

Yeah. Yeah, So he was signing. He was doing music for madnad Or.

So he hit with the he hit me, he hit me with the YO. We both led Tino this this bullshit. And then I met him in nineteen ninety two. I signed this publishing. He gave me fifty thousand dollars when I signed. He's been robbing me for that publishing ever since. And I still ain't seen him in like twenty five years. And uh, you know, and so we've been trying to

The man robbed me for my publishing real talk.

Oh shit, damn Benita, Yeah yeah.

Donald, good boy, Donald, my good old latt though, my good old Latito brother.

Can you talk to like?

Can you talk to where like Latino music and hip hop were meeting at that time? I mean behind you a giant picture of Fector leve O. We can't the king of.

What's your name? Who asked that question?

I'm Bill Sherman.

Yo, Bill, let me tell you something, Bill.

Hip hop is please black and Latino music from day one. So if you go to the very inception of hip hop music, the very first black party jam, you will see the Latinos in there and the blacks and they break dancing and they white and graft. Latinos just break dancing and white and graffiti. So the black guys is mostly DJ and them seeing and that's.

The real focus point on it.

But if you go to day one and you look into archives of hip hop, it's always been black and Latino music.

Was it like that?

I'm sorry, Bill, but for you like in the house, like was it like was for me?

Personally? I grew up.

I grew up black, so like I'm a black Latino Now it's real.

Now you gotta break that.

That's real.

Everybody in the world don't understand what that means.

I grew up black, so like, uh where I.

Where I grew up was ninety nine point nine black and Fat Joe had the hairs like the Beatles with green eyes and thought he was black because there wasn't no Latina.

So all my girlfriends growing up was black, me black.

If you look at the class pictures as me and thirty black people, like who they did? I think they said the killing of Malcolm X. Who killed Malcolm X? They showed his class pitcher at one point he was the only black guy who was nothing.

But white people with the whole pitcher when.

He was growing up, right, And that was fat Joe And that was that Joe.

So you said, like the Beatles, you mean mop head or hippie Arabic.

Yeah, like this, look I put up a picture maybe like two weeks ago. I found one with my hair like the Beatles, bro like the fucking Beatles like my mushroom. Okay, yeah, And so what happened was nobody told me, yo, you're not black.

I don't know how to explain it to y'all.

So even though my my father's Cuban and my mother's Porton. You know, my mother speaks English fluently everything, you know, she grew up on all the Gladys Night, all of weka Franklins, you know, my house.

Every day we didn't place house, we played I Will survive.

Oh oh, now, wuck out the door, like that's the ship we was playing. And and it wasn't until I went to high school and there was no social media.

It wasn't even a rap video at that time. So when when when?

When I went to high school, I met a friend of mine. His name was Charlie. He lived on the other side of the Brothers and when he took me to his hood, I never knew there was so much Puerto Ricans in the Bronx and it's like fifteen minutes away.

So just like me, I met the one black guy.

Yeah, then I met the one black guy who thought was Puerto Rican.

In that neighborhood.

Motherfucker blackness. Shit, he thought he was Puerto Rican.

Right, So when I went there and I started going to Charlie's house, that's when his mother was like, yo.

You're not black. And she starts sclaming Pack the ball gorm Ball.

Group on Nis, all the South Side, you know, all the legends, and I'm like, oh shit. So that's when I got put onto Spanish music and more so Spanish pride, started finding myself and my culture. Every window I looked at Puerto Rican flags. I'm talking about fourteen flights. Every window had Puerto Rican flags and they was bumping that south Side ship out the window.

They was like this.

So that's when I started to learn about heck, the south southe music and that Latino heritage. And then from there I just wanted to learn more and more and more more and uh and that's where we.

Are, yo.

Not to fast forward, but just I gotta tell you, based off of that, that's why it was so good to see that episode of She's Got to Have It when y'all went back to Puerto Rico and really just broke down the connection of like the African diaspora to Puerto Rico and how we are all black and how they you know, it was just it was perfection. That must have felt real good.

I was, all right, now, all.

We got to skip you who you channeling with your voice? With Benning went like, that was my favorite character from that show.

All right, thank god, but listen let me tell you. Uh Now, I meet a lot of people I met at bars with a bunch of actors that say, yo, man, you killed that Ship was like, you know.

I went hard.

I know y'all went hard, though, so hard, like it was just that character. I'm gonna tell you the truth, y'all. That was like the fourteenth member of Wu Tang. So what they said, they said, this guy's this guy got money, got his own strip club, but he's stuck in the past.

Wu Tang, so look shovels winning within. I know who the fuck you know? And that's how I feel wh a lot of times when I get around the.

Wu tang because they all got money, but they be like you, it's still nine three not four, yo.

Straight up, Pelly Pelly Jack is yo.

Kelly Pelly TEMs. I'm like, yo, Like these niggas ain't get the memo. Like it's like, you know what that's that's a winning winner's based off of.

Do you find do you find it?

Often, especially coming from where you came from and your need to evolve as a person and as an artist, like outgrowing your teen life and your early adult life into where you are now. Was it was it hard making that transition? Like was it hard?

Huh?

No?

No, No, I still got still got your pink t I still got tim No, I got.

T was early, he was he was early.

And first of all, the first transition was I had to go, I'm writing a book of my life. Now when when it comes out, y'all read it and y'all get a bigger understanding. Right, But first of all, when I came in the game, I think the biggest transition I had to do was, uh, leave the streets behind. So when I came in the game, a lot of people were scared of me, hearing my reputation in the streets to They almost thought like I was going to be the New York Sugar Night, like extort my way

Transition I had to make. So I actually was sitting back looking at everybody else active fool when I knew I could score everybody.

But you know, try to be a nice guy so these people won't think I'm an animal, right, And then we still had that conception of keep.

It real, keep it real, keep it real.

So fad y'all always had to keep it real, keep it real, even though I had records like What's Love When you saw me, I was walking in with thirty street dudes, entourage, ice drilling, you know, so you was like, yo, we had that. I think that was the biggest transition I had to make, and I made it maybe in the last five years of my life, where I said,

Because at the time it wasn't cool.

You felt like you was a sucker that asked somebody, yo, let's take a picture, right, So I missed out on all that, right. So, and at that time, even if you liked the each other, everybody was ice grilling each other, right, So I had to learn how to smile. I had to learn yeah, yeah, yeah, I had to learn how to smile and be like all right, yo, let it down, like grow, we're getting old the chill. And that was the biggest transition I had to make from keeping it real.

And I lost a lot.

Of money keeping it real because people really didn't want when I didn't understand this people he't want to be affiliated with gangsters.

Like you know what I mean.

And Joe let alone. We heard rumors he's a gangster. He's coming with thirty gangsters. And you know, we can't invite Joe. We really want Joe to come to the Ampons, but we know that guy's coming with dirty street guys and somebody might get wrong.

Did the bathroom and the all white party? So don't invite.

Joe a.

Man.

One question I always wanted to ask you, ahad were you about to ask about who shot you?

Oh?

Well we get there before you, man. So one question I always want to ask you, just as an MC Joe. So your trajectory, your progression from represent the jealous ones envy was like phenomenal.

What did you do.

In terms of stepping your tell you what happens that from that first album the second album.

I'm gonna tell you what happens? Right?

So I came uh, I came out at a time where Flow Joe went number one in the country. But if you really listen to Flow Joe, I'm going bust ship check it.

Watch shout record, niggas, watch your back record. Shooting is getting hectic.

I can't vibes like count Basie a sick right, So it's like it's like it was abcb E d FG. It really wasn't lyrical, it wasn't nothing. And so you loved the song. You love the fact that I was certified by the Digging in the Cratescrew. You love my history. When you when you, when you called up your cousins in New York. It was like, no, no, no, them boys is laying it down like they did the truth.

So you was intrigued. You was intrigued. It's similar to like young Jez with BMF.

When he came out, we was like, oh, he's part of it, so it was all that, But I really wasn't dope. So there's a guy who came out. His name was Nas And now remember sitting in the car. Show Biz came to get me.

You have the beamer. He was like, yo, Joe, getting the car, come down. So I got in the car and when he pressed played and.

That it was like sneak ouzy on Allan in my armiac and Lye in there and Common in the bay half man, half amazing. But when I'm I was like, it was the most incredible ship I ever heard in my life.

But at the same time, it was almost like a morgue or a cemetery for MC's Like Fat Joe.

It was like, if you do not step your ship up, it is over.

It's low joke, wanted done.

So I don't think MCS do that anymore, y'all.

They don't. So he he pushed the game.

He elevated the game to a point of where you couldn't get away with busst checking. So I had to study him. I studied them. I might have listened to that tape if I say twenty million times is not it's not enough, and that reasonable doubt came out and all that. So everybody was like, so when reasonable doubt came out, I can relate to that more because he was talking that drug dealer life and where I came from, and I said, oh, Ship, we could do that, like

H So let me ask, all right, since you mentioned him, because I feel like one of your most underrated bangers.

The incredible was No, it was John Blaze, Oh yeah, John Blaize, Yeah yeah, yeah, I.

Mean when Cosmic Cosmic keV played that in Philly Man. He he rarely is one of those I'll play something three times in a row like the way that fum Flex does, like I gotta play it over. But the day that John Blaze came out with you and NAS was like that that was that was a moment.

So I mean, how did you feel at that moment?

When when that when that was actually even before I asked that, let me let me go back, because I feel like your your moment of really stepping it up for me was who shot you?

I'm sorry? I shot you?

I shot you? I shot you?

Did that? How did that even come to be? Because for me, like the way you ended that, lind.

Think you're talking to you, we cried, he gods and so like that, I felt like that was your Domino Slam moment. Domino, So what what?

How did how did that story? How did that come to be?

First of all, l who j is my idol And I've never back down. I've never backed down for competition. I've never backed down to this day. And you could be the greatest rap on the earth and I'm gonna go to the toe with them, never been scared of it actually elevates me. Like you ever see like Golden State when they were the best team in the world, They'll play the whackers team and then they'll play whack like them.

But when they when there's.

A big game, it brings me up. If I get on song with jay Z or now's whoever I'm going like, I'm going on on another level. I couldn't wait for this moment. So I'm working on my second album. The track masters come in the studio we had in New York Battery Studio something and they come in and they were like, yo, Joe.

They was like, but you work on said my album.

I played them a couple of joints off my albums, like Yo, we need to ask love. That's when I came in with that who the fuck you think you talking to? I paid dues, I splayed Cruise.

Look at Joey Krat motherfuckers. He like the dudes running this rocket for New York.

Come on Tingos starting Revvo bring years for Nah.

That was my moment.

Was it all that?

Like? Were you all next level?

Were you all doing it at the same time or was it just piecemeal? Like was Foxy?

There was John John Blaize, No, no, no, John Blaze.

I did with everybody, but but that No, he just gave me the beat and I just went for mine.

You know, because that's that's the risky thing about doing posse cuts, because I know oftentimes and I watched this a lot with Tariq whenever people ask him, you know, to do stuff or whatever. Recently, uh Tarik's on a point with Eminem, and I mean on Eminem's records, like a posse cut and Threeque was kind of salty because he had.

His joint first.

It was like, man, I don't want to be the first guy to submit the verse because then they'll you know, no one wants to be the first guy. So I always wanted to know how are posse cuts organized? Like do you hear everyone else's ship?

Or I don't do that. I'm not going I'm not gonna lie to you quest man, fat Joe's so underrated?

Is I don't know how to explain it to you. Man, I don't listen to nobody's ship. I don't listen to nobody's ship. I go in there and I tell them play the music, and when they play the music, I write the ship right and they face with my own flow and I go in there, Yo, what's the hook? Ooh, I need to beat. I need to hook the hook?

Is this ice?

And no one where we're going with it and I'm gonna just go crazy. I never changed my verse.

I never.

Like, I don't know, you know, I'm just not on it like that. I just you know me, I fight for my life every time. So every time I write, I write like this the last song I might ever do in my life, Like I might die to day.

And that's just my strategy. That's always been my strategy. So that means I give it two thousand every time I rap. So I'm never worried like that.

But you gotta treat every verse.

I was saying, you gotta treat every verse like it's the first time somebody might be hearing you. You know what I'm saying that. That's kind of been my lesson. This is moving along every time.

And you also got to know that anytime a young artist asks you to get on it, you know, they want to give you a can of what pass. So you really gotta pay attention and spit that ship because you know.

So that's how it is.

It's just like boxing, motherfucker, take a box in the great motherfucker. Mike Tyson was killing niggas in twelve seconds, but when he was already thirty some years old looking for that check. They was using him to beat him up and look like there's somebody ill, you know, And that's pretty much what a young dude to do. If a hot young dude says, crack, let's get on the record. Like I did two songs with the Griselda Boys, I went crazy.

I'm not gonna let them rip me down.

I'm just not like I'm a you know, I'm a go for mine crazy. I mean, the only person I let my guard down with. And she don't like me to say this is remedy me. She's the only person on her I don't feel competition with. She's the only person I don't care if she beats me, you know, I rap rap and let her.

I want her to always shine no matter what.

You know that I about to say, why Remy, Why is it? What is it about Remy? Because you didn't rhyme with other brothers, other sisters book Now.

She's my sister for like, you know what I mean, So I want her to I want her to sound great anyway. I'm not talking about I'm taking it easy on Remy. I'm not saying I'm spitting my best ship. But I don't get mad if Remy beats me on the She's We did that remix with jay Z. She went eight ship bro Like god, Now I was happy, Jojo.

Can you just tell us the first time you heard Remy? Like, what was it? When did she stop you in your tracks?

Unreal? Uh? Pun said, uh, y'all want you to meet.

Somebody, and and he brought her to the studio.

She came in. I never.

She was so skinny. She had the leather vest and uh and we played the beat and she rapped for like ten minutes straight the air bubbos in your sneakers in trouble. I'm Rye's my brother. And I was so amazed, but I was jealous and I was mad because I was like, damn, Pun discovered that she gonna be Pun artist, like I wish she was my artist.

I was mad.

I still quiet Punk and see that I was mad. She tells me the story. She says, Yo, bro, you ice grilled me for like ten minutes.

I was really mad.

I was in there like, yo, shit, I wish i'd discovered that. Why she ain't come up to me. And then when we walked out the studio, Pun hugs me and says, I know you ain't know where she's gonna be your artist. Don't worry, she's your artist.

How did you get pun?

I went to a bodega writ in my projects that I always used to go to, and uh, they was just out there. It was him and like three other guys freestyling. So I came out with a diet pepsi. I had my diet pepsi and I looked at him and I and I was like, yo, what is this fatteris bandished? Dude gonna spit about? Like I just I was, what the fuck is this nigga gonna talk about? And and so I walked up and he said, chill, y'all, chill, chill, chill.

He was obviously the leader. And so he starts rapping and he's like that that stop, Like allright, like you stopped the car said pull the moon out the sky and blow the sun away.

Me and my niggas playing hard call liver, till up the little brick and God throw up my frog throw.

But I gotta do it.

So I was.

Like I could not take it. I ran to the passenger side. I had a white less LS four hundred and I opened.

The door and said please get inside. Please we locked the door and and that that was.

Just it was just, it was just beautiful because I'm the youngest brother. I'm the youngest kid in my family, but I never had a little brother, and Pond never had a big brother. I realized Puma's like, Yo, you're gonna be my big brother. You're gonna be my big brother.

I'm gonna be brother, and you know, you gotta have my back.

And I said, I got your back. And they started telling me about his life were real personal deep shit. You know, Plumer's homeless growing up. You know, nobody gave a fuck about him. And told me all that just just ripped it up. And me coming from the streets before I even wrapped the rap ship is even faker. But coming from the streets, uh where I see men that you know, killers and murderers and all types of people. I had never met a person who could just open

Man.

I fucked with him on another level and and and that's how I met Bun.

Wow.

You know.

Bill h unpaid Bill here and I are a part of the team. Ah that uh worked on Hamilton, and I know that. You know, anytime Lynn Manuel does an interview about who is lyrical inspiration was to put Hamilton together, he won't hesitate to say, like how important Big Pun's lyrical style was just on his life and just you know, culture rely and all those things like oh for sure, you know, I almost wonder, like what Hamilton would just be a regular Broadway show if it was.

To this day, to this day.

Dead in the middle of Little Italy but Little is one of his favorite Yeah, yeah, because internal rhyme was always is always his thing and everything, and so that always we used to listen to that a lot.

That record was on auto auto spin at our house. That that was that was his hero, like he will he I mean, you know Big.

Pun Little did we know that we ridle to Middleman who didn't do Italy?

Yeah?

Yeah, man, you know, uh, you know, Dead in the middle of Little literally almost wasn't Dead in the middle of a Little literally, so like Pun was so advanced that it was a joke to him, Dead in the middle of Little Italy was actually a joke, he would say, like he would have he put it on the album to pack in the back in the back of the ACA.

Ask you about what, because to me, that is my favorite.

That is one of my favorite skits on a hip hop record, only because I know I know that he was reenacting the Scarface scene where he lets the one guy go and the one guy's like, thanks, fun, I appreciate it, and he runs off like, but literally, what was what was the deal with packing the back in the back of the act?

For one, now that we're floating in this era, we were unconscious.

We was like, we was numb. We were crazy, man, we was just fucking crazy. I don't know how to explain it.

To you and stuff that you you think about regular people. I thought, you know, when I grew up, Uh, I grew up seeing death. Uh maybe I had forty guys I grew up with. Thirty eight of them got killed real shit before they toWin years old twenty one. So and when I meet regular people who didn't have friends dying at sixteen, So I'm like, then I start saying, like, damn, some of the ship we done say the music like motherfucker's like with a normal life, It's like, yo, what

That was the joke. And then in the middle of it literally was the other joke. Then in the middle of it literally.

So when we did the song together, I said, Yo, you gotta put that debdit. I swear to God on everything, you got to put that dead in the middle. He was like, Yo, that ship whack nigga, that ship is a joke. That shit, I said, Pun, that ship will blow their minds off. He was like, no, I'm telling you, that shit regular that ship, but that's a joke. And they and I gassed him to put in that motherfucker and man, you know it was He was, uh, you know this guys born. This guy's born. Jay Z was born,

And his breath control was kind of like crazy. I don't understand how he did all that and then still the breath control.

You know, he would do it on stage. You know. Pun was different, like you know, you know how you see boxes. It's crazy. I keep referring back to boxing, but you know how you see boxes.

It's so nice that nobody wants to fight them, so they can't really get a real fighters. You know, you'll get knocked out. Pun would invite every rapper to the studio to do a song with him, and no one would show up.

Wow.

So we would drive around, me and Pun and he would see like a cipher up and becoming rappers battling each other, and he would get out the car double Platinum rich and battle the whole cipher like wow. You know nobody want to smoke with pun. I don't know how to explain it to you. In no way, shape or form. Did anybody wants smoke with this guy? They could say whatever, forget them, whatever you want, but nobody. When he was alive, people were going, don't.

Let him off, don't let him on.

For mass of Flex used to have these ciphers and every week you would bring rappers up there.

So one week it's Nori up.

There, Cameron, Uh Nori, Cameron, I think DMX is somebody else right, and Puny hears it and starts racing down from the Bronx to Hot ninety seven. So pun is calling this the hotline punk caused Flex picks up. He's like, yo, yo, yo, yo, you got let me up there. You gotta let me up there. You gotta let me up there. So Flex said, here's a true story. Flex said he looked at everybody up there and was like, yo, Pun is on his way.

I was like, Yo, Flex, why are you didn't let one up there? He said, Yo. They were scared to death. They didn't want to let pun up there on that cipher. They want him up there and.

Were talking about big guys. Came on d M X Snorri after prime. They was like, he, no, don't let that boy up if.

You're gonna come up in it. But it is.

I gotta go love y'all man A part two. Whatever you want, man, I'm here yo two coming.

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