Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: I'm your host Quest Love with Me is Laya Quarantined
Speaker 2: from the West Coast.
Speaker 3: Hello, Hello, Hey everybody, I missed you.
Speaker 2: And Steve from the top of his building in.
Speaker 1: Manhattan, he TREADI Central. Where are you at pay Bill
Speaker 1: Westchester or neighbor? Okay, so I can visit?
Speaker 4: Yeah, come on over hanging out with Break and Crack.
Speaker 4: It's the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Light here. Don't improve it that aunt, Tegelo where you're
Speaker 1: broadcasting from now? Bro from the crib, Raleigh, North Carolina.
Speaker 2: Okay, keeping it real, ladies and gentlemen, This this episode
Speaker 2: has been long, long overdue.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's a rarity that anyone in hip hop
Speaker 2: culture can have sustainability and change with the times and
Speaker 2: still stay themselves facts in this culture without hitting a landmine.
Speaker 2: And our guest today, uh is I mean I call
Speaker 2: him Teflon and Joe I mean.
Speaker 5: Yo yo, Me and my buddies have was saying if
Speaker 5: if a nuclear bomb went off, the last two rappers
Speaker 5: standing would be Fat Joe and bust A rhymes straight up,
Speaker 5: straight up, y'all brothers, don survive everything.
Speaker 1: Man, Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's let's welcome uh the one and only, uh,
Speaker 2: the the the God Fat Joe exactly, exactly, Don Carteragina
Speaker 2: two quest love Supreme you much.
Speaker 1: How you making out? How you making out in this
Speaker 1: current environment, sir.
Speaker 6: I'm just you know, I'm happy to be home, man.
Speaker 6: I'm happy to be home, man.
Speaker 7: I've been.
Speaker 6: I go on the road for twenty five years, man,
Speaker 6: and the fact that I'm able to be with the
Speaker 6: family and spend.
Speaker 7: Time at home with my daughter, my wife and everybody. Man,
Speaker 7: I'm actually enjoying it. To be honest with you.
Speaker 1: Where is home currently? You're a Jersey resident right now? Correct?
Speaker 6: No, no, no, no, I live in Miami. I known
Speaker 6: Miami for like seventeen years.
Speaker 2: I've always known you as I'm sorry, I've always known
Speaker 2: you as a Jersey resident. I didn't know that you
Speaker 2: moved to Miami.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: I lived in the Bronx my whole life, and then
Speaker 6: I moved to Jersey. My wife forced me to move
Speaker 6: to Jersey because I ain't want to leave the Bronx
Speaker 6: and she.
Speaker 7: Was like, if you don't move, I'm leaving you.
Speaker 6: So I had to go to Jersey, which was the
Speaker 6: smartest thing I ever did in my life. So when
Speaker 6: I went to Jersey, I finally heard birds chirping and
Speaker 6: little kids playing in the street. And then eventually, one
Speaker 6: time I got so frustrated with like the New York
Speaker 6: hip hop scene that I moved down to Miami. And
Speaker 6: that's when, you know, that's around the time I met
Speaker 6: DJ Khaled, before he was you know, when he was
Speaker 6: just underground DJ and Coolan Dre and just the love
Speaker 6: down here, the camaraderie and the love was just so
Speaker 6: much different from what was going on in New York.
Speaker 6: So I had came down here for a fresh start.
Speaker 6: Had been done here ever.
Speaker 1: Since around what time was that when you when you
Speaker 1: went to Miami.
Speaker 7: Man, that's like seventeen years ago.
Speaker 6: You know, I always said, you know, one day, you know,
Speaker 6: when I started, I started out digging into crates and
Speaker 6: if you go to them early videos, if you would
Speaker 6: go engine engine number nine on that you as I'm
Speaker 6: one of the guys jumping in the background. I was
Speaker 6: in everybody's video. Yes, I was in everybody's video. Everybody
Speaker 6: was my video we worked with each other. We didn't
Speaker 6: look at each other as competition. It was all love
Speaker 6: when I came up. And then once money came into play,
Speaker 6: everybody started having their own click and everybody thought they
Speaker 6: was bigger than the other one. And that's how New
Speaker 6: York got separated. And then one day I was in
Speaker 6: my home in New Jersey and I was fed up
Speaker 6: with it already. I was listening to the radio and
Speaker 6: I heard Cameron say, He'll smack the coofie off of
Speaker 6: NASA's head. And that's when I told my wife, pack
Speaker 6: up the vans, we out, we out of here.
Speaker 7: We can't be over here like this. I don't know
Speaker 7: what's going on with New York hip hop.
Speaker 6: And we came down here and we started, uh the
Speaker 6: Miami movement, like with the DJ Kelly, with the Pitt Bull,
Speaker 6: the Rick Ross, the Cooler Dre. You know, we set
Speaker 6: it off down the here and made that camaraderie. And
Speaker 6: then when Lil Wayne, when Katrina happened, he came down
Speaker 6: to Miami, him at bird Man. We embraced them, and
Speaker 6: that's when you get all those records. We was doing
Speaker 6: like taking over Brown paper Bag.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so in in the Bronx.
Speaker 2: In the Bronx, how would you describe your childhood for
Speaker 2: those that don't know your history in the Bronx.
Speaker 6: Well, you from Philly, right, But there's there's different parts
Speaker 6: of Philly. There's North Philly, South Philly, Alleghany, Germantown, this,
Speaker 6: this that. So why I'm trying to make reference to
Speaker 6: that is, Oh he's from North Carolina, this Faidville, this Greensboro,
Speaker 6: this Charlotte's this abs. I'm from the Bronx in the
Speaker 6: part where hip hop was created. Right, So what I'm
Speaker 6: trying to tell you is there's many parts of the Bronx.
Speaker 6: So me as a little kid, I was watching Mellie
Speaker 6: mel and Grandmaster flash Plant pickup games of basketball against
Speaker 6: little White you see little Rod mec Uh. You know
Speaker 6: I grew up in like literally so if you look
Speaker 6: at so privileged. So Ruby d who's the first Latin
Speaker 6: in MC. He used to have a softball team. These
Speaker 6: guys never lost. I used to watch some play softball.
Speaker 6: I used to go to every jam. My my my brother, Uh,
Speaker 6: my brother was the way I fell in love with
Speaker 6: hip hop. My brother used to go to all the
Speaker 6: jams and bring me back the cassette tapes from all
Speaker 6: the Zulu Nation anniversaries or Cool Hurt or whatever, and
Speaker 6: I used to listen to it so much I thought
Speaker 6: I was actually in there, like give me, like back
Speaker 6: up from.
Speaker 7: The ropes, back up from the ropes.
Speaker 6: Then they playing Mary Married, Why you get on that
Speaker 6: funk is on?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 6: And then they come back with I don't know if
Speaker 6: you've been told, but Santa Claus is.
Speaker 7: A black man. A black man.
Speaker 6: I'm like, I'm like, I'm in my room listening to
Speaker 6: the these cassette tapes like oh my, fuck me, y'all,
Speaker 6: and just because I was too small to go and
Speaker 6: then when they did it outside, I would go to outside.
Speaker 6: So I was privileged to be born in the soil,
Speaker 6: like you know, just no other way to explain it
Speaker 6: to you, Like I was blessed as a hip hop fan,
Speaker 6: as a hip hop fan, not just as the rapper
Speaker 6: or whatever.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So as far as like it it calling you, I mean,
Speaker 2: were you rapping early as a kid or you just
Speaker 2: like I'm a fan. But at what point is I
Speaker 2: wanted to be At what point is it like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I want to get involved in the culture.
Speaker 7: It's different. It was I was in. I was the culture.
Speaker 6: When I'm trying to tell you I break dance, I
Speaker 6: wrote graffiti Terror Squad is a graffiti crew?
Speaker 7: Okay, started out off graffiti Terror Squad?
Speaker 6: So were you tagging up as all over the bronx
Speaker 6: on the walls on the train.
Speaker 7: When I got older, I would bring out my house.
Speaker 6: I'm talking too much in front of my daughter right now,
Speaker 6: but I would break out my house when my parents
Speaker 6: would sleep, go hit the trains, think and dangerous shit
Speaker 6: like cops chasing us under the.
Speaker 7: Third round, like crazy shit. Come back to my house.
Speaker 6: My sister would open the door like five in the morning,
Speaker 6: like damn man, like you might. And then you know,
Speaker 6: when I wake up, you know it's time for school.
Speaker 6: But writing graffiti, but rapping. I wanted to be like
Speaker 6: my brother. My brother was you know, he used to rap,
Speaker 6: and I wanted to be like my brother, and so
Speaker 6: I started to rap. So I was writing maybe nine
Speaker 6: ten years old, eight nine ten years old and my
Speaker 6: mother's table, where everybody was like what type of what
Speaker 6: am I doing? And I'm like, you know, I want
Speaker 6: to rap? Nine ten years old? Oh my name My
Speaker 6: first name.
Speaker 7: Was little Pop, Little Pop and uh and Uh.
Speaker 6: We were saying ship like Joey rock Well and all that.
Speaker 6: And I had a little little fake rhymes like snigkings
Speaker 6: and cheap you know something you could.
Speaker 7: Fill every rock you could like like I was just
Speaker 7: you know, learning the game. But you know, uh yeah
Speaker 7: it was real.
Speaker 2: So as far as like in in the area that
Speaker 2: you grew up, were there any other notable hip hop
Speaker 2: luminarias that we would know of today, Like were.
Speaker 7: You ever.
Speaker 1: As an eleven year old or like.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yes, yes, So what happened was so as I
Speaker 6: told you, was a hip hop whippy whip wip starsky,
Speaker 6: all of them living my block.
Speaker 7: Uh. But when the guy who.
Speaker 6: Inspired me to rap was Lord Forness, So I was
Speaker 6: already in the streets hustling doing all types of ship,
Speaker 6: you know, be in you know, a product of my
Speaker 6: environment in the worst way. And Finesse he used to
Speaker 6: sell us papers. So back in the days, they would
Speaker 6: bring the newspaper. So Fanesse would buy the newspaper at
Speaker 6: the store for a quarter when he was selling in
Speaker 6: the building for a dollar. He was an entrepreneur, so
Speaker 6: he would walk up and down the project building going paper,
Speaker 6: and then my moms would give me a dollar, I
Speaker 6: go see Finesse he made not his real shit, and
Speaker 6: then he would make seventy five sets and then give
Speaker 6: it back.
Speaker 7: But Finesse would.
Speaker 6: Always tell me like, Yo, Joey, I'm gonna be a rapper.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna get on and I'd be like, yeah, right,
Speaker 6: I locked the door. I'm like, man, he's so full
Speaker 6: of shit. And one day, one day, I'm just listening
Speaker 6: to the radio Red Alert. He's just playing the funky Technician.
Speaker 6: He's playing all the Foinisian I'm like, no way Foraness
Speaker 6: made it, And that gave me sometimes you got to
Speaker 6: see it. So that gave me the proof that we
Speaker 6: can actually make it out of the hood and actually
Speaker 6: become professional artists. And that's when I started, you know, uh,
Speaker 6: really believing we could do something. And then also Diamond
Speaker 6: Diamond Dan used to write graffiti with me, and he
Speaker 6: would tell me all the time, Yo, Joe.
Speaker 7: You're gonna go to jail, You're gonna get killed.
Speaker 6: You out here doing crazy shit, y'all, Like, bro, why
Speaker 6: don't you put all the shit you do in the
Speaker 6: streets into your music. And actually, even though I had money.
Speaker 7: At the time, actually crazy money.
Speaker 6: He took me to the studio and pay for the
Speaker 6: session Diamond to like, you know, get me off the streets.
Speaker 7: And so we went in there and.
Speaker 6: We and we made the demos and then uh and
Speaker 6: one of them was flow Joe, my first single.
Speaker 7: So I went, am I talking too long?
Speaker 1: I don't know this now?
Speaker 5: No, you weren't perfect, this is perfect, okay.
Speaker 6: So we went We made like three demos in that
Speaker 6: first session.
Speaker 7: One of them was flow Joe. Right, So I had
Speaker 7: when I wanted to earn.
Speaker 6: Even though I grew up with show visit ag, I
Speaker 6: grew up with Diamond, they were already on, they were
Speaker 6: already on.
Speaker 7: I wanted to earn my spot.
Speaker 6: So I went to Amateur Knight at the Apollo and
Speaker 6: I performed that Amateur Knight, and I wanted four weeks
Speaker 6: in a.
Speaker 1: Row, were to tell you truth? I got a question.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, that's how I got on.
Speaker 2: I got a question because we rarely have actual Apollo
Speaker 2: Amateur Knight contestants on the show.
Speaker 1: People who survived the apollogw is the truth?
Speaker 2: What is the true way to rig the system so
Speaker 2: that you win Amateur Knight the Apollo?
Speaker 1: Is it? The people you bring with you or like.
Speaker 6: I can't tell you Rick, I asked some people in there,
Speaker 6: but it's the power was like the stadium compared to
Speaker 6: the people. I might have brun twenty people came to
Speaker 6: see Fat Joe, but it's two thousand and three thousand.
Speaker 6: But I'm gonna tell you something. And this is where,
Speaker 6: this is where no one can ask me if desert God,
Speaker 6: you understand what I'm saying. Because as I went back recently,
Speaker 6: maybe maybe a year ago, I really thought about that Apollo,
Speaker 6: Like I said, all right, you winning Apollo, what do
Speaker 6: you do?
Speaker 7: So I went in there. It was one hundred and
Speaker 7: fifty groups.
Speaker 6: And I remember looking at everybody saying, they don't have
Speaker 6: a chance.
Speaker 7: I don't know what they're doing here. I'm gonna take
Speaker 7: this shit. Now.
Speaker 6: What's crazy is if you want to talk about the
Speaker 6: elephant in the room, I was the only Latino in Black.
Speaker 7: Colem with a hundred groups talk about that.
Speaker 6: No, and then so when I think about it, I
Speaker 6: it went down. I just went out there. I had
Speaker 6: two girl, three girls from my projects, Michelle and Barbara
Speaker 6: and DC, and they came out with me and they
Speaker 6: were saying to behind me doing some fly shit, and
Speaker 6: I was walking through rapid but oh, the people just
Speaker 6: went crazy. They couldn't hear a bar or nothing. They
Speaker 6: just they fucking went crazy. And every time I came out,
Speaker 6: they just went crazy. And it wasn't because of my lyrics.
Speaker 6: It wasn't because they just went crazy. I don't and
Speaker 6: I say, that was God in the room. He said,
Speaker 6: this is how you gonna do it.
Speaker 7: So I won. Four weeks, I met Red Alert. Red
Speaker 7: Alert was the biggest DJ in the planet Earth.
Speaker 6: It was only two DJs at the time that were
Speaker 6: considered mainstream. It's Red Alert and mister Magic. Mister Magic Yup,
Speaker 6: Mister Magic Recipe. So Red Alert said, Yo, do you.
Speaker 7: Have a demo? Can you give me a demo? So
Speaker 7: I gave him flow joke. About a month later, I
Speaker 7: had the flu.
Speaker 6: I was in the projects laying down and the shit
Speaker 6: came on and I jumped to the ceiling. How I
Speaker 6: jumped from the flu? I put the peak on the
Speaker 6: window in the projects and told everybody, yo, right, Alard
Speaker 6: playing my ship. He's playing everybody going crazy in front
Speaker 6: of the building.
Speaker 7: And then he.
Speaker 6: Kept playing that for like close to like eight months
Speaker 6: every week. And then Chris Lighty rest in Peace came
Speaker 6: to the hood where I hustled, my block where I
Speaker 6: hustle and told.
Speaker 7: Me, yo, you fat Joe. I was like yeah. I
Speaker 7: was like yeah.
Speaker 6: I was like he said you know why am I said, yeah,
Speaker 6: you baby, Chris, And he was like, yo, I want
Speaker 6: to sign you on a record deal, like I think
Speaker 6: you could be a superstar. And I signed in the
Speaker 6: middle of the street and the rest.
Speaker 1: You signed instantly to Relativity.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I don't have no lawyer. Now I was, I
Speaker 7: was a drug dealer. What do you want me to do?
Speaker 3: No, no, no.
Speaker 2: I was just like, Wow, I ain't got no That
Speaker 2: was Peed So wait that and truck answers my second question.
Speaker 2: So that's definitely you saying you talking about on Domin
Speaker 2: D's Uh.
Speaker 6: I am in every ad lib on that album. That's
Speaker 6: my claim to me, my fucking claim to.
Speaker 7: Fuck you talking about.
Speaker 2: Ship right that.
Speaker 7: That ship?
Speaker 1: I mean, Oh that's you. You're you're the guy all over.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I am the ad list every song. I dare
Speaker 6: you to acts Diamond, I am. That's my claim to fame.
Speaker 6: I was there for that whole album, the whole process.
Speaker 2: Slight confession, Like there was a point in my life
Speaker 2: where you know, there was enough base on my voice
Speaker 2: to be to be cursing and really intimidating people, So
Speaker 2: shut up, like you really? Yeah, I swear to God
Speaker 2: like every time post ninety three, and I'm saying fuck
Speaker 2: you talking about I'm literally just echoing fuck you talking
Speaker 2: about yo chill that is that is my favorite cursing
Speaker 2: on record ever ever. But you were Were you not
Speaker 2: involved on the Jazzy J record at all, the compilation that.
Speaker 1: He died z J?
Speaker 6: No, no, no, I was. I was from Diamond d
Speaker 6: on but I knew Jazzy J. I did my whole
Speaker 6: first album in Jazzy J studio, But I'm not that
Speaker 6: I think the compilation.
Speaker 7: Was before me.
Speaker 2: So when when did the official like the the uniting
Speaker 2: of digging in the Crates first?
Speaker 1: Like? Was it then?
Speaker 6: I think I always digging in the crates. I'm from
Speaker 6: the project, so I was digging in the crates. There's
Speaker 6: no way to explain.
Speaker 7: It to you.
Speaker 6: Like I grew up with Showbes, grew up with Diamond d,
Speaker 6: grew up with Finess.
Speaker 7: Hey, I'm rapping, I'm digging in the crates.
Speaker 6: I was, you know, getting a lot of money in
Speaker 6: the streets and I was at first the fat Spanish
Speaker 6: guy that stands on stage behind Lord Finance and Diamond
Speaker 6: D and you're looking like, who the fuck is the
Speaker 6: d boy standing behind these motherfuckers. Iiced out with the
Speaker 6: convertible bends outside like motherfucker's is like, that must be
Speaker 6: the big boy from the block. And so people knew
Speaker 6: me from that. But I was always digging in the crates.
Speaker 6: I don't think there was an initial annoying team, you know.
Speaker 7: I do remember we was at the Fever in.
Speaker 6: The Bronx when I got acts, could we make oh
Speaker 6: C digging in the crates?
Speaker 7: And OC was.
Speaker 6: From Brooklyn, and I was like, hell, yeah, man, he
Speaker 6: had he had to join.
Speaker 7: You lack the miner us invitamins. I ain't in the suns.
Speaker 1: Times out there like he was.
Speaker 6: I was like, Yo, your time's up. I was like, uh,
Speaker 6: we better make that boy digging in the crates. And
Speaker 6: and so I remember.
Speaker 1: That, And it was Big L around this timeeriod or.
Speaker 6: Big I was there already, so so Finesse had met
Speaker 6: Big L doing the Big L used to battle everybody
Speaker 6: on one hundred and twenty fifth, all across the street
Speaker 6: from Apollo every day after school big Al was just
Speaker 6: killing dudes.
Speaker 7: Finess met him, put him on a remix. Yes you
Speaker 7: may remix.
Speaker 6: I was at the show the first time Big L
Speaker 6: ever rap at a show and he destroyed that motherfucker
Speaker 6: and I was like, oh shit. They was like YO signing,
Speaker 6: you know Big L. I was like, big motherfucker ol
Speaker 6: D I T C.
Speaker 7: He was.
Speaker 6: He was incredible. It was like it was like a
Speaker 6: Finesse on steroids. It was like, first of all, to me,
Speaker 6: Finesse is the best punchline lyricists at the time. And
Speaker 6: then he found like he found the Bravo of the
Speaker 6: superman like Big L.
Speaker 7: So it was it was a no brainer.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So as far as the environment is now and what
Speaker 2: you're used to like when you're doing concerts, I know
Speaker 2: that it was like night and day with the twenty
Speaker 2: five year laps in between. But what were your early
Speaker 2: your early shows like promoting on the road and like
Speaker 2: back in ninety two, like from ninety two to light ninety.
Speaker 1: Five, Like what was that like back then?
Speaker 6: In the very way you ever heard of Steve Lobel,
Speaker 6: You know, Steve Lobel s we working. Steve Lobel was
Speaker 6: our product manager at Relativity. He had Fat Joe and
Speaker 6: Big Punk and the rest of the terrorist squad in
Speaker 6: the van driving through the whole America because at the time.
Speaker 7: I was scared to fly.
Speaker 6: So we drove everywhere to Shaw, We drove to Chicago,
Speaker 6: cal Breedy Greens.
Speaker 7: With Pink House DJ Pink House.
Speaker 6: We drove all around this country eating McDonald's and we
Speaker 6: was eating McDonald's. And even when Flo Joe was like
Speaker 6: klow Joe was number one in the country, it wasn't
Speaker 6: number one. And I was still getting like four hundred
Speaker 6: dollars a five hundred dollars a show. It wasn't no
Speaker 6: real money at the time. So it was like a struggle,
Speaker 6: you know, to get to the next level. But I
Speaker 6: had left like a fairy tale, and this is no bullshit.
Speaker 6: I had left the drug game alone when I signed
Speaker 6: to start rapping, and I refused to go back, even
Speaker 6: though my friends were still making literally millions of dollars.
Speaker 7: They was in bent leads, they was in all that shit.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't go back. If somebody got robbed in the crew,
Speaker 6: I wouldn't go back. If anything, I would not go
Speaker 6: in there because I knew this was my way out.
Speaker 6: Is the way I had to go, so I took
Speaker 6: a real pay cut, so I would do stuff like
Speaker 6: not only you know, do my shows, but then for
Speaker 6: promote parties, so I would poor Krs Karres probably came
Speaker 6: and performed for me twenty times for free in the Bronx.
Speaker 6: So everybody, I mean, like, yo, I gave Biggie his
Speaker 6: first show this b I G. I gave him his
Speaker 6: first show ever. Yeah, I gave him a g and
Speaker 6: a bottle of my Way and he came and I'm
Speaker 6: talking about partying.
Speaker 7: Bullshit just came out.
Speaker 1: Okay, So it's like the.
Speaker 7: First show b I G.
Speaker 6: Fat Joe and I was just promoting the parties, making
Speaker 6: a couple of grand on the side, then doing my show.
Speaker 7: You know, it was real. It was a real struggle.
Speaker 1: Yo.
Speaker 2: I remember an episode of your TV raps where you
Speaker 2: had like your own clothing joint or like you like
Speaker 2: one of the first dudes to have your your venture.
Speaker 1: And I think, I Ji j.
Speaker 7: J five sixty, I think you know everything.
Speaker 1: I remember this, he had the jacket.
Speaker 7: So what happened.
Speaker 6: What happened was and I'm gonna take you some real
Speaker 6: shit I never said before, but uh, it.
Speaker 7: Was probably the first or the second.
Speaker 6: I don't know if Wu Tang had their their brand first,
Speaker 6: it was one.
Speaker 7: Of the but I remember we was making these.
Speaker 6: So we were making these coats and these snorkels, the
Speaker 6: leather jackets almost like the averxes, and and I remember
Speaker 6: going to a party and Puffy and jay Z walking
Speaker 6: into the bathroom. I was in the bathroom where FJ
Speaker 6: five sixty snorkels on, and I was like, oh shit.
Speaker 6: They was like, yeah, we're rocking your ship. And I'm
Speaker 6: like allright, cool, yok. But the business partners that I had,
Speaker 6: they were really really cheap. They didn't want to really
Speaker 6: mass produced, they didn't really really want to market and promote,
Speaker 6: and we lost our shot. We could have made hundreds
Speaker 6: of millions of dollars with that land, with that line.
Speaker 7: It was ahead of his time.
Speaker 1: Yeahed to visit that, like y'all.
Speaker 2: I remember you and Freddie were like live at that
Speaker 2: story and like, yo, I'm gonna go over there and
Speaker 2: see that joint like I always wanted to see it.
Speaker 1: Never knew what happened to it.
Speaker 3: Hey, Joe, I was just gonna ask I just I
Speaker 3: was just kind of curious since you were talking about
Speaker 3: you signed your deal in the middle of the street.
Speaker 3: You were new to the story. You didn't know anything
Speaker 3: some of those hard lessons that you had to learn
Speaker 3: on your way. Because now you are you are the
Speaker 3: business man. You know this business in and out. But
Speaker 3: before we were like a couple of them hard lessons
Speaker 3: that you had to learn.
Speaker 6: Well, I really, I really ain't gonna lie to you.
Speaker 6: I did not get jerked by Chris Lady in the
Speaker 6: middle of the street. I was lucky, good, No, No,
Speaker 6: I was lucky. He did not jerk me. He was
Speaker 6: fared with me. Uh forever Relativity was good to be.
Speaker 6: But I did get jerked from my publisher. So I
Speaker 6: had signed a deal with h This guy's name is
Speaker 6: Jellybean Ben.
Speaker 7: Yeah. Yeah, So he was signing. He was doing music
Speaker 7: for madnad Or.
Speaker 6: So he hit with the he hit me, he hit
Speaker 6: me with the YO. We both led Tino this this bullshit.
Speaker 6: And then I met him in nineteen ninety two. I
Speaker 6: signed this publishing. He gave me fifty thousand dollars when
Speaker 6: I signed. He's been robbing me for that publishing ever since.
Speaker 6: And I still ain't seen him in like twenty five years.
Speaker 6: And uh, you know, and so we've been trying to
Speaker 6: get some type of royalty accounting or whatever. I didn't
Speaker 6: have my publishing back till around lean back, but anything
Speaker 6: before there was not anything I did.
Speaker 7: The man robbed me for my publishing real talk.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, damn Benita, Yeah yeah.
Speaker 6: Donald, good boy, Donald, my good old latt though, my
Speaker 6: good old Latito brother.
Speaker 1: Can you talk to like?
Speaker 4: Can you talk to where like Latino music and hip
Speaker 4: hop were meeting at that time? I mean behind you
Speaker 4: a giant picture of Fector leve O. We can't the
Speaker 4: king of.
Speaker 7: What's your name? Who asked that question?
Speaker 1: I'm Bill Sherman.
Speaker 7: Yo, Bill, let me tell you something, Bill.
Speaker 6: Hip hop is please black and Latino music from day one.
Speaker 6: So if you go to the very inception of hip
Speaker 6: hop music, the very first black party jam, you will
Speaker 6: see the Latinos in there and the blacks and they
Speaker 6: break dancing and they white and graft. Latinos just break
Speaker 6: dancing and white and graffiti. So the black guys is
Speaker 6: mostly DJ and them seeing and that's.
Speaker 7: The real focus point on it.
Speaker 6: But if you go to day one and you look
Speaker 6: into archives of hip hop, it's always been black and
Speaker 6: Latino music.
Speaker 3: Was it like that?
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, Bill, but for you like in the house,
Speaker 4: like was it like was for me?
Speaker 7: Personally? I grew up.
Speaker 6: I grew up black, so like I'm a black Latino
Speaker 6: Now it's real.
Speaker 3: Now you gotta break that.
Speaker 1: That's real.
Speaker 3: Everybody in the world don't understand what that means.
Speaker 7: I grew up black, so like, uh where I.
Speaker 6: Where I grew up was ninety nine point nine black
Speaker 6: and Fat Joe had the hairs like the Beatles with
Speaker 6: green eyes and thought he was black because there wasn't
Speaker 6: no Latina.
Speaker 7: So all my girlfriends growing up was black, me black.
Speaker 6: If you look at the class pictures as me and
Speaker 6: thirty black people, like who they did? I think they
Speaker 6: said the killing of Malcolm X. Who killed Malcolm X?
Speaker 6: They showed his class pitcher at one point he was
Speaker 6: the only black guy who was nothing.
Speaker 7: But white people with the whole pitcher when.
Speaker 6: He was growing up, right, And that was fat Joe
Speaker 6: And that was that Joe.
Speaker 2: So you said, like the Beatles, you mean mop head
Speaker 2: or hippie Arabic.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like this, look I put up a picture maybe
Speaker 6: like two weeks ago. I found one with my hair
Speaker 6: like the Beatles, bro like the fucking Beatles like my mushroom. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 6: And so what happened was nobody told me, yo, you're
Speaker 6: not black.
Speaker 7: I don't know how to explain it to y'all.
Speaker 6: So even though my my father's Cuban and my mother's Porton.
Speaker 6: You know, my mother speaks English fluently everything, you know,
Speaker 6: she grew up on all the Gladys Night, all of
Speaker 6: weka Franklins, you know, my house.
Speaker 7: Every day we didn't place house, we played I Will survive.
Speaker 6: Oh oh, now, wuck out the door, like that's the
Speaker 6: ship we was playing. And and it wasn't until I
Speaker 6: went to high school and there was no social media.
Speaker 7: It wasn't even a rap video at that time. So
Speaker 7: when when when?
Speaker 6: When I went to high school, I met a friend
Speaker 6: of mine. His name was Charlie. He lived on the
Speaker 6: other side of the Brothers and when he took me
Speaker 6: to his hood, I never knew there was so much
Speaker 6: Puerto Ricans in the Bronx and it's like fifteen minutes away.
Speaker 7: So just like me, I met the one black guy.
Speaker 6: Yeah, then I met the one black guy who thought
Speaker 6: was Puerto Rican.
Speaker 1: In that neighborhood.
Speaker 7: Motherfucker blackness. Shit, he thought he was Puerto Rican.
Speaker 6: Right, So when I went there and I started going
Speaker 6: to Charlie's house, that's when his mother was like, yo.
Speaker 7: You're not black. And she starts sclaming Pack the ball
Speaker 7: gorm Ball.
Speaker 6: Group on Nis, all the South Side, you know, all
Speaker 6: the legends, and I'm like, oh shit. So that's when
Speaker 6: I got put onto Spanish music and more so Spanish pride,
Speaker 6: started finding myself and my culture. Every window I looked
Speaker 6: at Puerto Rican flags. I'm talking about fourteen flights. Every
Speaker 6: window had Puerto Rican flags and they was bumping that
Speaker 6: south Side ship out the window.
Speaker 7: They was like this.
Speaker 6: So that's when I started to learn about heck, the
Speaker 6: south southe music and that Latino heritage. And then from
Speaker 6: there I just wanted to learn more and more and
Speaker 6: more more and uh and that's where we.
Speaker 1: Are, yo.
Speaker 3: Not to fast forward, but just I gotta tell you,
Speaker 3: based off of that, that's why it was so good
Speaker 3: to see that episode of She's Got to Have It
Speaker 3: when y'all went back to Puerto Rico and really just
Speaker 3: broke down the connection of like the African diaspora to
Speaker 3: Puerto Rico and how we are all black and how
Speaker 3: they you know, it was just it was perfection. That
Speaker 3: must have felt real good.
Speaker 1: I was, all right, now, all.
Speaker 2: We got to skip you who you channeling with your voice?
Speaker 2: With Benning went like, that was my favorite character from
Speaker 2: that show.
Speaker 6: All right, thank god, but listen let me tell you.
Speaker 6: Uh Now, I meet a lot of people I met
Speaker 6: at bars with a bunch of actors that say, yo, man,
Speaker 6: you killed that Ship was like, you know.
Speaker 1: I went hard.
Speaker 6: I know y'all went hard, though, so hard, like it
Speaker 6: was just that character. I'm gonna tell you the truth, y'all.
Speaker 6: That was like the fourteenth member of Wu Tang. So
Speaker 6: what they said, they said, this guy's this guy got money,
Speaker 6: got his own strip club, but he's stuck in the past.
Speaker 6: He's still wear tims and baggy pants and hoodies and
Speaker 6: sniffs a little coat and and and then I was like, oh, Ship,
Speaker 6: that's like the long lost member of Wu Tang, and
Speaker 6: that's who I modeled when he went after I came
Speaker 6: up with that whole character like if you know he
Speaker 6: was a member of.
Speaker 7: Wu Tang, so look shovels winning within. I know who
Speaker 7: the fuck you know? And that's how I feel wh
Speaker 7: a lot of times when I get around the.
Speaker 6: Wu tang because they all got money, but they be
Speaker 6: like you, it's still nine three not four, yo.
Speaker 1: Straight up, Pelly Pelly Jack is yo.
Speaker 7: Kelly Pelly TEMs. I'm like, yo, Like these niggas ain't
Speaker 7: get the memo. Like it's like, you know what that's
Speaker 7: that's a winning winner's based off of.
Speaker 1: Do you find do you find it?
Speaker 2: Often, especially coming from where you came from and your
Speaker 2: need to evolve as a person and as an artist,
Speaker 2: like outgrowing your teen life and your early adult life
Speaker 2: into where you are now. Was it was it hard
Speaker 2: making that transition? Like was it hard?
Speaker 1: Huh?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 6: No, No, I still got still got your pink t
Speaker 6: I still got tim No, I got.
Speaker 1: T was early, he was he was early.
Speaker 6: And first of all, the first transition was I had
Speaker 6: to go, I'm writing a book of my life. Now
Speaker 6: when when it comes out, y'all read it and y'all
Speaker 6: get a bigger understanding. Right, But first of all, when
Speaker 6: I came in the game, I think the biggest transition
Speaker 6: I had to do was, uh, leave the streets behind.
Speaker 6: So when I came in the game, a lot of
Speaker 6: people were scared of me, hearing my reputation in the
Speaker 6: streets to They almost thought like I was going to
Speaker 6: be the New York Sugar Night, like extort my way
Speaker 6: or whatever. So I had to win people's trust and
Speaker 6: never feel like I'm some bully or I'm That was
Speaker 6: the first.
Speaker 7: Transition I had to make. So I actually was sitting
Speaker 7: back looking at everybody else active fool when I knew
Speaker 7: I could score everybody.
Speaker 6: But you know, try to be a nice guy so
Speaker 6: these people won't think I'm an animal, right, And then
Speaker 6: we still had that conception of keep.
Speaker 7: It real, keep it real, keep it real.
Speaker 6: So fad y'all always had to keep it real, keep
Speaker 6: it real, even though I had records like What's Love
Speaker 6: When you saw me, I was walking in with thirty
Speaker 6: street dudes, entourage, ice drilling, you know, so you was like, yo,
Speaker 6: we had that. I think that was the biggest transition
Speaker 6: I had to make, and I made it maybe in
Speaker 6: the last five years of my life, where I said,
Speaker 6: you know, fuck, keep it real. Keep it real is
Speaker 6: making sure my people are fed, my family's good, and
Speaker 6: let me try to elevate and grow and be this
Speaker 6: guy you see now, where damn, this guy's a nice guy,
Speaker 6: like we just never knew and at the time too,
Speaker 6: like I don't want like me and Me and Biggie
Speaker 6: was really tight. Me and Notorious vi Igy Biggie was
Speaker 6: really tight. I don't have just would be.
Speaker 7: Because at the time it wasn't cool.
Speaker 6: You felt like you was a sucker that asked somebody, yo,
Speaker 6: let's take a picture, right, So I missed out on
Speaker 6: all that, right. So, and at that time, even if
Speaker 6: you liked the each other, everybody was ice grilling each other, right,
Speaker 6: So I had to learn how to smile. I had
Speaker 6: to learn yeah, yeah, yeah, I had to learn how
Speaker 6: to smile and be like all right, yo, let it down,
Speaker 6: like grow, we're getting old the chill. And that was
Speaker 6: the biggest transition I had to make from keeping it real.
Speaker 7: And I lost a lot.
Speaker 6: Of money keeping it real because people really didn't want
Speaker 6: when I didn't understand this people he't want to be
Speaker 6: affiliated with gangsters.
Speaker 7: Like you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: And Joe let alone. We heard rumors he's a gangster.
Speaker 6: He's coming with thirty gangsters. And you know, we can't
Speaker 6: invite Joe. We really want Joe to come to the Ampons,
Speaker 6: but we know that guy's coming with dirty street guys
Speaker 6: and somebody might get wrong.
Speaker 7: Did the bathroom and the all white party? So don't invite.
Speaker 1: Joe a.
Speaker 7: Man.
Speaker 5: One question I always wanted to ask you, ahad were
Speaker 5: you about to ask about who shot you?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 5: Well we get there before you, man. So one question
Speaker 5: I always want to ask you, just as an MC Joe.
Speaker 5: So your trajectory, your progression from represent the jealous ones
Speaker 5: envy was like phenomenal.
Speaker 1: What did you do.
Speaker 5: In terms of stepping your tell you what happens that
Speaker 5: from that first album the second album.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna tell you what happens? Right?
Speaker 6: So I came uh, I came out at a time
Speaker 6: where Flow Joe went number one in the country. But
Speaker 6: if you really listen to Flow Joe, I'm going bust
Speaker 6: ship check it.
Speaker 7: Watch shout record, niggas, watch your back record. Shooting is
Speaker 7: getting hectic.
Speaker 6: I can't vibes like count Basie a sick right, So
Speaker 6: it's like it's like it was abcb E d FG.
Speaker 6: It really wasn't lyrical, it wasn't nothing. And so you
Speaker 6: loved the song. You love the fact that I was
Speaker 6: certified by the Digging in the Cratescrew. You love my history.
Speaker 6: When you when you, when you called up your cousins
Speaker 6: in New York. It was like, no, no, no, them
Speaker 6: boys is laying it down like they did the truth.
Speaker 7: So you was intrigued. You was intrigued. It's similar to
Speaker 7: like young Jez with BMF.
Speaker 6: When he came out, we was like, oh, he's part
Speaker 6: of it, so it was all that, But I really
Speaker 6: wasn't dope. So there's a guy who came out. His
Speaker 6: name was Nas And now remember sitting in the car.
Speaker 6: Show Biz came to get me.
Speaker 7: You have the beamer. He was like, yo, Joe, getting
Speaker 7: the car, come down. So I got in the car
Speaker 7: and when he pressed played and.
Speaker 6: That it was like sneak ouzy on Allan in my
Speaker 6: armiac and Lye in there and Common in the bay
Speaker 6: half man, half amazing. But when I'm I was like,
Speaker 6: it was the most incredible ship I ever heard in
Speaker 6: my life.
Speaker 7: But at the same time, it was almost like a
Speaker 7: morgue or a cemetery for MC's Like Fat Joe.
Speaker 6: It was like, if you do not step your ship up,
Speaker 6: it is over.
Speaker 7: It's low joke, wanted done.
Speaker 3: So I don't think MCS do that anymore, y'all.
Speaker 7: They don't. So he he pushed the game.
Speaker 6: He elevated the game to a point of where you
Speaker 6: couldn't get away with busst checking. So I had to
Speaker 6: study him. I studied them. I might have listened to
Speaker 6: that tape if I say twenty million times is not
Speaker 6: it's not enough, and that reasonable doubt came out and
Speaker 6: all that. So everybody was like, so when reasonable doubt
Speaker 6: came out, I can relate to that more because he
Speaker 6: was talking that drug dealer life and where I came from,
Speaker 6: and I said, oh, Ship, we could do that, like
Speaker 6: we could talk that joke. So then when I came
Speaker 6: hustling is the key to success, the key the sextety
Speaker 6: getting wet, the game sequel play, and then what's for
Speaker 6: the cass to cerebri blod Yeah, so they I was like, oh, Ship,
Speaker 6: I could be mean, like I could. I could really
Speaker 6: save my life.
Speaker 2: H So let me ask, all right, since you mentioned him,
Speaker 2: because I feel like one of your most underrated bangers.
Speaker 1: The incredible was No, it was John Blaze, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: John Blaize, Yeah yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean when Cosmic Cosmic keV played that in Philly Man.
Speaker 2: He he rarely is one of those I'll play something
Speaker 2: three times in a row like the way that fum
Speaker 2: Flex does, like I gotta play it over. But the
Speaker 2: day that John Blaze came out with you and NAS
Speaker 2: was like that that was that was a moment.
Speaker 1: So I mean, how did you feel at that moment?
Speaker 2: When when that when that was actually even before I
Speaker 2: asked that, let me let me go back, because I
Speaker 2: feel like your your moment of really stepping it up
Speaker 2: for me was who shot you?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry? I shot you?
Speaker 7: I shot you? I shot you?
Speaker 1: Did that? How did that even come to be? Because
Speaker 1: for me, like the way you ended that, lind.
Speaker 2: Think you're talking to you, we cried, he gods and
Speaker 2: so like that, I felt like that was your Domino
Speaker 2: Slam moment. Domino, So what what?
Speaker 1: How did how did that story? How did that come
Speaker 1: to be?
Speaker 6: First of all, l who j is my idol And
Speaker 6: I've never back down. I've never backed down for competition.
Speaker 6: I've never backed down to this day. And you could
Speaker 6: be the greatest rap on the earth and I'm gonna
Speaker 6: go to the toe with them, never been scared of
Speaker 6: it actually elevates me. Like you ever see like Golden
Speaker 6: State when they were the best team in the world,
Speaker 6: They'll play the whackers team and then they'll play whack
Speaker 6: like them.
Speaker 7: But when they when there's.
Speaker 6: A big game, it brings me up. If I get
Speaker 6: on song with jay Z or now's whoever I'm going like,
Speaker 6: I'm going on on another level. I couldn't wait for
Speaker 6: this moment. So I'm working on my second album. The
Speaker 6: track masters come in the studio we had in New
Speaker 6: York Battery Studio something and they come in and they
Speaker 6: were like, yo, Joe.
Speaker 7: They was like, but you work on said my album.
Speaker 6: I played them a couple of joints off my albums,
Speaker 6: like Yo, we need to ask love. That's when I
Speaker 6: came in with that who the fuck you think you
Speaker 6: talking to? I paid dues, I splayed Cruise.
Speaker 7: Look at Joey Krat motherfuckers. He like the dudes running
Speaker 7: this rocket for New York.
Speaker 6: Come on Tingos starting Revvo bring years for Nah.
Speaker 7: That was my moment.
Speaker 1: Was it all that?
Speaker 7: Like? Were you all next level?
Speaker 1: Were you all doing it at the same time or
Speaker 1: was it just piecemeal? Like was Foxy?
Speaker 6: There was John John Blaize, No, no, no, John Blaze.
Speaker 7: I did with everybody, but but that No, he just
Speaker 7: gave me the beat and I just went for mine.
Speaker 2: You know, because that's that's the risky thing about doing
Speaker 2: posse cuts, because I know oftentimes and I watched this
Speaker 2: a lot with Tariq whenever people ask him, you know,
Speaker 2: to do stuff or whatever. Recently, uh Tarik's on a
Speaker 2: point with Eminem, and I mean on Eminem's records, like
Speaker 2: a posse cut and Threeque was kind of salty because
Speaker 2: he had.
Speaker 1: His joint first.
Speaker 2: It was like, man, I don't want to be the
Speaker 2: first guy to submit the verse because then they'll you know,
Speaker 2: no one wants to be the first guy. So I
Speaker 2: always wanted to know how are posse cuts organized? Like
Speaker 2: do you hear everyone else's ship?
Speaker 7: Or I don't do that. I'm not going I'm not
Speaker 7: gonna lie to you quest man, fat Joe's so underrated?
Speaker 6: Is I don't know how to explain it to you. Man,
Speaker 6: I don't listen to nobody's ship. I don't listen to
Speaker 6: nobody's ship. I go in there and I tell them
Speaker 6: play the music, and when they play the music, I
Speaker 6: write the ship right and they face with my own
Speaker 6: flow and I go in there, Yo, what's the hook? Ooh,
Speaker 6: I need to beat. I need to hook the hook?
Speaker 7: Is this ice?
Speaker 6: And no one where we're going with it and I'm
Speaker 6: gonna just go crazy. I never changed my verse.
Speaker 7: I never.
Speaker 6: Like, I don't know, you know, I'm just not on
Speaker 6: it like that. I just you know me, I fight
Speaker 6: for my life every time. So every time I write,
Speaker 6: I write like this the last song I might ever
Speaker 6: do in my life, Like I might die to day.
Speaker 7: And that's just my strategy. That's always been my strategy.
Speaker 7: So that means I give it two thousand every time
Speaker 7: I rap. So I'm never worried like that.
Speaker 6: But you gotta treat every verse.
Speaker 5: I was saying, you gotta treat every verse like it's
Speaker 5: the first time somebody might be hearing you. You know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying that. That's kind of been my lesson.
Speaker 5: This is moving along every time.
Speaker 6: And you also got to know that anytime a young
Speaker 6: artist asks you to get on it, you know, they
Speaker 6: want to give you a can of what pass. So
Speaker 6: you really gotta pay attention and spit that ship because
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 7: So that's how it is.
Speaker 6: It's just like boxing, motherfucker, take a box in the
Speaker 6: great motherfucker. Mike Tyson was killing niggas in twelve seconds,
Speaker 6: but when he was already thirty some years old looking
Speaker 6: for that check. They was using him to beat him
Speaker 6: up and look like there's somebody ill, you know, And
Speaker 6: that's pretty much what a young dude to do. If
Speaker 6: a hot young dude says, crack, let's get on the record.
Speaker 6: Like I did two songs with the Griselda Boys, I
Speaker 6: went crazy.
Speaker 7: I'm not gonna let them rip me down.
Speaker 6: I'm just not like I'm a you know, I'm a
Speaker 6: go for mine crazy. I mean, the only person I
Speaker 6: let my guard down with. And she don't like me
Speaker 6: to say this is remedy me. She's the only person
Speaker 6: on her I don't feel competition with. She's the only
Speaker 6: person I don't care if she beats me, you know,
Speaker 6: I rap rap and let her.
Speaker 7: I want her to always shine no matter what.
Speaker 3: You know that I about to say, why Remy, Why
Speaker 3: is it? What is it about Remy? Because you didn't
Speaker 3: rhyme with other brothers, other sisters book Now.
Speaker 6: She's my sister for like, you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: So I want her to I want her to sound
Speaker 6: great anyway. I'm not talking about I'm taking it easy
Speaker 6: on Remy. I'm not saying I'm spitting my best ship.
Speaker 6: But I don't get mad if Remy beats me on
Speaker 6: the She's We did that remix with jay Z. She
Speaker 6: went eight ship bro Like god, Now I was happy, Jojo.
Speaker 3: Can you just tell us the first time you heard Remy? Like,
Speaker 3: what was it? When did she stop you in your tracks?
Speaker 7: Unreal? Uh? Pun said, uh, y'all want you to meet.
Speaker 6: Somebody, and and he brought her to the studio.
Speaker 7: She came in. I never.
Speaker 6: She was so skinny. She had the leather vest and
Speaker 6: uh and we played the beat and she rapped for
Speaker 6: like ten minutes straight the air bubbos in your sneakers
Speaker 6: in trouble. I'm Rye's my brother. And I was so amazed,
Speaker 6: but I was jealous and I was mad because I
Speaker 6: was like, damn, Pun discovered that she gonna be Pun artist,
Speaker 6: like I wish she was my artist.
Speaker 4: I was mad.
Speaker 6: I still quiet Punk and see that I was mad.
Speaker 6: She tells me the story. She says, Yo, bro, you
Speaker 6: ice grilled me for like ten minutes.
Speaker 7: I was really mad.
Speaker 6: I was in there like, yo, shit, I wish i'd
Speaker 6: discovered that. Why she ain't come up to me. And
Speaker 6: then when we walked out the studio, Pun hugs me
Speaker 6: and says, I know you ain't know where she's gonna
Speaker 6: be your artist. Don't worry, she's your artist.
Speaker 7: How did you get pun?
Speaker 6: I went to a bodega writ in my projects that
Speaker 6: I always used to go to, and uh, they was
Speaker 6: just out there. It was him and like three other
Speaker 6: guys freestyling. So I came out with a diet pepsi.
Speaker 6: I had my diet pepsi and I looked at him
Speaker 6: and I and I was like, yo, what is this
Speaker 6: fatteris bandished? Dude gonna spit about? Like I just I was,
Speaker 6: what the fuck is this nigga gonna talk about? And
Speaker 6: and so I walked up and he said, chill, y'all, chill, chill, chill.
Speaker 7: He was obviously the leader. And so he starts rapping
Speaker 7: and he's like that that stop, Like allright, like you
Speaker 7: stopped the car said pull the moon out the sky
Speaker 7: and blow the sun away.
Speaker 6: Me and my niggas playing hard call liver, till up
Speaker 6: the little brick and God throw up my frog throw.
Speaker 7: But I gotta do it.
Speaker 3: So I was.
Speaker 6: Like I could not take it. I ran to the
Speaker 6: passenger side. I had a white less LS four hundred
Speaker 6: and I opened.
Speaker 7: The door and said please get inside. Please we locked
Speaker 7: the door and and that that was.
Speaker 6: Just it was just, it was just beautiful because I'm
Speaker 6: the youngest brother. I'm the youngest kid in my family,
Speaker 6: but I never had a little brother, and Pond never
Speaker 6: had a big brother. I realized Puma's like, Yo, you're
Speaker 6: gonna be my big brother. You're gonna be my big brother.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna be brother, and you know, you gotta have
Speaker 7: my back.
Speaker 6: And I said, I got your back. And they started
Speaker 6: telling me about his life were real personal deep shit.
Speaker 6: You know, Plumer's homeless growing up. You know, nobody gave
Speaker 6: a fuck about him. And told me all that just
Speaker 6: just ripped it up. And me coming from the streets
Speaker 6: before I even wrapped the rap ship is even faker.
Speaker 6: But coming from the streets, uh where I see men
Speaker 6: that you know, killers and murderers and all types of people.
Speaker 6: I had never met a person who could just open
Speaker 6: up himself and his pain. First time I met him
Speaker 6: and there and I was just like, now I love
Speaker 6: this dude.
Speaker 7: Man.
Speaker 6: I fucked with him on another level and and and
Speaker 6: that's how I met Bun.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 2: Bill h unpaid Bill here and I are a part
Speaker 2: of the team. Ah that uh worked on Hamilton, and
Speaker 2: I know that. You know, anytime Lynn Manuel does an
Speaker 2: interview about who is lyrical inspiration was to put Hamilton together,
Speaker 2: he won't hesitate to say, like how important Big Pun's
Speaker 2: lyrical style was just on his life and just you know,
Speaker 2: culture rely and all those things like oh for sure,
Speaker 2: you know, I almost wonder, like what Hamilton would just
Speaker 2: be a regular Broadway show if it was.
Speaker 1: To this day, to this day.
Speaker 4: Dead in the middle of Little Italy but Little is
Speaker 4: one of his favorite Yeah, yeah, because internal rhyme was
Speaker 4: always is always his thing and everything, and so that
Speaker 4: always we used to listen to that a lot.
Speaker 1: That record was on auto auto spin at our house.
Speaker 1: That that was that was his hero, like he will
Speaker 1: he I mean, you know Big.
Speaker 5: Pun Little did we know that we ridle to Middleman
Speaker 5: who didn't do Italy?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Yeah, man, you know, uh, you know, Dead in the
Speaker 6: middle of Little literally almost wasn't Dead in the middle
Speaker 6: of a Little literally, so like Pun was so advanced
Speaker 6: that it was a joke to him, Dead in the
Speaker 6: middle of Little Italy was actually a joke, he would say,
Speaker 6: like he would have he put it on the album
Speaker 6: to pack in the back in the back of the ACA.
Speaker 1: Ask you about what, because to me, that is my favorite.
Speaker 2: That is one of my favorite skits on a hip
Speaker 2: hop record, only because I know I know that he
Speaker 2: was reenacting the Scarface scene where he lets the one
Speaker 2: guy go and the one guy's like, thanks, fun, I
Speaker 2: appreciate it, and he runs off like, but literally, what
Speaker 2: was what was the deal with packing the back in
Speaker 2: the back of the act?
Speaker 6: For one, now that we're floating in this era, we
Speaker 6: were unconscious.
Speaker 7: We was like, we was numb. We were crazy, man,
Speaker 7: we was just fucking crazy. I don't know how to
Speaker 7: explain it.
Speaker 6: To you and stuff that you you think about regular people.
Speaker 6: I thought, you know, when I grew up, Uh, I
Speaker 6: grew up seeing death. Uh maybe I had forty guys
Speaker 6: I grew up with. Thirty eight of them got killed
Speaker 6: real shit before they toWin years old twenty one. So
Speaker 6: and when I meet regular people who didn't have friends
Speaker 6: dying at sixteen, So I'm like, then I start saying, like, damn,
Speaker 6: some of the ship we done say the music like
Speaker 6: motherfucker's like with a normal life, It's like, yo, what
Speaker 6: the fuck is wrong with them? Because he's saying packing
Speaker 6: the back in the back of the act. He saw
Speaker 6: about Machine guy packing the back in the back of
Speaker 6: the act, pack of the back, and uh so.
Speaker 7: That was the joke. And then in the middle of
Speaker 7: it literally was the other joke. Then in the middle
Speaker 7: of it literally.
Speaker 6: So when we did the song together, I said, Yo,
Speaker 6: you gotta put that debdit. I swear to God on everything,
Speaker 6: you got to put that dead in the middle. He
Speaker 6: was like, Yo, that ship whack nigga, that ship is
Speaker 6: a joke. That shit, I said, Pun, that ship will
Speaker 6: blow their minds off. He was like, no, I'm telling you,
Speaker 6: that shit regular that ship, but that's a joke. And
Speaker 6: they and I gassed him to put in that motherfucker
Speaker 6: and man, you know it was He was, uh, you
Speaker 6: know this guys born. This guy's born. Jay Z was born,
Speaker 6: Nas was born, Eminem was born, Big Pun was born. Uh,
Speaker 6: I'm trying to think of others. I guess rock Kim
Speaker 6: was born. There is no other job description for these
Speaker 6: people that they were born to do that, Like, there's
Speaker 6: just no that is the DNA their birth was on
Speaker 6: that pum wore fall asleep, wake up and be like,
Speaker 6: give me the book twin, give me the book. That's
Speaker 6: crazy because I got paper and pen right here, he said.
Speaker 6: He goes, give me the book, Give me the book, Twin.
Speaker 6: Give me the book, Twin, and I give him the book.
Speaker 6: He write a whole sword down. He thought about it
Speaker 6: in his dreams and write the whole song down. It's crazy, man,
Speaker 6: it was. The guy was a genius. It's just nowhere
Speaker 6: around it.
Speaker 3: And his breath control was kind of like crazy. I
Speaker 3: don't understand how he did all that and then still
Speaker 3: the breath control.
Speaker 7: You know, he would do it on stage. You know.
Speaker 7: Pun was different, like you know, you know how you
Speaker 7: see boxes. It's crazy. I keep referring back to boxing,
Speaker 7: but you know how you see boxes.
Speaker 6: It's so nice that nobody wants to fight them, so
Speaker 6: they can't really get a real fighters. You know, you'll
Speaker 6: get knocked out. Pun would invite every rapper to the
Speaker 6: studio to do a song with him, and no one
Speaker 6: would show up.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 6: So we would drive around, me and Pun and he
Speaker 6: would see like a cipher up and becoming rappers battling
Speaker 6: each other, and he would get out the car double
Speaker 6: Platinum rich and battle the whole cipher like wow. You
Speaker 6: know nobody want to smoke with pun. I don't know
Speaker 6: how to explain it to you. In no way, shape
Speaker 6: or form. Did anybody wants smoke with this guy? They
Speaker 6: could say whatever, forget them, whatever you want, but nobody.
Speaker 6: When he was alive, people were going, don't.
Speaker 7: Let him off, don't let him on.
Speaker 6: For mass of Flex used to have these ciphers and
Speaker 6: every week you would bring rappers up there.
Speaker 7: So one week it's Nori up.
Speaker 6: There, Cameron, Uh Nori, Cameron, I think DMX is somebody
Speaker 6: else right, and Puny hears it and starts racing down
Speaker 6: from the Bronx to Hot ninety seven. So pun is
Speaker 6: calling this the hotline punk caused Flex picks up. He's like, yo, yo, yo, yo,
Speaker 6: you got let me up there. You gotta let me
Speaker 6: up there. You gotta let me up there. So Flex said,
Speaker 6: here's a true story. Flex said he looked at everybody
Speaker 6: up there and was like, yo, Pun is on his way.
Speaker 6: He said, They was like no, like no, like don't
Speaker 6: let don't let him on this motherfucker please, So that
Speaker 6: pun Of rids Hot ninety seven. He's calling Flex a
Speaker 6: million times. Flex, don't pick up the phone. They free
Speaker 6: styling up there. So Punk calls me, yo, twin this
Speaker 6: nigga Flex, moe me up there, this, this that. So
Speaker 6: then later on I got with uh with with with
Speaker 6: with with Flex and I asked him the truth.
Speaker 7: I was like, Yo, Flex, why are you didn't let
Speaker 7: one up there? He said, Yo. They were scared to death.
Speaker 7: They didn't want to let pun up there on that cipher.
Speaker 7: They want him up there and.
Speaker 6: Were talking about big guys. Came on d M X
Speaker 6: Snorri after prime. They was like, he, no, don't let
Speaker 6: that boy up if.
Speaker 7: You're gonna come up in it. But it is.
Speaker 6: I gotta go love y'all man A part two. Whatever
Speaker 6: you want, man, I'm here yo two coming.
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