November 25, 2022 • 42 mins
Life lessons you won’t want to miss from the one and only, Grammy-nominated artist, author and entrepreneur Fat Joe. For the first time, Joe opens up about what happened the night he moved out at age 14, the betrayal he says turned his heart “black”, the high price of living a life of crime and the deal he made with his wife of 27 years. He weighs in on the rappers who have been senselessly gunned down and reveals the recent advice he gave to Kanye West. It’s a raw, revealing and hilarious conversation only Fat Joe could bring, proving why he’s known as the G.O.A.T. of hip-hop storytelling.v
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, fam, I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Red Table Pop podcast all your favorite episodes from the
Facebook watch show in audio produced by Westbrook Audio and
I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
on Apple Podcasts. We have a legend in the house,
(00:20):
the one and only Fat Joe. We're gonna make history.
He has lived an unbelievable life. You know, I got
shot in front of my mother. Boom, I get boom,
I get hit. I was always a good person doing
bad things. And that's what I love about you. You
just keep it real. And you've been married twenty seven years.
What attracted you to her? Like the Fat? He has
(00:44):
so much wisdom to share. I heard Little Wayne gave
you some advice before you went to jail. We want
to put you in a solitary confined and I said, Joe,
don't fold. We've lost some serious talent in the rap world.
What's your take on that. I never flew nowhere for
no interviewers my life. This morning on the way here,
came out my hotel. The door opened and it was
(01:05):
Carne West and UH grabbed the show that soon. Oh
this is gonna be mine. Yes, we got the one
and only here today, we have a legend in the house.
(01:26):
He has lived an unbelievable life and has so much
wisdom to share. He's been called a gangster and a gentleman.
From the projects to prison to private planes. What a
life he has lived. Fat Joe is an icon. The
Grammy nominative, multi platinum selling artists, author, and entrepreneur has
(01:49):
been called a goat of hip hop storytelling. Joe has
not only worked with some of the biggest stars, Jay
z Eminem, j Low Diddy, Jaunty Little Wayne, and Cardi B.
He discovered DJ Kalin, who he now calls his best friend.
But success did not come easy. But a man born
(02:10):
as Joseph Antonio Cartagena. Now he's pulling back the curtain
on his fast and furious life and biggest lessons in
his new memoir, The Book of Jose, a raw and
inspiring story of survival. Let's welcome to the Red Table,
the One, the only that Joe. Yeah, what's up? Y'all?
(02:37):
Are good? He's so good? Yes. First of all, you're
trapping out the back of the house. I want to
tell him, I've never seen a set up like this.
I'm like you only getting money in the back, y'all.
(02:58):
This is that's when I'm honored. Though. Well, I woke
up this morning and see y'all, I was like, Oh,
we're gonna make history this morning. When we're honor to
have it, We really are. You've got so much wisdom
to share. You start this book by saying you hope
people can learn from your mistakes, right, That's what it's
all about, Joe. I think people have to understand sharing
(03:21):
your your biggest mistakes are not easy. It is a
level of vulnerability, but it is a great service. And
that's what I love about you. It's like, you just
keep it real. It's just so important. Us youngns can
definitely learn something from from your incredible journey as well. Absolutely,
let's talk about some of your biggest mistakes and the
lessons that you've learned from them. Yeah, so Fat Joe
(03:45):
was a really he was a really bad guy one time.
I'm gonna be honest with you. Tell me what you
thought made you a bad guy, though, Joe, because I
would say you were a good guy who might have
done some bad It was predator prey with I was from.
It was a real bad place when I was twelve
years old. I need you to put a clip of
(04:05):
this up. The Bronx looked like a war zone. We
had no parks, we had no playgrounds. The buildings were
like people lived in abandoned building. It's like, you know,
just I don't know how else explained to you. We
would play on pistie mattresses with straight dogs. I do
remember staring out telling my man Louis. I said, oh, now,
(04:28):
just say for me. Oh no, it's safe for me.
And I'm poor. That's all I know is being poor
my whole life. I was like, oh, I'm gonna get
rich and trying. Yeah. Joe had a tough time as
a kid, and he's about eleven. He discovered his first passion, graffiti.
Joe was kicked out of seven different junior high schools
(04:50):
for his excessive tagging, but his real trouble started at
his eighth school. I used to get bully dervy day.
I will walk out the front door of the school,
dropped my bags and they'd be on a mob. But
twenty guys would surround me and I would punch the
toughest one in the face. That would set it off.
The rest of them would just pound me out till
(05:12):
I got on the bus. This happened for a round
two years. Outside of a media family and a few friends,
I felt like the whole world was against me. Leonard
was my best friend. One day, the bullies come up
to him and say, Yo, what you're doing with this
guy if you don't beat him up with me? And
(05:34):
what's crazy is he didn't even think twice. He beat
me up with the right and that was That's a
deep psychological and emotional wound. At that point, my heart
just turned black and I remember crying and just tying
my boots and I was just like, I'm giving it
to everybody. I don't care no more. That's it. That
was like my last straw at the Sweet Joe, Like
(05:57):
you know what I mean. It was like, that's it,
Like everybody's going to get it. And in that process
of turning into Joey Crack, some good people got hurt
along the line. Okay, joe Crack, Where did that name
come from? Joey Crack. The way I got Joey Crack
was before the drug crack, when the teacher would ask
me to go to the chalkboard and write something I
(06:21):
always had, like sweats like I'm wearing out, and the
crack of my ass which showed, and so the girls
would be like Joey crack, Jeey crack, and it just
stood my name. I had it. I made it my
graffiti name, and then it turned into my rap name. Yeah,
and you left home at four scary too scary on
(06:43):
your own. Yes, what happened with me was I had
a beautiful mom's. My father was real tough, but he
was a hard worker. My father never used drugs, and
where he did, we had a lot of tough times
with him. And this day you would have got him
locked up in this age, he's in jail, like we
(07:04):
could have diagnosed him with everything. He come home after
being drunk and playing poking, losing all his money, and
and my mom's will wake up three in the morning
cook the mistake. Took him some food and he would
eat it and be like it's too much salt and
throw the plate against the wall. Now I'm a kid
watching this type of stuff. You mean, to this day,
(07:27):
my kids who are grown have never even seen me
argue with my wife. This guy, he was doing the
most right, and so we were bumped heads. He turned
out to be a great man. And the reason I
say that if a mother court cancer, they gave it
one per cent to live. They cut her from ear
to ear. Her head was this big. She came out
(07:48):
talking to machine and my father still with her through
the whole thing. You know, most men they run away
and stuff like that, but he liked the head. He
was abusive. He was on that type of time. This
is back then, right. And then one day my father
went to hit me. We was eating and I caught
it boom, and then he went to kick me. I
(08:09):
grabbed his legs. I had him like hanging upside down.
So I was a big four team. So I tell
him in Spanish, you can't put me no more, you
can't put me no more, and so I let him go.
I don't hit my father, but I immediately ran out
to the staircase and I just cried like a baby.
I was so hurt myself for what I had done
(08:31):
to my father. I was so ashamed and embarrassed that
I ran into the staircase and kept crying and I said,
I can't be here. Look, I was like, I can't
you know, I violated my father. I gotta go. And
I immediately started hustling the next day. I was living
in a crackhead hotel. So when you paid thirty five hours,
they're shooting heroin and the aids epidemic at the door.
(08:55):
They're busting people's heads open. I would act tough, but
I really wasn't that tough. But Joe says, being out
on his own toughened him up real quick. He became
a ruthless dictator running the streets with his crew known
as the Terrorist Squad. I was a young savage with
a loaded firearm in my hand. That really is a
(09:16):
combustible combination. I've robbed a lot of people in my day.
I've mugged modest, honest, hard working citizens. Unfortunately, I pilford
the pockets of the most nefarious criminals walking the streets.
I was literally a kid when I became a stick
up kid, fourteen years old. We sold a lot of
(09:39):
drugs and made a lot of money. Wow, the type
of disrespect we was doing out there was foul. We
broke my mother and father. You know, I got shot
in front of my mother, shot in front of my mother. Talk.
We was getting money, a lot of money, And this
(09:59):
is the lesson than this one time I had gave
this kid for my block ten dollars, ten dollars, and
I would pick on this guy every time I see him.
I'll be like, yo, you've got my ten dollars. You
got I got thirty thod cash in my pocket. But
you don't know how people think, how scared or intimidated
they are, or fragile they are. So one day we
go July four, we gotta picnic a barbecue. We over
(10:23):
there a hundred deep hundred. I had a hundred guys
with me. I'm thinking, I am deep toughest guy in
the universe, not even like forget about it. You know,
if we had this project fight against my project, I
would be the guy to be like, hold on one
on one, the best guy, let's go. And you know this,
(10:48):
this the type of time I was on, like le crap,
pull out the best one. Let's rock and roll baby, right.
So I was on that type of time, right, And
so I turned the corner. Here's this guy. He got
a trench gold on it is a hundred degrees is
July for and he's looking at me right like dement
(11:10):
So I went to the store bought a diapepsi. That's
my drink, but at that time it was glass. I
don't want to scare you your ladies, right, But so
I come out. That's when I see him. He looks
like demented or something right, but not enough. He's demented,
but not enough. So again, you're doing here, this this that.
(11:31):
We're going back and forth, he pulls out the gun.
As he pulls out the gun, I'm still you who
you think this? So I hit him in the head.
I smashed his head with with the bottle I had
in my hand. It's so hard. You see the sworddust
in the air, and then the white meat started getting red.
(11:55):
Told you he was demented, but not enough. But me
hitting him pushed him over the edge and gave him
that extra He looked at me and laughed. He said,
I needed that. He cocks this thing back. Now he's
so far away from me, I can't jump on him
or nothing like that. So I got the run. So
(12:16):
as I'm running, the whole world slows up like his matrix.
I'm running like this, and I'm looking back and you
see the shells doing like in real life. This ain't
the movie it was like And I'm looking back and
the bullets is going right now. I have two guns
in my car, plus a hundred guys around the corner. Okay,
(12:40):
as I'm running, I had to make a decision. Now,
if I run right through here, I get to the car,
he's not gonna hit me. But if I run through here.
There was a bunch of little kids playing, and at
one split second that I said, Najoe, you gotta go
a long way. Boom, I get hit. Boom, I get hit.
(13:02):
The second I said I'm not gonna run through these kids,
he's shooting. He hits me twice. My mom's just standing there.
She's looking at me. My whole shirt, white T shirt
is red, and I'm looking at my mother and I'm
running past her to the car, trying to get to
the guns. When I finally get to the guns, I go, oh,
(13:23):
I never felt nothing like that. I got woozy. I
couldn't even stick out the guns. Oh. So my uncle
Will drives me to the hospital. I get in the hospital.
They started cutting my clothes immediately. The minute I walker,
I'm thinking I'm gonna die. I've never been shot before. Nothing,
And what was your lesson in that, Joe? Don't bully nobody, right?
(13:44):
You Also, the other lesson is you can be with
a hundred guys, but when you turn that corner, you alone.
You know, that's a big lesson to learning. Well, when
did you make the turn from being part of the
problem to be being part of the solution. Well, I
think I was always a good person, Like she said,
(14:04):
you was a good person doing bad things. I always
had a clean heart and uh and was trying to
look for a way out. And um my, man, Diamond Dean,
you know, digging into crazy. He said, Man, Joe, you're
gonna die out here. He said, you should put this
in your music and and leave the streets. My attention
(14:27):
started to wane from hustling. I was disgusted by all
the violets. And the truth is I started to witness
the possibilities of another better life. At age twenty one,
Joe entered the Amateur Night competition at the legendary Apollo
Theater in Harvard. They really weren't no latinos going up
to the Apollo rapping at the time. I told my
(14:49):
whole delegates I was going up to the follow to
try out, and they were looking at me like I
was crazy. You're bro, you're making money you click it,
you're talking about rap. Everybody asked. He was an instant hit,
winning first place four weeks in a row word spread
about Joe's magnetic personality and gangster raps. Soon, the head
(15:13):
of a major record label offered Joe a deal that
changed his life forever. I just signed it right there.
I didn't know about contracts either. I was choosing life.
I got a fifty dollar advance from Relativity. I couldn't
believe it. It was proof to myself that I can
make big money honestly without doing crime or risk in
(15:36):
my life. Joe, what lesson did you learn after becoming
so successful when keeping it real goes wrong? You know
another name for a book as well. Loyalty is everything
to make It's in my DNA. I'm the last man
(16:00):
standing with you, uh, and I go down with the
ship right, and growing up in my neighborhood, you know,
when I became successful, I just thought I had to
take everybody with me, and it's it's a bit of
survivor's guilt. And so when you got the lady who
used to give you poor chob, she gets sick and
somebody calls and says, yo, Joe, She needs a new hip.
(16:22):
How are you gonna say no to the lady. You
know you've got millions, so you know, you look out
and you're just trying to bring everybody along. And so
I tried, you know, for many years, and every time
you told me, I had forty fifty guys with me,
um tough guys, you know. And I wanted to help
them and pay their rent, buying the cars and this
and this and that. And one day I can't sleep.
(16:45):
Is God talking to me? God sent me a sign
these people, A lot of them ain't really worthy. It
wasn't worthy of me taking care of them and wasting
my money and wasting you know, my energy of my time.
God told me, yo, man, call all these guys. We
in Puerto Rico. We flew over there too, private planes.
We had the fourth seasons. These guys popping champagne. So
(17:05):
I call him. It was like forty of us and
I said, listen, I ain't got money, no more, I
ain't got it. I can't take care of you. These guys.
I grew up with something, a kid, the baby. And
thirty five of them was like, are you crazy? This
is our money? This If you would have heard the
type of story. They was talking, and so five of
them said, yeah, I'm your brother no matter what, whether
(17:25):
you're broke or not, five out of forty and so
I got rid of him. Then it's a big lesson.
Were your feelings like hurt? Like what devastated? Just a
lot of leaddowns. And the way they did me it
was crazy. And I'm the type of guy right that
you don't do that too. That's all that just drained
(17:48):
you and it takes a lot out of you. Another
crazy story. I go to jail, right. So I was
popping since I was ninety, okay, and I got nothing
but hits, and I'm making money. We popa shared paying
the girls think I'm fly. It is what it is.
So then I get into some trouble with the taxes,
which really wasn't my fault. At age forty two, Joe
(18:12):
says he hit rock bottom. His accountant had been stealing
from him and hadn't paid Joe's taxes in two years.
Joe was furious, you ain't paying none of my mortgages.
I asked, you ain't paying none of my bills? Hey, buddy,
don't kill me, funny, he said, flustered. Then he started
pleading with me, don't hurt me. I never said I
(18:33):
was going to hurt you. I insisted, my tone lowering
and my demeanor comment. I send you money every month
and you ain't paying my bills. I asked again. The
truth was he was robbing me. The case costs Joe
five million dollars plus four months of freedom. So I
sit in the cell, this is unbelievable. Like I was
(18:58):
in Sancho, paid two days for I swear to God,
I'm not lying. I was in Sentuala Nicky's beach. I'm
in this sound like what the Chico was here? Taco
was like, what the my doing in this place? Right?
And it finally hit me. It said, bro, you forty,
(19:18):
they took all your money. Window in the cell was
smaller and smaller, smaller. I had to divise a plan,
you know, And so when I came out, I went
straight to work, and you know, we came out all
the way up and then we knew the business. After that,
I knew, I'm gonna hope it's a business. So would
(19:40):
you say that going to jail was a turning point
for you? For sure? It made me take my life
serious because prior to that running around. Yeah, yeah, you're
not taking life serious. Yeah, I heard Little Wayne gave
me some advice before you went to jails, my brother. Man.
One of the saddest things I ever did was go
(20:01):
visit Little Wayne and jail. Yeah. Not only that, they
had him like chained up, like you know, really chained
up like Little Wayne. They had him like, you know,
like he was the killer of all right. He's my brother, man.
He lives across the street from me in Miami. And
(20:21):
so I'm walking into the jail and I get a
phone call and uh, they saw ugly. The buildings ugly.
It's just rusty and ugly. It looked like one of
the Harry Potter buildings or something. The gate was like
so and so I get a phone calls Little Wayne.
But I had to get myself in at eight o'clock.
It was maybe seven fifty nine. And I was like,
(20:44):
your Wayne was south thing. He's like, no, man, I'm
just telling you right now, be humble. I said, how
do you do it? He said, just be humble, bro,
I'm going there on something. Just going there humble. You know,
if you be humble, they'll respect you, you know. And
then they threw me a curveball because I'm from New York,
but my residence is Miami. So last minute they made
(21:04):
me go to jail Miami. Well, I ain't know nobody.
So when I get to Miami and they said, listen,
we have murderers in the end, we have rapists in here.
We have leaders of cartels. Because Miami's the hull, they
grab everybody throwing in there. That was the building I
was in. I thought I was gonna do some Martha
Stewart type big you know, you know Nick, you know,
(21:28):
I thought I was going with the Stewart right in
the doctor's building. I'm like ya. He's like, yo, we
never had nobody like you in here, so we want
to put you in a solitary confinement. But solitary confinement
is the biggest punishment you could do. I like, look,
I gotta be with the people. I'm humble. So they
let me go and I never forget because I pride
(21:50):
myself for being a tough guy, never really scared. And
nobody like a man's man, right. I don't back down
nobody right. And so they opened the door. There's two
thousand guys, Haitians, Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, two thousand cock
(22:10):
Diesel guys. They see me and all together go. It
felt like that the game of throwing the dragon, and
I got intimidated for one second. I said, Joe, don't fold,
rather than these guys, Joe don't fall. Yeah, so, Joe,
we've lost some serious talent in the rap world. I
(22:31):
know you've been speaking on this quite a bit. The
day after Grammy nominative rapper Takeoff was tragically murdered, Fat
Joe posted this on Instagram. Are they not born? Night?
I ain't sleep. Rest in peace to the young brother
take Off, one of the most humblest kids that I
met of this generation. Now. I do not know the
(22:53):
details of why this gentleman was killed, but I could
talk from being the eldest states and of hip hop.
We as a community, we have to move on to
a new level of thinking. We have to elevate. We
can't see here single white man keeping us down. We
gotta fight through that and be the great kings and
(23:14):
queens that we are. This needs to be a new
era of self love, a new era of community. What's
gonna stop these young brothers from getting killed every month?
What you're not realizing is that with every young king
did you killed? It's another person of hope from our community.
(23:34):
M what sad is I don't understand why we hate
our And obviously when you're killing somebody, you're killing your cousin,
you're killing your brother, and we gotta evil out here.
The devil is just really out here right now like
never before. Look at Nipsey Hustle. Yeah, this guy was
doing for his community. Right so right now you can say, man,
(23:58):
Joe open businesses. He's a was getting back to the community.
But if Joe gets killed out there, you'd be like
he was dumb. He had to be that. Why ain't
stay in the bigger house? Why? And so damn if
you do, Damn if you dry. Over the past couple
of years, the hip hop community has been rocked by
a string of deadly robberies. Unfortunately, there's people in our
(24:24):
own community they hate on someone else's success. You could say,
damn Joe, why you got the diamonds are? But we
had so it was summertime. We ain't having a c
We had to sleep on the floor. When we ran
out of toilet paper, we wiped by ass with the newspaper.
When we had to meet. We ate eggs and rice.
(24:45):
So you can't really break down this poor thing to
me because we know it right, and so we try
to inspire our community. Look, you can have this, it's attainable.
You really shuck with I wouldn't say shocked, but I
would say that bothered me a lot. Here's a positive kid,
(25:08):
never bothered nobody. He wasn't into no trouble or nothing.
And this kid, you're gonna kill him in front of
his wife for nothing? What about the kids in there,
the ladies in there, the men, and then everybody traumatized.
You see the guy get his brains blown out for
no reason. I was talking to charlemade I said, there's
some jobs that ain't going nowhere. Prostitution was around, says
(25:31):
Jesus Christ, robbing and around says Jesus Is. I'm gonna
be honest with you, and there's always going to be
an aggressive person who don't have nothing, who's willing to
rob somebody. So when I talked directly, I like to
think Joe could talk directly to the robbers. Listen, man,
you could rob him, why kill him? And my thing
(25:56):
is when they stepped over the line of when they're
killing that's another type of evil. Yeah, what do we
do about all of this this violence in the community.
I think people just feel so freaking hopeless about it.
I know the key, this God, that's it. I just
(26:16):
feel like we lost a lot of morals, But we
gotta do It's more mentorships. It's a lot of black
and brown people. They've got a lot of money these
days that we could just invest in the neighborhood coach
that we know he's really the good guy. You know,
we know that this this lady is really teaching those
girls how to dance. When you see the real deal,
(26:40):
we have to invest in that when people are really
putting in work. There's a lot of people, you know,
trying to help, you know, to get overlooked. And the
truth of the matter is no quick fix. I think
you write Joe as far as like just putting back
into the community. I mean between the killing and also
the O d s specifically in the rap world. I
(27:03):
think you're right. I think it's dark times, um and
I think people just need to feel some sort of
hope has always been the thing, right, Well, I can
tell you that Fat Joan has been shot at maybe
thirty forty times, try to get framed, to go to jail,
been betrayed a million times. And I never use drugs.
(27:26):
And I still made hit records. So they lied to
the kids and tell them you've got to be hot
to make a hot record. I still made a hot record.
And so I just believe in, you know, dealing with
it yourself. God is to check me. Yeah, I have
a funny story for y'all. You know, DJ Kalets my
little brother, and I discovered Kalik, and Klik really is
(27:49):
what he is. Positive, love his family, love his kids,
love his He's that and through the years he's become
even more successful to me, and I've always been happy
for him. I've never been less over. Every now and
then you ask God, I thought I was your favorite
because this guy, he's just too lucky right. No, now,
he's the most luckiest guy on the way. Right. So
(28:10):
one day I'm in the house by myself, and I
get it. It's God talking to me and I know it.
So when I understand that, I run the colleg's house
because I lived three minutes away, I go to this house.
When I walked through the back college into jacuzzi, I said,
your callig he's looking at what I said. I've been
(28:31):
talking to God. He jumped up so high and said,
God is the greatest. God is the greatest. God is
the greatest. God is the greatest. Got is the gay.
God is God. He wouldn't stop. God is the greatest.
I said this mother. No, he knew what was the key,
and that's the key at the end of the day,
and not moving like that. And so when you you
(28:52):
gotta get faith, you gotta become a believer. Nothing it's
more powerful than God. Yeah, you know. Another shrimp of
mine is women, Like I'm surrounded by woman, strong woman.
That that's what I'm talking about. The girls protect me
(29:15):
what you do the same for them, and that's what
makes it a beautiful, beautiful relationship. That's a fact. All
my sisters down, you know, that's the story of my life,
having strong sisters around me, powerful sisters, and I get
in the middle of certain arguments and I'm the brother
that looks out for the sisters. Somebody I asked me, yo,
(29:38):
why did you jump out and defended shanty like that? No,
you did that. But listen, this guy who was a
friend of mine, he said, Yo, you see that's what
I'm saying, I'm sitting here like flabbergasted, like this was like,
you know, all blasphemy or something, right, because she's been
my sister twentysothing series right. Heard my brother though I'm
(30:00):
not even gonna lie to y'all, love him and he
came for me at the time of my life. I'm
not trying to disrespect her. I'm talking about the situation
with somebody I considered. One of my brothers was like you, like,
are you crazy, Like this's my sister. And then I
noticed when I started telling them that's my sister, his
whole face calmed down and said, Wow, she really is
(30:22):
his sister. Yeah, I've seen the whole face change and
he was like, oh, it ain't but for you, Joe,
it might see me personally. I give no per vibes.
R J Los my sister. She never saw me look
at her. Ask when the whole world was talking about her. Asks.
(30:42):
None of my girlfriends, my wife's friends, might none of
them get that vibe. And you've been married twenty seven years,
your wife, let's talk. Let me tell you told me
to tell you she loves you, Tell her, thank you,
and goddamn. She walked through that mom and like, oh,
(31:11):
she walking on the wall. But I respect is that
you guys have been able to do what you do
the marriage thing for twenty seven years. As we know,
that's not easy. You know what I mean, it is hard.
I want to talk about your wife just for one second.
We see that she's gorgeous, but what are those characteristics
about her that you feel like make you strong? Yeah,
(31:36):
and that attracted you to her? No disrespect? Could we
just say, no disrestract, no disrespect. Here we go like
and so hold on, it's just rolling that way talking
about hold on, I'm going to break to want to say, yeah,
hold on, let's give a minute. This is before I
(31:58):
had any money. I had enough, and let's be clear,
I didn't have a dollar nothing. I'll tell you the
whole story. She moved to Miami because she had an
ex boyfriend who used to beat up all the time.
She was so scared of him. She moved to Miami
just so happens. I'm going to Miami with my man,
Steve Lobell. So he said, yo, I got some girlfriends coming.
I was like, yeah, you got some girlfriend He's like,
(32:19):
they are definitely not talking your fat ass. You leave
that like, she don't like broke dudes, like you are
all the way out right. So we pull up. We're
in the van. The light of the van flash right
on her her ass. Hold hold, let me say, can
(32:46):
I say something else? I never see nothing like that? Right,
So the bronx I never seen. I jumped out the car.
She turned around. I'm like, oh my go like I
could not believe she was even more beautiful. So I look, I,
oh my gosh, she's you're beautiful, like you know, you
know you. It came out the mouth. We in Miami
(33:07):
for like a week or two, so I keep trying.
Then I convinced. I said, can I take you to
the movies or something? She said, listen, I don't like
guys with big mouths. If I let you take me
to the movies, don't say ship. So I went to
the movies, made out for the first time. It's a
beautiful thing. She's drying. I used to love that. She
(33:28):
she was a gangster. She drive a car. You know
what I'm saying, She drive a car. I'm just sitting
on the side like, and she driving a gangster and
ship and like, oh, I give right. So she drops
me back off, I run and tell all my my
whole love me and chick oh my loop the down
(33:49):
kissed me here like. I'm like, all of a sudden,
she don't answer my calls, she ain't calling me back.
I finally see it, so I'm like, yo, what's up?
Where you been? She said? I told you I don't
like guys with big moms. I was like, so at
that point, I could have lied. I could have. I've
never been with a girl like you, Like, what are
(34:11):
you talking about? I'm sorry, I call you. Believe it.
We were good. Three days later, we get back to
New York. I'm driving around my hat with her, and
she's like, yo, let's get a drink. So I pull
over at a bar. It was irish pub by Wall Street.
So as we're walking in, she goes like this and
(34:32):
she stiffs up. Now, look, her ex boyfriend happens to
be at the bar. You can't make this up. She
stiffed up out of fear. The guy turned around, looked
at me, and looked down at the floor. I said,
he'll never say nothing in you again. Let's go. We
kept walking. He never said no, no again. He knew
(34:54):
what time it was right the last phase of the
story is me and my son's mom's had recently broke up.
Really my four, completely my four. She was a great woman,
she school teacher smart. I was just too young, running
around wild and every day, you know, back in the
days you used to write the number on the paper.
(35:14):
Every day. She go in my pocket, sixty numbers come
out the next day, same thing that. That was terrible.
When we broke up, I said you could take whatever
you want in the house, and boy did she take everything.
I mean every furniture, every TV, every painting. I was
left for the mattress on the floor. Then I had
this big robe and I would use it as the
(35:36):
curtains to the sun bowe hit me. And I had
a boom box. That's it. So I walked my wife
into there and she's like, what the is this? She said,
this is where you live. I was like, yeah, this
is where I live. You know, I'm you know, I'm
on hard times. She was like, And she studied out
with me, and then she had girlfriends who used to
(35:56):
tell her, you're talking to this fat guy. He broke
he ain't got what are you doing. She'd be like, no,
I know, my fat boy gonna make it. I know
my fat boy gonna make it. She's a writer. Yeah,
that's why she get whatever she wants. Oh no, she
still don't. That's why. Listen. Let me tell you something.
That's what makes her don't. She's serious and so so
(36:19):
I could tell everybody she's fine, she's bad. The deal
me and her maid was I get rich if anything
happened this, We're never going to change on each other.
We're gonna be with each other forever. That's it. And
that's what you're talking about. Loyalty. And of course you know,
and I'm telling you right now, red Table, nothing is perfect,
(36:39):
nothing is easy. You gotta work through everything. Yeah, it's
like she could see your heart. She could see you
like yo, she ain't gonna fold on me. And even
when I went through the tax problems and I spoiled
her because we came from nothing. She got Birkin's, all
types of diamonds, all types she's she's throwing good too good,
(37:02):
you understand, too good. I think they gotta stash closet
somewhere the whole another apartment for clothes. Well, all we
know those tricks. The guys know those tricks. There's no
way the money she spends adds up to the closet
in the house. My daughter sixteen, She checks me every
(37:24):
second of the day. You can't say that. So my
daughter turned sixteen and there were some flowers at my house.
So they called me and said some boy sent the flowers.
I pulled over the car. The last time I did
(37:45):
this with Michael Jackson died. I had to pull over
for like twenty minutes, started hyper ventilating in the car.
I had to go through that and get home. Who's
the flowers? In any case, she got a friend, right,
so she Oh, you know this little boy likes it's different.
It's different where you go. It's a little girl you
(38:05):
love more than life. He's a nice kid. Oh my gosh, cute.
She's older now, Oh my goodness. I love to fix
and so people come at me. They want fixed marriages.
We want my son with your daughter, rich wretch. Rich.
(38:28):
People like I'm like, yo, she's sixteen. Then they turned
around and be like, yo, but we rich, something like
and we're rich to you're talking about like, don't she
look like she's doing good? What I could tell the girls,
not in your position of my daughter's position, is you
gotta level up. Yeah, Yeah, I get a guy who
(38:49):
knows what the future is. Because if you get with
a guy who thinks the projects is cool, then that's
your life, right, So whatever, you gotta really check that
mentality and that goes of both sides. Yeah, if she
is and for her for sure. So our our t
T fam heard you were coming and they were super excited.
So Hi, Red Table talking, Fat Joe. My name is
(39:12):
g g Rombacher. I'm a singer songwriter. And my question
for you, Fat Joe is if you could bring back
to people who have passed on, who would they be
and why? Oh wow? Where? You know, if it's just music,
it would be Biggie and Big Punt, you know, oh
my god, Like these guys died so young. You know.
(39:34):
They're my good friends, man, my brothers. Man. My best
time at life is when I discovered Punt and we
went through everything. We got rich together, we got famous together.
Big Pump was funny and he was so crazy and
so they used to call me the fun killer. Like coming,
I was like, Yo, what you're doing, You're crazy, Come on,
get out of here. Like these guys were like a
(39:55):
hot mess. Right. Biggie was my brother says they want
to such a beautifu for God, like he didn't have
to pass away. It's really shad Absolutely. I feel you
on that for sure. So social media influencer A J
has a question for you as well. Yo Fat Joe
with a dude man, huge fan. He being rocking with
(40:17):
your sister beginning shout out to the b x UM.
My question for you is with you being a mentor
and an elder statesman in the game, someone that everyone
looks up to, what advice would you give to Kanye
West for the things that he's been saying and everything
that's happened to him. Right now, I'll tell you all.
(40:37):
So I was up a whole night going over what
he said, and I was just like, damn, I mean,
he really did it this time. And so I was
just thinking about it and how he hurt people with
his statements and his comments. He really said some terrible things.
And this morning, on the way here, I came out
(41:01):
of my hotel, the door opened and it was Kanye
West by himself, and we talked for about an hour,
and I said, you know what you amen, you do Church,
There's no more powerful person than God. Sit down, talk
to God. I said, listen ya, that's people that love you.
(41:25):
I told him, just like there's a grab the show
that said God is telling me to tell you this,
And I just told him, Bro, you gotta snap out
of this man. You gotta get focused and look to God,
because God is the answer. God is the key whatever
you gotta do. He just gotta make it right with himself,
make it right with everybody he offended and he hurt,
(41:48):
and just live whatever life we have left in peace.
That's all we could pray for that. You know, he
finds that the only person who got that answer for
Carnye right now is God. Ain't nobody else. It's just God.
So my thing is, you're preaching that church, you're around
holy people, You're around people no way better than me.
(42:11):
What I'm telling you is look to God because He's
the only person then straighten this out. Yeah. Well, Joe,
thank you, Thank you so much. This was really very interesting. Yeah,
because we really, I mean Joe, honestly, we could talk
to you all day and everybody, don't forget Go out
(42:35):
there and buy that book. To join the Red Table
Talk family and become a part of the conversation. Follow
us at Facebook dot com slash red Table Talk. Thanks
for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast,
produced by Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.
Hey, fam, I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Red Table Pop podcast all your favorite episodes from the
Facebook watch show in audio produced by Westbrook Audio and
I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
on Apple Podcasts. We have a legend in the house,
(00:20):
the one and only Fat Joe. We're gonna make history.
He has lived an unbelievable life. You know, I got
shot in front of my mother. Boom, I get boom,
I get hit. I was always a good person doing
bad things. And that's what I love about you. You
just keep it real. And you've been married twenty seven years.
What attracted you to her? Like the Fat? He has
(00:44):
so much wisdom to share. I heard Little Wayne gave
you some advice before you went to jail. We want
to put you in a solitary confined and I said, Joe,
don't fold. We've lost some serious talent in the rap world.
What's your take on that. I never flew nowhere for
no interviewers my life. This morning on the way here,
came out my hotel. The door opened and it was
(01:05):
Carne West and UH grabbed the show that soon. Oh
this is gonna be mine. Yes, we got the one
and only here today, we have a legend in the house.
(01:26):
He has lived an unbelievable life and has so much
wisdom to share. He's been called a gangster and a gentleman.
From the projects to prison to private planes. What a
life he has lived. Fat Joe is an icon. The
Grammy nominative, multi platinum selling artists, author, and entrepreneur has
(01:49):
been called a goat of hip hop storytelling. Joe has
not only worked with some of the biggest stars, Jay
z Eminem, j Low Diddy, Jaunty Little Wayne, and Cardi B.
He discovered DJ Kalin, who he now calls his best friend.
But success did not come easy. But a man born
(02:10):
as Joseph Antonio Cartagena. Now he's pulling back the curtain
on his fast and furious life and biggest lessons in
his new memoir, The Book of Jose, a raw and
inspiring story of survival. Let's welcome to the Red Table,
the One, the only that Joe. Yeah, what's up? Y'all?
(02:37):
Are good? He's so good? Yes. First of all, you're
trapping out the back of the house. I want to
tell him, I've never seen a set up like this.
I'm like you only getting money in the back, y'all.
(02:58):
This is that's when I'm honored. Though. Well, I woke
up this morning and see y'all, I was like, Oh,
we're gonna make history this morning. When we're honor to
have it, We really are. You've got so much wisdom
to share. You start this book by saying you hope
people can learn from your mistakes, right, That's what it's
all about, Joe. I think people have to understand sharing
(03:21):
your your biggest mistakes are not easy. It is a
level of vulnerability, but it is a great service. And
that's what I love about you. It's like, you just
keep it real. It's just so important. Us youngns can
definitely learn something from from your incredible journey as well. Absolutely,
let's talk about some of your biggest mistakes and the
lessons that you've learned from them. Yeah, so Fat Joe
(03:45):
was a really he was a really bad guy one time.
I'm gonna be honest with you. Tell me what you
thought made you a bad guy, though, Joe, because I
would say you were a good guy who might have
done some bad It was predator prey with I was from.
It was a real bad place when I was twelve
years old. I need you to put a clip of
(04:05):
this up. The Bronx looked like a war zone. We
had no parks, we had no playgrounds. The buildings were
like people lived in abandoned building. It's like, you know,
just I don't know how else explained to you. We
would play on pistie mattresses with straight dogs. I do
remember staring out telling my man Louis. I said, oh, now,
(04:28):
just say for me. Oh no, it's safe for me.
And I'm poor. That's all I know is being poor
my whole life. I was like, oh, I'm gonna get
rich and trying. Yeah. Joe had a tough time as
a kid, and he's about eleven. He discovered his first passion, graffiti.
Joe was kicked out of seven different junior high schools
(04:50):
for his excessive tagging, but his real trouble started at
his eighth school. I used to get bully dervy day.
I will walk out the front door of the school,
dropped my bags and they'd be on a mob. But
twenty guys would surround me and I would punch the
toughest one in the face. That would set it off.
The rest of them would just pound me out till
(05:12):
I got on the bus. This happened for a round
two years. Outside of a media family and a few friends,
I felt like the whole world was against me. Leonard
was my best friend. One day, the bullies come up
to him and say, Yo, what you're doing with this
guy if you don't beat him up with me? And
(05:34):
what's crazy is he didn't even think twice. He beat
me up with the right and that was That's a
deep psychological and emotional wound. At that point, my heart
just turned black and I remember crying and just tying
my boots and I was just like, I'm giving it
to everybody. I don't care no more. That's it. That
was like my last straw at the Sweet Joe, Like
(05:57):
you know what I mean. It was like, that's it,
Like everybody's going to get it. And in that process
of turning into Joey Crack, some good people got hurt
along the line. Okay, joe Crack, Where did that name
come from? Joey Crack. The way I got Joey Crack
was before the drug crack, when the teacher would ask
me to go to the chalkboard and write something I
(06:21):
always had, like sweats like I'm wearing out, and the
crack of my ass which showed, and so the girls
would be like Joey crack, Jeey crack, and it just
stood my name. I had it. I made it my
graffiti name, and then it turned into my rap name. Yeah,
and you left home at four scary too scary on
(06:43):
your own. Yes, what happened with me was I had
a beautiful mom's. My father was real tough, but he
was a hard worker. My father never used drugs, and
where he did, we had a lot of tough times
with him. And this day you would have got him
locked up in this age, he's in jail, like we
(07:04):
could have diagnosed him with everything. He come home after
being drunk and playing poking, losing all his money, and
and my mom's will wake up three in the morning
cook the mistake. Took him some food and he would
eat it and be like it's too much salt and
throw the plate against the wall. Now I'm a kid
watching this type of stuff. You mean, to this day,
(07:27):
my kids who are grown have never even seen me
argue with my wife. This guy, he was doing the
most right, and so we were bumped heads. He turned
out to be a great man. And the reason I
say that if a mother court cancer, they gave it
one per cent to live. They cut her from ear
to ear. Her head was this big. She came out
(07:48):
talking to machine and my father still with her through
the whole thing. You know, most men they run away
and stuff like that, but he liked the head. He
was abusive. He was on that type of time. This
is back then, right. And then one day my father
went to hit me. We was eating and I caught
it boom, and then he went to kick me. I
(08:09):
grabbed his legs. I had him like hanging upside down.
So I was a big four team. So I tell
him in Spanish, you can't put me no more, you
can't put me no more, and so I let him go.
I don't hit my father, but I immediately ran out
to the staircase and I just cried like a baby.
I was so hurt myself for what I had done
(08:31):
to my father. I was so ashamed and embarrassed that
I ran into the staircase and kept crying and I said,
I can't be here. Look, I was like, I can't
you know, I violated my father. I gotta go. And
I immediately started hustling the next day. I was living
in a crackhead hotel. So when you paid thirty five hours,
they're shooting heroin and the aids epidemic at the door.
(08:55):
They're busting people's heads open. I would act tough, but
I really wasn't that tough. But Joe says, being out
on his own toughened him up real quick. He became
a ruthless dictator running the streets with his crew known
as the Terrorist Squad. I was a young savage with
a loaded firearm in my hand. That really is a
(09:16):
combustible combination. I've robbed a lot of people in my day.
I've mugged modest, honest, hard working citizens. Unfortunately, I pilford
the pockets of the most nefarious criminals walking the streets.
I was literally a kid when I became a stick
up kid, fourteen years old. We sold a lot of
(09:39):
drugs and made a lot of money. Wow, the type
of disrespect we was doing out there was foul. We
broke my mother and father. You know, I got shot
in front of my mother, shot in front of my mother. Talk.
We was getting money, a lot of money, And this
(09:59):
is the lesson than this one time I had gave
this kid for my block ten dollars, ten dollars, and
I would pick on this guy every time I see him.
I'll be like, yo, you've got my ten dollars. You
got I got thirty thod cash in my pocket. But
you don't know how people think, how scared or intimidated
they are, or fragile they are. So one day we
go July four, we gotta picnic a barbecue. We over
(10:23):
there a hundred deep hundred. I had a hundred guys
with me. I'm thinking, I am deep toughest guy in
the universe, not even like forget about it. You know,
if we had this project fight against my project, I
would be the guy to be like, hold on one
on one, the best guy, let's go. And you know this,
(10:48):
this the type of time I was on, like le crap,
pull out the best one. Let's rock and roll baby, right.
So I was on that type of time, right, And
so I turned the corner. Here's this guy. He got
a trench gold on it is a hundred degrees is
July for and he's looking at me right like dement
(11:10):
So I went to the store bought a diapepsi. That's
my drink, but at that time it was glass. I
don't want to scare you your ladies, right, But so
I come out. That's when I see him. He looks
like demented or something right, but not enough. He's demented,
but not enough. So again, you're doing here, this this that.
(11:31):
We're going back and forth, he pulls out the gun.
As he pulls out the gun, I'm still you who
you think this? So I hit him in the head.
I smashed his head with with the bottle I had
in my hand. It's so hard. You see the sworddust
in the air, and then the white meat started getting red.
(11:55):
Told you he was demented, but not enough. But me
hitting him pushed him over the edge and gave him
that extra He looked at me and laughed. He said,
I needed that. He cocks this thing back. Now he's
so far away from me, I can't jump on him
or nothing like that. So I got the run. So
(12:16):
as I'm running, the whole world slows up like his matrix.
I'm running like this, and I'm looking back and you
see the shells doing like in real life. This ain't
the movie it was like And I'm looking back and
the bullets is going right now. I have two guns
in my car, plus a hundred guys around the corner. Okay,
(12:40):
as I'm running, I had to make a decision. Now,
if I run right through here, I get to the car,
he's not gonna hit me. But if I run through here.
There was a bunch of little kids playing, and at
one split second that I said, Najoe, you gotta go
a long way. Boom, I get hit. Boom, I get hit.
(13:02):
The second I said I'm not gonna run through these kids,
he's shooting. He hits me twice. My mom's just standing there.
She's looking at me. My whole shirt, white T shirt
is red, and I'm looking at my mother and I'm
running past her to the car, trying to get to
the guns. When I finally get to the guns, I go, oh,
(13:23):
I never felt nothing like that. I got woozy. I
couldn't even stick out the guns. Oh. So my uncle
Will drives me to the hospital. I get in the hospital.
They started cutting my clothes immediately. The minute I walker,
I'm thinking I'm gonna die. I've never been shot before. Nothing,
And what was your lesson in that, Joe? Don't bully nobody, right?
(13:44):
You Also, the other lesson is you can be with
a hundred guys, but when you turn that corner, you alone.
You know, that's a big lesson to learning. Well, when
did you make the turn from being part of the
problem to be being part of the solution. Well, I
think I was always a good person, Like she said,
(14:04):
you was a good person doing bad things. I always
had a clean heart and uh and was trying to
look for a way out. And um my, man, Diamond Dean,
you know, digging into crazy. He said, Man, Joe, you're
gonna die out here. He said, you should put this
in your music and and leave the streets. My attention
(14:27):
started to wane from hustling. I was disgusted by all
the violets. And the truth is I started to witness
the possibilities of another better life. At age twenty one,
Joe entered the Amateur Night competition at the legendary Apollo
Theater in Harvard. They really weren't no latinos going up
to the Apollo rapping at the time. I told my
(14:49):
whole delegates I was going up to the follow to
try out, and they were looking at me like I
was crazy. You're bro, you're making money you click it,
you're talking about rap. Everybody asked. He was an instant hit,
winning first place four weeks in a row word spread
about Joe's magnetic personality and gangster raps. Soon, the head
(15:13):
of a major record label offered Joe a deal that
changed his life forever. I just signed it right there.
I didn't know about contracts either. I was choosing life.
I got a fifty dollar advance from Relativity. I couldn't
believe it. It was proof to myself that I can
make big money honestly without doing crime or risk in
(15:36):
my life. Joe, what lesson did you learn after becoming
so successful when keeping it real goes wrong? You know
another name for a book as well. Loyalty is everything
to make It's in my DNA. I'm the last man
(16:00):
standing with you, uh, and I go down with the
ship right, and growing up in my neighborhood, you know,
when I became successful, I just thought I had to
take everybody with me, and it's it's a bit of
survivor's guilt. And so when you got the lady who
used to give you poor chob, she gets sick and
somebody calls and says, yo, Joe, She needs a new hip.
(16:22):
How are you gonna say no to the lady. You
know you've got millions, so you know, you look out
and you're just trying to bring everybody along. And so
I tried, you know, for many years, and every time
you told me, I had forty fifty guys with me,
um tough guys, you know. And I wanted to help
them and pay their rent, buying the cars and this
and this and that. And one day I can't sleep.
(16:45):
Is God talking to me? God sent me a sign
these people, A lot of them ain't really worthy. It
wasn't worthy of me taking care of them and wasting
my money and wasting you know, my energy of my time.
God told me, yo, man, call all these guys. We
in Puerto Rico. We flew over there too, private planes.
We had the fourth seasons. These guys popping champagne. So
(17:05):
I call him. It was like forty of us and
I said, listen, I ain't got money, no more, I
ain't got it. I can't take care of you. These guys.
I grew up with something, a kid, the baby. And
thirty five of them was like, are you crazy? This
is our money? This If you would have heard the
type of story. They was talking, and so five of
them said, yeah, I'm your brother no matter what, whether
(17:25):
you're broke or not, five out of forty and so
I got rid of him. Then it's a big lesson.
Were your feelings like hurt? Like what devastated? Just a
lot of leaddowns. And the way they did me it
was crazy. And I'm the type of guy right that
you don't do that too. That's all that just drained
(17:48):
you and it takes a lot out of you. Another
crazy story. I go to jail, right. So I was
popping since I was ninety, okay, and I got nothing
but hits, and I'm making money. We popa shared paying
the girls think I'm fly. It is what it is.
So then I get into some trouble with the taxes,
which really wasn't my fault. At age forty two, Joe
(18:12):
says he hit rock bottom. His accountant had been stealing
from him and hadn't paid Joe's taxes in two years.
Joe was furious, you ain't paying none of my mortgages.
I asked, you ain't paying none of my bills? Hey, buddy,
don't kill me, funny, he said, flustered. Then he started
pleading with me, don't hurt me. I never said I
(18:33):
was going to hurt you. I insisted, my tone lowering
and my demeanor comment. I send you money every month
and you ain't paying my bills. I asked again. The
truth was he was robbing me. The case costs Joe
five million dollars plus four months of freedom. So I
sit in the cell, this is unbelievable. Like I was
(18:58):
in Sancho, paid two days for I swear to God,
I'm not lying. I was in Sentuala Nicky's beach. I'm
in this sound like what the Chico was here? Taco
was like, what the my doing in this place? Right?
And it finally hit me. It said, bro, you forty,
(19:18):
they took all your money. Window in the cell was
smaller and smaller, smaller. I had to divise a plan,
you know, And so when I came out, I went
straight to work, and you know, we came out all
the way up and then we knew the business. After that,
I knew, I'm gonna hope it's a business. So would
(19:40):
you say that going to jail was a turning point
for you? For sure? It made me take my life
serious because prior to that running around. Yeah, yeah, you're
not taking life serious. Yeah, I heard Little Wayne gave
me some advice before you went to jails, my brother. Man.
One of the saddest things I ever did was go
(20:01):
visit Little Wayne and jail. Yeah. Not only that, they
had him like chained up, like you know, really chained
up like Little Wayne. They had him like, you know,
like he was the killer of all right. He's my brother, man.
He lives across the street from me in Miami. And
(20:21):
so I'm walking into the jail and I get a
phone call and uh, they saw ugly. The buildings ugly.
It's just rusty and ugly. It looked like one of
the Harry Potter buildings or something. The gate was like
so and so I get a phone calls Little Wayne.
But I had to get myself in at eight o'clock.
It was maybe seven fifty nine. And I was like,
(20:44):
your Wayne was south thing. He's like, no, man, I'm
just telling you right now, be humble. I said, how
do you do it? He said, just be humble, bro,
I'm going there on something. Just going there humble. You know,
if you be humble, they'll respect you, you know. And
then they threw me a curveball because I'm from New York,
but my residence is Miami. So last minute they made
(21:04):
me go to jail Miami. Well, I ain't know nobody.
So when I get to Miami and they said, listen,
we have murderers in the end, we have rapists in here.
We have leaders of cartels. Because Miami's the hull, they
grab everybody throwing in there. That was the building I
was in. I thought I was gonna do some Martha
Stewart type big you know, you know Nick, you know,
(21:28):
I thought I was going with the Stewart right in
the doctor's building. I'm like ya. He's like, yo, we
never had nobody like you in here, so we want
to put you in a solitary confinement. But solitary confinement
is the biggest punishment you could do. I like, look,
I gotta be with the people. I'm humble. So they
let me go and I never forget because I pride
(21:50):
myself for being a tough guy, never really scared. And
nobody like a man's man, right. I don't back down
nobody right. And so they opened the door. There's two
thousand guys, Haitians, Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, two thousand cock
(22:10):
Diesel guys. They see me and all together go. It
felt like that the game of throwing the dragon, and
I got intimidated for one second. I said, Joe, don't fold,
rather than these guys, Joe don't fall. Yeah, so, Joe,
we've lost some serious talent in the rap world. I
(22:31):
know you've been speaking on this quite a bit. The
day after Grammy nominative rapper Takeoff was tragically murdered, Fat
Joe posted this on Instagram. Are they not born? Night?
I ain't sleep. Rest in peace to the young brother
take Off, one of the most humblest kids that I
met of this generation. Now. I do not know the
(22:53):
details of why this gentleman was killed, but I could
talk from being the eldest states and of hip hop.
We as a community, we have to move on to
a new level of thinking. We have to elevate. We
can't see here single white man keeping us down. We
gotta fight through that and be the great kings and
(23:14):
queens that we are. This needs to be a new
era of self love, a new era of community. What's
gonna stop these young brothers from getting killed every month?
What you're not realizing is that with every young king
did you killed? It's another person of hope from our community.
(23:34):
M what sad is I don't understand why we hate
our And obviously when you're killing somebody, you're killing your cousin,
you're killing your brother, and we gotta evil out here.
The devil is just really out here right now like
never before. Look at Nipsey Hustle. Yeah, this guy was
doing for his community. Right so right now you can say, man,
(23:58):
Joe open businesses. He's a was getting back to the community.
But if Joe gets killed out there, you'd be like
he was dumb. He had to be that. Why ain't
stay in the bigger house? Why? And so damn if
you do, Damn if you dry. Over the past couple
of years, the hip hop community has been rocked by
a string of deadly robberies. Unfortunately, there's people in our
(24:24):
own community they hate on someone else's success. You could say,
damn Joe, why you got the diamonds are? But we
had so it was summertime. We ain't having a c
We had to sleep on the floor. When we ran
out of toilet paper, we wiped by ass with the newspaper.
When we had to meet. We ate eggs and rice.
(24:45):
So you can't really break down this poor thing to
me because we know it right, and so we try
to inspire our community. Look, you can have this, it's attainable.
You really shuck with I wouldn't say shocked, but I
would say that bothered me a lot. Here's a positive kid,
(25:08):
never bothered nobody. He wasn't into no trouble or nothing.
And this kid, you're gonna kill him in front of
his wife for nothing? What about the kids in there,
the ladies in there, the men, and then everybody traumatized.
You see the guy get his brains blown out for
no reason. I was talking to charlemade I said, there's
some jobs that ain't going nowhere. Prostitution was around, says
(25:31):
Jesus Christ, robbing and around says Jesus Is. I'm gonna
be honest with you, and there's always going to be
an aggressive person who don't have nothing, who's willing to
rob somebody. So when I talked directly, I like to
think Joe could talk directly to the robbers. Listen, man,
you could rob him, why kill him? And my thing
(25:56):
is when they stepped over the line of when they're
killing that's another type of evil. Yeah, what do we
do about all of this this violence in the community.
I think people just feel so freaking hopeless about it.
I know the key, this God, that's it. I just
(26:16):
feel like we lost a lot of morals, But we
gotta do It's more mentorships. It's a lot of black
and brown people. They've got a lot of money these
days that we could just invest in the neighborhood coach
that we know he's really the good guy. You know,
we know that this this lady is really teaching those
girls how to dance. When you see the real deal,
(26:40):
we have to invest in that when people are really
putting in work. There's a lot of people, you know,
trying to help, you know, to get overlooked. And the
truth of the matter is no quick fix. I think
you write Joe as far as like just putting back
into the community. I mean between the killing and also
the O d s specifically in the rap world. I
(27:03):
think you're right. I think it's dark times, um and
I think people just need to feel some sort of
hope has always been the thing, right, Well, I can
tell you that Fat Joan has been shot at maybe
thirty forty times, try to get framed, to go to jail,
been betrayed a million times. And I never use drugs.
(27:26):
And I still made hit records. So they lied to
the kids and tell them you've got to be hot
to make a hot record. I still made a hot record.
And so I just believe in, you know, dealing with
it yourself. God is to check me. Yeah, I have
a funny story for y'all. You know, DJ Kalets my
little brother, and I discovered Kalik, and Klik really is
(27:49):
what he is. Positive, love his family, love his kids,
love his He's that and through the years he's become
even more successful to me, and I've always been happy
for him. I've never been less over. Every now and
then you ask God, I thought I was your favorite
because this guy, he's just too lucky right. No, now,
he's the most luckiest guy on the way. Right. So
(28:10):
one day I'm in the house by myself, and I
get it. It's God talking to me and I know it.
So when I understand that, I run the colleg's house
because I lived three minutes away, I go to this house.
When I walked through the back college into jacuzzi, I said,
your callig he's looking at what I said. I've been
(28:31):
talking to God. He jumped up so high and said,
God is the greatest. God is the greatest. God is
the greatest. God is the greatest. Got is the gay.
God is God. He wouldn't stop. God is the greatest.
I said this mother. No, he knew what was the key,
and that's the key at the end of the day,
and not moving like that. And so when you you
(28:52):
gotta get faith, you gotta become a believer. Nothing it's
more powerful than God. Yeah, you know. Another shrimp of
mine is women, Like I'm surrounded by woman, strong woman.
That that's what I'm talking about. The girls protect me
(29:15):
what you do the same for them, and that's what
makes it a beautiful, beautiful relationship. That's a fact. All
my sisters down, you know, that's the story of my life,
having strong sisters around me, powerful sisters, and I get
in the middle of certain arguments and I'm the brother
that looks out for the sisters. Somebody I asked me, yo,
(29:38):
why did you jump out and defended shanty like that? No,
you did that. But listen, this guy who was a
friend of mine, he said, Yo, you see that's what
I'm saying, I'm sitting here like flabbergasted, like this was like,
you know, all blasphemy or something, right, because she's been
my sister twentysothing series right. Heard my brother though I'm
(30:00):
not even gonna lie to y'all, love him and he
came for me at the time of my life. I'm
not trying to disrespect her. I'm talking about the situation
with somebody I considered. One of my brothers was like you, like,
are you crazy, Like this's my sister. And then I
noticed when I started telling them that's my sister, his
whole face calmed down and said, Wow, she really is
(30:22):
his sister. Yeah, I've seen the whole face change and
he was like, oh, it ain't but for you, Joe,
it might see me personally. I give no per vibes.
R J Los my sister. She never saw me look
at her. Ask when the whole world was talking about her. Asks.
(30:42):
None of my girlfriends, my wife's friends, might none of
them get that vibe. And you've been married twenty seven years,
your wife, let's talk. Let me tell you told me
to tell you she loves you, Tell her, thank you,
and goddamn. She walked through that mom and like, oh,
(31:11):
she walking on the wall. But I respect is that
you guys have been able to do what you do
the marriage thing for twenty seven years. As we know,
that's not easy. You know what I mean, it is hard.
I want to talk about your wife just for one second.
We see that she's gorgeous, but what are those characteristics
about her that you feel like make you strong? Yeah,
(31:36):
and that attracted you to her? No disrespect? Could we
just say, no disrestract, no disrespect. Here we go like
and so hold on, it's just rolling that way talking
about hold on, I'm going to break to want to say, yeah,
hold on, let's give a minute. This is before I
(31:58):
had any money. I had enough, and let's be clear,
I didn't have a dollar nothing. I'll tell you the
whole story. She moved to Miami because she had an
ex boyfriend who used to beat up all the time.
She was so scared of him. She moved to Miami
just so happens. I'm going to Miami with my man,
Steve Lobell. So he said, yo, I got some girlfriends coming.
I was like, yeah, you got some girlfriend He's like,
(32:19):
they are definitely not talking your fat ass. You leave
that like, she don't like broke dudes, like you are
all the way out right. So we pull up. We're
in the van. The light of the van flash right
on her her ass. Hold hold, let me say, can
(32:46):
I say something else? I never see nothing like that? Right,
So the bronx I never seen. I jumped out the car.
She turned around. I'm like, oh my go like I
could not believe she was even more beautiful. So I look, I,
oh my gosh, she's you're beautiful, like you know, you
know you. It came out the mouth. We in Miami
(33:07):
for like a week or two, so I keep trying.
Then I convinced. I said, can I take you to
the movies or something? She said, listen, I don't like
guys with big mouths. If I let you take me
to the movies, don't say ship. So I went to
the movies, made out for the first time. It's a
beautiful thing. She's drying. I used to love that. She
(33:28):
she was a gangster. She drive a car. You know
what I'm saying, She drive a car. I'm just sitting
on the side like, and she driving a gangster and
ship and like, oh, I give right. So she drops
me back off, I run and tell all my my
whole love me and chick oh my loop the down
(33:49):
kissed me here like. I'm like, all of a sudden,
she don't answer my calls, she ain't calling me back.
I finally see it, so I'm like, yo, what's up?
Where you been? She said? I told you I don't
like guys with big moms. I was like, so at
that point, I could have lied. I could have. I've
never been with a girl like you, Like, what are
(34:11):
you talking about? I'm sorry, I call you. Believe it.
We were good. Three days later, we get back to
New York. I'm driving around my hat with her, and
she's like, yo, let's get a drink. So I pull
over at a bar. It was irish pub by Wall Street.
So as we're walking in, she goes like this and
(34:32):
she stiffs up. Now, look, her ex boyfriend happens to
be at the bar. You can't make this up. She
stiffed up out of fear. The guy turned around, looked
at me, and looked down at the floor. I said,
he'll never say nothing in you again. Let's go. We
kept walking. He never said no, no again. He knew
(34:54):
what time it was right the last phase of the
story is me and my son's mom's had recently broke up.
Really my four, completely my four. She was a great woman,
she school teacher smart. I was just too young, running
around wild and every day, you know, back in the
days you used to write the number on the paper.
(35:14):
Every day. She go in my pocket, sixty numbers come
out the next day, same thing that. That was terrible.
When we broke up, I said you could take whatever
you want in the house, and boy did she take everything.
I mean every furniture, every TV, every painting. I was
left for the mattress on the floor. Then I had
this big robe and I would use it as the
(35:36):
curtains to the sun bowe hit me. And I had
a boom box. That's it. So I walked my wife
into there and she's like, what the is this? She said,
this is where you live. I was like, yeah, this
is where I live. You know, I'm you know, I'm
on hard times. She was like, And she studied out
with me, and then she had girlfriends who used to
(35:56):
tell her, you're talking to this fat guy. He broke
he ain't got what are you doing. She'd be like, no,
I know, my fat boy gonna make it. I know
my fat boy gonna make it. She's a writer. Yeah,
that's why she get whatever she wants. Oh no, she
still don't. That's why. Listen. Let me tell you something.
That's what makes her don't. She's serious and so so
(36:19):
I could tell everybody she's fine, she's bad. The deal
me and her maid was I get rich if anything
happened this, We're never going to change on each other.
We're gonna be with each other forever. That's it. And
that's what you're talking about. Loyalty. And of course you know,
and I'm telling you right now, red Table, nothing is perfect,
(36:39):
nothing is easy. You gotta work through everything. Yeah, it's
like she could see your heart. She could see you
like yo, she ain't gonna fold on me. And even
when I went through the tax problems and I spoiled
her because we came from nothing. She got Birkin's, all
types of diamonds, all types she's she's throwing good too good,
(37:02):
you understand, too good. I think they gotta stash closet
somewhere the whole another apartment for clothes. Well, all we
know those tricks. The guys know those tricks. There's no
way the money she spends adds up to the closet
in the house. My daughter sixteen, She checks me every
(37:24):
second of the day. You can't say that. So my
daughter turned sixteen and there were some flowers at my house.
So they called me and said some boy sent the flowers.
I pulled over the car. The last time I did
(37:45):
this with Michael Jackson died. I had to pull over
for like twenty minutes, started hyper ventilating in the car.
I had to go through that and get home. Who's
the flowers? In any case, she got a friend, right,
so she Oh, you know this little boy likes it's different.
It's different where you go. It's a little girl you
(38:05):
love more than life. He's a nice kid. Oh my gosh, cute.
She's older now, Oh my goodness. I love to fix
and so people come at me. They want fixed marriages.
We want my son with your daughter, rich wretch. Rich.
(38:28):
People like I'm like, yo, she's sixteen. Then they turned
around and be like, yo, but we rich, something like
and we're rich to you're talking about like, don't she
look like she's doing good? What I could tell the girls,
not in your position of my daughter's position, is you
gotta level up. Yeah, Yeah, I get a guy who
(38:49):
knows what the future is. Because if you get with
a guy who thinks the projects is cool, then that's
your life, right, So whatever, you gotta really check that
mentality and that goes of both sides. Yeah, if she
is and for her for sure. So our our t
T fam heard you were coming and they were super excited.
So Hi, Red Table talking, Fat Joe. My name is
(39:12):
g g Rombacher. I'm a singer songwriter. And my question
for you, Fat Joe is if you could bring back
to people who have passed on, who would they be
and why? Oh wow? Where? You know, if it's just music,
it would be Biggie and Big Punt, you know, oh
my god, Like these guys died so young. You know.
(39:34):
They're my good friends, man, my brothers. Man. My best
time at life is when I discovered Punt and we
went through everything. We got rich together, we got famous together.
Big Pump was funny and he was so crazy and
so they used to call me the fun killer. Like coming,
I was like, Yo, what you're doing, You're crazy, Come on,
get out of here. Like these guys were like a
(39:55):
hot mess. Right. Biggie was my brother says they want
to such a beautifu for God, like he didn't have
to pass away. It's really shad Absolutely. I feel you
on that for sure. So social media influencer A J
has a question for you as well. Yo Fat Joe
with a dude man, huge fan. He being rocking with
(40:17):
your sister beginning shout out to the b x UM.
My question for you is with you being a mentor
and an elder statesman in the game, someone that everyone
looks up to, what advice would you give to Kanye
West for the things that he's been saying and everything
that's happened to him. Right now, I'll tell you all.
(40:37):
So I was up a whole night going over what
he said, and I was just like, damn, I mean,
he really did it this time. And so I was
just thinking about it and how he hurt people with
his statements and his comments. He really said some terrible things.
And this morning, on the way here, I came out
(41:01):
of my hotel, the door opened and it was Kanye
West by himself, and we talked for about an hour,
and I said, you know what you amen, you do Church,
There's no more powerful person than God. Sit down, talk
to God. I said, listen ya, that's people that love you.
(41:25):
I told him, just like there's a grab the show
that said God is telling me to tell you this,
And I just told him, Bro, you gotta snap out
of this man. You gotta get focused and look to God,
because God is the answer. God is the key whatever
you gotta do. He just gotta make it right with himself,
make it right with everybody he offended and he hurt,
(41:48):
and just live whatever life we have left in peace.
That's all we could pray for that. You know, he
finds that the only person who got that answer for
Carnye right now is God. Ain't nobody else. It's just God.
So my thing is, you're preaching that church, you're around
holy people, You're around people no way better than me.
(42:11):
What I'm telling you is look to God because He's
the only person then straighten this out. Yeah. Well, Joe,
thank you, Thank you so much. This was really very interesting. Yeah,
because we really, I mean Joe, honestly, we could talk
to you all day and everybody, don't forget Go out
(42:35):
there and buy that book. To join the Red Table
Talk family and become a part of the conversation. Follow
us at Facebook dot com slash red Table Talk. Thanks
for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast,
produced by Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.
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