Fat Joe on the First 50 Years of Hip Hop

Today host Louis Carr speaks with legendary rapper Fat Joe. Fat Joe is an artist, entrepreneur and TV personality. They discuss landmark moments in hip hop, having equity in what you create, and the responsibilities politicians have to their communities. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi. I'm Louis Carr, founder of the Blueprint Man Something,
and we're live here in Chicago and our special guests
right now, it's Fat Joe. Welcome to the Blueprint Podcast.
Right Joe, I'll tell you this. I've worked for John H.
Johnson from John Johnson Publishing Company, Earl Grays from Black Enterprise,

(00:21):
and Bob Johnson at b ET. Each of them taught
me something. John H. Taught me about preparation, Earl Gradys
taught me about hard work, and Bob Johnson talked me,
talked me about thinking big. Who taught you about thinking big? Well,
I have a mentor. He just passed away. His name

(00:42):
is uh JR. Rand and Go. He was a believer
in people. You know, this man had a has a
company called Market America shop dot com and made over
a thousand people millionaires being entrepreneurs. And he just was
He wouldn't affect you with this love and this belief

(01:02):
and his line was always I believe in you. His
line was I believe in you. So he would tell
anybody I believe in you. He hyper and you know, Uh,
what's crazy is that we were hosting Me and Rendy
were hosting the Wendy Williams show. Now I didn't see him,
but his wife he passed away. She told me this
story that he was there with me through the darkest
times and he saw me hosting the Wendy Williams and

(01:25):
he was in his house and he just jumped he's
passing it. Jumped up and started swinging at the TV
and screaming, my man is back. I told you my
man was back. He's back. Like and so somebody like
that who just shows you so much love and believes
in you and belief uh could really drive you to

(01:47):
be very successful, you know, if you follow the plan. Great.
Here we're coming up on the fiftieth anniversary and hip
hop and you're such a big part of that anniversary.
What does the future of hip hop look like? It
looks amazing, man. You know, I don't want to sound crazy,

(02:07):
but you know, with Fat Joe, they did. They called
me to say the truth, you know. And anytime I
see a kid doing something successful, youth. Hein't robbing my
mother at the gas station, he ain't doing nothing like that.
I gotta support him. Whether I like the music, don't
like the music, into him, into her, whatever the case.

(02:28):
I gotta support him. I gotta support the youth at
all times. Right now, I love uh the young ladies
what they're doing even better than the guys right now.
This is we have never seen nothing like this. We've
had a time where we had light latifa, you know,
mony love. But this right now, how we got the
city girls. We got uh Rammy, you got Carter, you

(02:52):
got Nikki, you got a lot of you got all
these girls winning right now, Gloriala, this I've never seen
it in my fifty years a pop. And uh so
it's amazing, man. And the future is always bright. And
these kids are smarter than us. Man, They're gonna be
better entrepreneurs. They're gonna take him hop to another level.
You know, I truly believe that. So when you were

(03:14):
coming along, the labels were big. Now independence is big.
Is that going to continue as we look forward? Absolutely,
if we don't get tricked. You know what I'm saying.
These people come, they look like you, they talk a
good game, they throw you a nice check, and the
next thing you know, they got you for life. Um,

(03:35):
you gotta believe in yourself and you gotta do the
the old cliche put your money where your mouth is
you gotta believe in yourself and investing yourself. Uh. And
and if you do that and you go independent, you
gotta say, Taylor Swift, I think Taylor Swift had a
deal when they just distributed her music. You know how

(03:58):
many records Taylor Swift old? You know how rich that
girl gotta be. It's out of control. Wow. So when
you think about your future, the next iteration a fact Joe,
tell us what that's gonna be? Unbelievable. Bro, I'm not

(04:18):
gonna lie to you. So much money, so much money
coming my way. No, I'm just it's unbelieving. At least
I give back, Bro, I give back with fat Joe win.
It's the real trickle down, the fact when I win
the hood, win, everybody eat, everybody go. I'm not these guys.
So pray for me when when I tell you the

(04:40):
future is too bright. You know, I have so many
different business ventures and so many different products and stuff
that I'm that that I'm putting out. Oh, there's gonna
be hugely successful. Um, and we're gonna help a lot
of people. Are you looking at giving us the next
generation of artists? Are you gonna get a to the
management business. We know that you gave us DJ Cally

(05:04):
big punt remy Ma, I got pitt Bullets deal. I
took a trick Daddy's demo to Atlantic. He got his
deal through me on French Montana. Um. I helped him
get on UM Cool and Dre and countless people I helped. Uh.
I got one artists. My name is Angelica villa Um

(05:27):
beautiful young girl, sings amazing. I believe in her and
I'm about to start working on her second project. Um,
but really me, fat Joe. You know, I got four
TV shows coming out this year, and so people talking,
but they don't live it, you understand. And so I
got one show coming out on Stars pretty much what

(05:48):
I do on my I g interview guests. That's Me,
Diddy and Lebron. That's Black and Brown excellence. Then I
got the life story. I wrote a book that comes
out November. The book was, Hey, we already got a
deal with Showtime to do the series that's with me,
Kenya Barris and the Turero Brothers, some Dominican brothers, Black

(06:10):
and brown. Right. Then I got a one man's show
that I'm doing that Dave Chappelle is uh introing me
and he's giving me that look. And I'm doing a
woman's show like Mike Tyson did, right and so um,
I also have an animation that's picked up by Fox.
So for me yuh tv um putting out products. You know,

(06:35):
I got a product right for guys who paint their
beard and paint their hair. Uh so you know how
they got just for men. But we're gonna knock them
out the box. This is called rewind. So in every box,
you have DJ Kaled on the box. You have Fat
Joe on the box. You have Tank on the box,
you have uh Tyson Beckford, you have Travis Kelsey on

(06:56):
the box, you have all wonder Boy, who's the m
M A champ. You know, we don't discriminate, man. We
got white people, black people, spaniship. We don't care. Man.
If it's and and you know it's gonna be in Walgreens,
it's gonna be a CBS, is gonna be in Target,
it's gonna be Amazon, it's gonna be everywhere. That's gonna
be huge. Wow, that's great. When it's that book coming out.

(07:19):
The book comes out November and it's Amazon everywhere, Everyone's
and Nobles Amazon everywhere, give us that name again. So Josey,
if you're going through a tough time, if you're in
a dark place, this book will teach you that you
could get past that time and still have a smile

(07:41):
on your face. A lot of people going through a
tough time and they didn't despair. They don't believe they
could get over it. When you see so much bad
stuff happened to Fat Joe and he's still be smiling
with you and laughing, you'd be like, I don't know,
I could get through this. I could walk through it.
So you you still and a lot of small businesses

(08:01):
outside of the record industry, what's the best advice you
can give people who are doing that right now? Do
it and if it fails, go back, work hard, get
some more money and start another business. If it fails,
take the experience, go back start another business. I don't

(08:23):
care what it is. I believe in everybody should be
their own boss. Everybody should be an entrepreneur and start
their own business. Because I gotta aunt. She's my wife's on.
But you know I've been with my wife twenty nine years. Uh.
She worked for a company for thirty years demand retired.

(08:44):
Who she used to work where she used to think
she was the logo of this company. Like nobody can
tell her nothing. The sun takes over. What do you
want to do? You want to go young? He gets
rid of Auntie. She cried for maybe two three months.
She was in depression. She couldn't believe she got fired
from the place she opened every day for thirty years.
There is no job security. They just ain't unless you

(09:07):
work for yourself. It's the only way you you secure
your back. We'll be right back with more of my
interview after this quick break. Well, Joe, you talked about

(09:30):
it on stage and you just said it in Now
you've been married almost thirty years. That's a long time
for any How did somebody in the world and hip
hop be married almost three decades to the same woman
you know? Today? She tried to call me with peace.
I wanted war. I said, now I want to argue you.

(09:51):
Goddamn it today, I want to argue. And when he
heard it, when I argue you because I don't argue
with my wife. I don't even talk serious to It's
more like, hey, babe, what we're doing. We're gonna then
and we did that. Then when I talked serious. You
better listen because you're playing games, you know, and you know,
it's like everything else. There is no There is no Huckstables,

(10:15):
there is no Uncle Phil. Everything just ain't nice. There's
the problems, but you gotta fight through it, and you
gotta be committed. I also believe in and I don't
want to take this from nobody, but I also believe
in divorce really affects the kids. And I watched it
because my daughter went to school with the same kids

(10:37):
as kindergarten and all their parents start getting divorces. The
kids start being depressed, they change, They did so before
the family break up, which is too many people break up.
That's their choice. I don't want you to be with
somebody you're miserable with, but fight hard to the point
of you be like yo, I just can't no more

(10:59):
and you walk off and so uh, you know, relationships
is real hard, and it takes commitment, and it takes
you know, because sometimes I get I'm like Bob Bundy,
they killed I've been verbally abused. Okay, if that's a
me too movement or something, I'm signing up. But guess what,

(11:21):
you know, I love my wife. I love my family.
I wentn't having no other way. Um, I love to
hear him. My brother just got married a couple of
months ago, and he's like, he feels like the blessings
came happy, he got mad. That's the ship we tell ourselves,
man and keep us happy. But you know, it's it's
a beautiful thing, man, family is it's everything. It's everything
to me or Joe. I've been married thirty six and

(11:44):
a half, yes to the same woman. And I learned
something a few months ago. I was interviewing Devout Ellis,
the Star of Sisters, and he said, brothers have to
learn to be of service to that woman. What did
he mean by that? We're put on here to help
them develop, to grow and to protect them when they

(12:07):
need protect That's a fact. That's a fact. He meant
everything Right now. Me, I've been blessed dead. You know,
my wife's a real one meaning that, Uh, she's such
a real person. See, with us, were never funny style,

(12:28):
you know. So you know, you get around these people,
they change up when they're around people, They get around
different people. We don't do we don't know how to
do that. And so my wife, she's always been like
a real best friend to to her girls and all that.
And so because of that, like my wife is best
friends with Mary j Blige, She's best friends with all
these successful women that now love Joey because he treats

(12:50):
her their friend good. And you know, I'm good out
here with the girls, you know what I'm saying. And
they protected me. Um, And it's what's the weirdest thing is, uh,
yesterday I was in the Vegas I had a show.
I did a Rushil asked me to come perform at
the show, which is trust me, I've never seen Michael

(13:12):
Jackson live. This is there, this show here, it's like
and I go to shows. This is like one of
the best I've ever seen, top three ever. Right, So
I come out with my rock. The minute I get
off the stage, one of my wife's best friend, Andre
Martinez his nick and said, I'm like, oh hey sis,
yeah yeah, thank god, I ain't doing nothing wrong. I

(13:32):
land over here. The first person I see, my wife's
other best friend, the Tina, is waiting for me. But hey, brother,
it's like the places surround it at all times and
you just gotta be okale kill. Maybe they'll take the
report back and say the guy was doing the right thing.
And I'll be all right, you know what I'm saying.
Maybe she cook me some good ship over there when
I get on. It's crazy. So as we celebrate the

(13:56):
fifth anniversary of hip hop, in your mind, what are
the pivotal moments for the last fifty years? And it
started in the bronx uh Graffitian Great Dancing MCing grand
Master Flash, I'm gonna set it off there the message
Grandmaster Flash, Melly Mail, the Furious Five. That was it.

(14:20):
That was the greatest moment. The second greatest moment was
run DMC Sucker m c s. When we heard that,
we had never heard nothing like that. That changed the
whole game. And they let you know, these guys was
running this thing the first ten years. We got some
new kings. They ran the game. When I heard naziomatic,

(14:42):
that changed the game. On another level of lyricism, you
knew the game change if you wasn't gonna spit no bars,
I had some lyricism that wasn't gonna happen. Of course,
we got our brothers, Dre Snoop who probably all no,
for sure, they're the greatest due however, right and the

(15:03):
quality and so when you make music, you know, some
people so poor. We're making in the closet, We're making
in the bathroom. We don't care, you know. But people
who know quality, No, that ain't quality. It's dope. It's great.
It's gonna win no matter what. But when you talk
about quality, Dr Dre and Snoop Doggs worked with the

(15:27):
Chronic and all that was quality. That was like a
motion picture on music that we was like, Wow, this
is crazy right with skits and all this. Um as
far as after that, so you got not of course Jay,
you got Biggie. Uh. These are all moments that were legendary.

(15:48):
You know. After that, the next era to come in
with the Kanye. You know what I'm saying. Kanye Um,
who is who is one of my favorite rappers ever?
You know what I'm saying. So he took the game
to another level. Now, so Karanye got co signed by
the rocking all them, but he shifted in a whole
new crew. There wouldn't be no J Cole's can just

(16:10):
lamars that movement if it wasn't for Kanye making that cool.
And then they come up in there and they bust
the door open wide. So so many different moments. I
would believe that my error, uh took the equity. You know,
the people been robbing us forever. That's what I'm trying

(16:32):
to tell. You've been around, you know, man, it's funked
up when you see somebody be like, I'm just using
the excuse Joe, Joe, this the least seeing the single
Blue Magic or the Drifters and they live in the projects.
Come on, bro, bet you bin' golly, you would never
think this ship what they got robbed, you understand. So
it took my eerror of the jay z s, the

(16:55):
dr Dre's, the puff Daddy's that Jamaine the priest to say,
and now you know what, We're gonna own this ship.
We want equity, we want ownership. We want to own
our master's own our publishing. And that's when it started changing.
I envisioned the youth right because I asked puff one time.

(17:15):
I said, your puff because I was there when he started, Biggie.
I was there, right, and I see your puff? How
did you know? Though? Bro? Like you know you were
shoving this so rocking? He he would pop up to
my video and have some rock bottle and I'd be like,
it's wrong with this guy. Then I hear he sold
it for four hundred million. The jokes on me. So

(17:37):
I'm like, yo, puff, how did you know? Though? I
want to know how you know? And then he said
he studied all the artists in the past, Smokey Robinson's
and all that I said when they were winning, and
he used to say, Man, why this guy ain't got
a comb, Why this guy ain't got a soap? Why
this guy ain't got a cologne? Why this guy? He said,

(17:57):
when I get rocking, I'm gonna make products and make money.
That's how buf Daddy thought. So I'm looking at the youth.
They see everything we've accomplished. They could take this a
whole another way out the gate. They don't gotta wait.
Took Fat Joe ten fifteen years, twenty years to figure
out branding and marketing and and this. These kids could

(18:18):
do it off rip because it's been done. Um, and
I look forward to uh And what does that mean?
That means when I see a young brother who's gonna
be successful. He got a hundred jobs under his belt.
He got a hundred jobs under his belt. He got
a hundred jobs under his belt. You know what that means?
When Thanksgiving come and I'm a hundred families you take

(18:39):
care of, they pray for you when they cut that turkey.
You see what I'm saying. And so that's how I
look at everybody, not just talented as a rapper whatever.
I look at him like, Yo, you're gonna put the
people on, You're gonna give jobs, You're gonna take care
of people. That's that's that's where the true wealth is at.

(19:01):
We'll be right back with more of my interview after
this quick break. We've got one more aspect I want
to touch on before we go politics. How do we
get our communities to run? We already did though. What

(19:25):
you gotta understand, Joe Biden would not be President of
the United States if it wasn't for the black and
brown community. We keep showing up, but we need these
guys to stand firm and actually do something for our community.
You preaching to the wrong guy. I'm the guy that's
on my and my I g arguing with everybody, go vote, man.

(19:46):
I'll tell their looking at you all sell out. Jo
Nah go. I've been telling them to vote. I vote
all the time. But we need these guys really because
it just can't be a given. And I've never talked
like that in my life. I've never talked like you know.
And I'm never gonna vote Republican. That's not what I'm about.
But we need our politicians to be held accountable and

(20:11):
to do something because every four years they come up
in they promise us stuff and they never do nothing.
I mean, you know, from the from the outside end,
I'm looking at all a gun violence in Chicago and
all that, and I'm like, Damn Obama from Chicago. My
type of lord. He's supposed to lay down, He's supposed

(20:33):
to come over right go. When ship happened in the Bronx,
they come get me. I'm not Obama, they come get me.
You know. A couple of months ago, we had the
Black Muslim Brothers of Africa. They had the fire in
the Bronx to kill seventeen people. They came to Fat Joe,
so fast, Joe, we need you this. We raised two

(20:56):
million dollars for them. So when I'm saying, is we
need to hold all the politicians we're gonna vote. We
have no choice if we don't vote for these guys.
It's a terrible outlook. If we let these guys run
the show because these guys just don't care, you know.

(21:18):
And what you know what's crazy is people look crazy.
You ever saw that? People? Even the politicians everything, everybody's crazy, right.
You look at these guys and the stuff they say,
and you're like, yo, these guys are like you know,
like you look at YouTube and some guy get the
most clicks because he'll say he had dinner with alien,

(21:39):
Like yo, bro, like all we're gonna fall for anything,
like what's going on out here? Right? And so they're
crazy with the stuff they're talking. And then our guys
are talking sense. But we need that ship. We need something.
We need something because we keep showing up. You as how,

(22:00):
we're gonna motivate these fits. We motivate them every time
and they show up. Look at Atlanta, dumbest election you've
ever seen in your life, dumbest election you've ever seen
in your life. They had a record turnout. We're coming,
we know what time it is, and we know we
gotta go, but damn or we you know hershol Walker, man,

(22:22):
this guy come on, man, like ya gotta be kidding me,
Like Yo, this is incredible. And then about the luck
they might elect this guy. We gotta show from shore.
Are you talking about? All right? So we show up.
We elected of a brother. What is he gonna do?
You gotta do something. We're not just you know, we

(22:45):
try to. You know, I was Joe Biden, Joe Biden, right,
Joe Biden and Joe Biden because I didn't want Trump.
So I'm not yo Joe Biden. Joe Biden. Oh so
now Joe Biden, gotta do what you gotta do. We
can't keep electing people because we don't want the other person.
We gotta elect people scripted. Before we vote for we

(23:07):
need to tell him what we want. We need to
tell him what we need. We don't don't let them guess.
We need to be clear. You want to vote. This
is what we expect. Man, let me tell you something.
The Knicks. I'm a Nick fan. The Knicks. We're gonna
get Donovan Mitchell. The Knicks haven't had an ice cold

(23:30):
superstar in years. We barely we don't even go to
the playoffs. They had this brother, he was in New York.
He was about to sign to the Knicks. Last minute.
Some guy who gives up advice tells the team, now,
I don't think you should give those picks up for him.

(23:52):
We had a twenty five year old three time All
Star that was gonna play for the Knicks. They let
him go through a lot of times, these politicians think
they got the right people in their ear, but they don't.
And so the guys who got in the air, they're
thinking they're reflection to the community. They don't even know
what's going on in the community. So it's also gotta

(24:14):
be a real understanding of what the people who are
voting for you are voting for you for and how
you get it into policy. Um. Sometimes these guys they
don't even you know, you know, they've been politicians their
whole life. So I don't want to say puppets. I

(24:35):
want to say they've just been groom. I just met
a kid in eighteen year old out there. This guy's
gonna be something. It's a kid out there, Ian Brown.
He's gonna be something. Why because you can look at
him and you know he's gonna be something. You just
know it. He gonna be something. Right, But these guys

(24:59):
they're born and they're like, oh, they're gonna be the
next politician. They're gonna be this, they're gonna be that.
So they think it's so much like a politician. It's
like the cops, by cops, we need them. You get
you get jammed up, you need the cops, bro right.

(25:19):
But now as soon as the cops become a cop,
he could be your family member, your cousin, your brother.
He starts switching up because they tell him, Hey, we're
rocking this way, but we need cops that understand our needs,
patrolling our neighborhoods. But they start saying, Yo, you could
only rock with us. You can't rock with them guys.

(25:42):
And it's uh, uh, I don't want to just say
a system. It's uh, it's it's way. It's almost like
a brainwash when they tell you, you you know, you can't
be tight with your family no more, you gotta be
with the cops. And so you're going there to do
the right thing, and they start changing, you know what
I'm saying, And so it's it's it's it's just like

(26:05):
that with the politicians. They go in there wanting to change.
They're going there thinking they know what they need in
the community. Once they get that job, they don't know
what's going on. Well, we've got to have people with conviction.
Now I'm with you man, I'm listen. I'm telling everybody
to vote, how important it is to vote. If you

(26:28):
don't vote, we're gonna learn. We're gonna learn real shortly
about why we should have voted. And you see what
they're doing with the the right to abortion. I mean, hey, listen,
the women on their own bodies, man, they could do
whatever they want with their own body. We shouldn't be

(26:49):
they're telling them what to do with their bodies, their body.
Could you imagine somebody selling them you can't with your
body with your life. It's crazy. But if we if
we dropped the ball and be like, yo, this guy
ain't do ship for us, we ain't voting no more.
These guys take Now all types of things start happening,

(27:12):
and it's premeditating. These guys are cold blooded, and these
guys are you know, systemic racism. All all this ship
is like could you believe there wasn't a telephone? Could
you believe there wasn't books, there wasn't a car, And
these guys were already making laws that affect us in
two where now you can see people in face guy's

(27:36):
going to space and ship they made laws that long ago.
It wasn't even a car. That's what systemic racism is.
This guy so wicked they think in a hundred years
I had how to knock you out the box. They're
not even hear no more. The guys who did that.
You get it. So if you don't vote, if you

(27:56):
ain't on top of your ship, they're gonna do it
to us. Joe, thank you so much. This is really
my brother. By two summit. Thank you.