Another Fat joe interview

[Crenshaw_blvd]

Allhiphop: You’re carrying on this torch right now, as far as Pun goes. People are looking to you to see what you’ll come with.

Fat Joe: It’s a test and it’s a test and it’s a test. Pun always told me it was destiny for us to meet since the first day I met him.

AHH: How did you meet?

FJ: I met him on the street corners of the Bronx. He was battling some kids and I was like--oh my god this dude is fucking incredible.

It’s been very hard for us. Pun’s that echo in my head that’s like, "Yo Joe, it’s your time.
It’s destiny." Pun is like "You got this. Trust me, they’re gonna understand Fat Joe," ‘cause you know I’ve always been an underdog in this business and all of a sudden now all eyes is on me.

AHH: So what are you doing differently as a result of the pressure?

FJ: I’m very serious right now. I’m very focused. No girls in the studio, no boys in the studio, no blunts, no this, no that. This shit is straight up. I lock myself in like I’m in fuckin a detention center or some shit.

AHH: Did you feel like there was a ghost of Pun with you in the studio while making this album?

FJ: This album is about me. Although it’s shocking, depressing, still every day I’d rather get over the hump that Pun ain’t here. It’s hard, I don’t know how to explain how hard that is. But my confidence level never shattered when people was like "I don’t think [Joe] can do it." I’m a better fighter when my back’s to the wall.

Unfortunately, with all the love I have for Pun--and you know, I probably loved him just as much as his wife or anybody else, I loved him like a brother for real, you undersstand what I’m saying?--but I was kind of handicapped. But it’s cool ‘cause I went on and found myself and did what I had to do.

AHH: So the Terror Squad line-up has changed quite a bit. Cuban Link and Triple Seis split.

FJ: We lost two members who believed the hype. They believed it was over, that Joe can’t hold it down. Pun was a genius. He was incredible, but people weren’t giving me credit for tweaking behind the scenes, for making him look sexy, for making him look like a fat role model or doing clever things in his videos that brought out that character in him. I’m not lost ‘cause I came up with the formula, I came up with the recipe.

AHH: About what happened to Cuban Link, there are still rumors about your involvement.

FJ: There is no truth whatsoever [to the rumors]. I’m not going into that whole thing. I’m looking on to a new future, new beginning. I wish him well, simple as that.

AHH: One thing that just came up today, Nas apparently has a response to Jay Z’s "The Takeover" on his upcoming album, which implicates you and Pun and includes the lyrics: "Call yourself gangsta but you were begging for pardon\ that night in Carbon\ when Terror Squad flipped on your squadron\ tried to front on their checks\ till Pun put a gun to your chest."

FJ: We gotta hear it but damn, what a way to put me right in the middle of the beef huh? We don’t comment on that, that's old news. Like I said all the negative energy all that shit you can throw that out the window.

Nas is crazy. No question that we are allies with Nas Escobar. We love Nas. I almost named my son after Nas. As far as him and Jay Z with the beef: that’s they stuff. Until somebody tries to involve me in that shit, that’s it. I ain’t got no problem with the whole Rocafella. It’s well documented. Everybody keeps trying to get me to talk about that shit in every interview. Why don’t they ask Jay Z that stuff? I read his interveiws, nobody asks him. If you interview him, ask him.

AHH: Oh, we will, no doubt. I know you’re involved in politics, Stop the Bombs, Black August, the Hurricane Georges benefit, etc. How did you come to your role as an activist?

FJ: Just remembering all the times I’ve been harassed by police in front of my own building, being taken advantage of, not having a voice. You feel like when you’re in the ghetto that no one’s listening to you. I’m not saying that I wanna crusade against police, because we do recognize that they heroes and without police in this world where would we be? But I have to speak up for the youth.

AHH: You were on a round table about the September 11th attacks, what’s your take on the U.S. response right now?

FJ: It’s sad man, ‘cause when I was on that round table I took a very firm stance, I was like "Let’s go to war, let’s go to war." And like two days later I was just home, just sitting and thinking a lot and analyzing and I was like--damn what about these young kids going to war? What about their families who gotta hug them and kiss them and be like "Go give your life for this country"? It’s just a hard situation all the way around.

AHH: Where were you when you found out?

FJ: I live in Jersey right across the river so I actually seen the building fall down. I was buggin’. They calling it the worst tragedy that’s ever happened in United States history and it happened right out my window. I’m a little fucked up over it.

AHH: One last thing, what would you say are some of the turning points in your life?

FJ: First of all, my first album [coming out], just the fact that there were no Latino rappers before me. That was a great day.

I remember Biggie coming up to me like a week after [second album Jealous Ones Envy] came out and he was like "Yo Joe I don’t know what you did, your shit is crazy." He showed me mad love and that was a beautiful point in my life.

As far as Big Pun, [when he sold] 2 million records, I brung him in this business but I had never done nothin’ like that. So now we were hangin’ out at the Grammy’s, fucking renting mansions, having crazy fun. I was the happiest ever in my life at that point, just being with Pun and being on stage with him.

A turning point in my life has to be several months ago when people was just doubting me, people leaving the group and all that, and me just staying focused, knowing that we gonna make it happen. I can’t finish the rest of this answer because it’s happening right now. It’s feeling good. Word.