Fat Joe addressed critics who have said the Bronx-bred rapper can’t use the n-word.
The conversation occurred when Joe stopped by The Breakfast Club to discuss his new memoir The Book of Jose, where he clarified the comments he made against Irv Gotti after the producer and record exec spoke about Ashanti while on Drink Champs.
“He was there when my daughter was born, I love Irv Gotti,” Joe said at the 27-minute mark of the video above. “No matter how much I love a person I cannot sit there and watch this man disrespect my sister...I feel like a sucker if I don’t address it. Now, I’ve been so used to IG and cameras being in my face, was that the right platform? or maybe it was a private call? Don’t know, it’s done already. But Irv Gotti’s correct, I’m not his friend. I love him he’s my brother.”
Joe went on to say that because he made his comments online, Gotti’s haters were relentless in their responses. Charlamagne used this as a jumping-off point to discuss the criticism Joe has faced over the years regarding his use of the n-word.
“First of all my projects is 90%, I’ll give you 80% Black still,” Joe said. “My grandmother’s projects is 99.9% Black to be clear. So I’m Spanish, I knew I was Latino, but the whole time I thought I was Black anyway. So my mom lives there 40 years before I was born, in this project, and I’m born blonde hair green-eyes. This shit crazy, right? She brings me there, the first thing is they go, ‘Oh look at this little n***a Joey he got green eyes.’ The minute I’m walking the guys in the building is like, ‘Yo look at that little n***a Joe, little Fat Joe,’ that’s all I knew my whole life before even elementary.”
He continued, “It’s a lot of woke society or something going on these days and Twitter and all that I guess they don’t understand where I come from, where I was born, or how I was raised or how I lived my whole entire life...We know that the record states that this is a negative word and I wish we never used it. You know? and I try my best...really seriously I been trying to stop, but I been saying this since I was born.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Joe took a moment to respond to reports that he filed a lawsuit against his accountant and accused him of misappropriating his funds in an alleged Ponzi scheme.
“The saddest thing is when you turn around, and you trust these people, and you turn around and say: ‘yo these people stealing from me,’” Joe said at the 10-minute mark. “Ponzi schemes. Like this is not a game, like these people are really stealing my money.”
He added, “Taking fake credit cards under my wife’s name, going to the ATM every day pulling out cash in the building they work in. Robbing other baseball players and robbing, like Ponzi schemes! The way you protect yourself is, unfortunately you gotta go to Oprah 101, watch all your money.”
Per TMZ, Joe reportedly first noticed multiple AMEX accounts had been opened under his wife Lorena Cartagena’s name, and upon further investigation, found these credit cards were used to make large purchases, including tuition payments for an assistant’s daughter. A cash amount of $40,000 was also found to have been spent on Uber and Uber Eats.
Joe also claimed to have noticed several of his business entities were missing large deposits, including Sneaker Addict Touring, which was allegedly short millions of dollars. The suit accused the accounting firm of covering up its crimes by running a Ponzi scheme while using the accounts of players from the Colorado Rockies, Houston Astros and the Chicago White Sox to hide their illegal activities.
The Book of Jose hits bookshelves on Nov. 15.
