The Kid Mero is offering his read on the argument that has followed Fat Joe for weeks.
The topic came up on Tuesday’s broadcast of Mornings With Mero on Hot 97 for the show’s “Group Therapy” segment.
“If you look at a picture of Fat Joe without hair—cuz when he had the hair, that picture looks crazy. Like the old picture of him as a kid, he looks like Dennis the Menace,” the Afro-Latino comedian joked near the 44-minute mark in the video linked below.
He continued, “But … 2026 Fat Joe? If you turn the brightness down, he looks Black. If you look at him, I would not see him walking down the street and be like, ‘That's an Irish guy.’”
Co-host Miabelle added that she also believes that Fat Joe is “not white,” but concluded that he is “not Black” either. She also pointed to the conversations happening around the ongoing debate, where people from New York City and other impoverished neighborhoods “use the N-word because that’s just what they're around.”
Mero added, “If you from the south that means something different, you know what I'm saying? I was in Oakland, bro. Vietnamese dudes were saying that. It's crazy.”
The ongoing debate surrounding Fat Joe during his recent visit to The Joe Budden Podcast where he defended his use of the N-word.
"Guys, I don't know if you can fathom that I'm from the block that invented hip-hop. Melle Mel, Grandmaster Flash,” Joe said during the episode. “The girls who used to babysit me, they invented, 'Let me hear you say, oooo!' That's Grandmaster Flash. I grew up with Melle Mel right outside the window playing basketball."
He continued, "Fat Joe is the Blackest n***a you ever seen in your life. Go look it up."
However, not everyone accepts the framing. Marc Lamont Hill argued the rapper's background is a matter of public record and does not support the claim, saying, "Fat Joe has love for Black people. Fat Joe is not racist. Fat Joe cares about Black people, but Fat Joe is not Black."
Fat Joe responded to Hill’s commentary by saying his late father was Afro-Cuban.
