Fat Joe is asking Drake for forgiveness.
During a recent appearance on the Rap Radar podcast, the Bronx rapper recalled the time he rejected Drizzy’s collaboration request. Joe noted that the OVO boss wanted to hop on the remix of his 2016 track “All the Way Up” featuring Remy Ma, but Joe ultimately declined because of Jay-Z’s involvement.
“Drake FaceTimed me three times trying to get on ‘All the Way Up,’” the 53-year-old explained. “Three times, middle of the night: ‘Send me the instrumental, send me the instrumental, send me the instrumental.’ I wish I would’ve got Drake on there, right? But the fact of all the history of me and Jay-Z, I was like, ‘It gotta be just me and Jay-Z.’”
As fans know, Hov’s guest verse on the track came shortly after he and Joe squashed their years-long beef. Although Jay didn’t specifically object to Drake’s participation, he reportedly asked Joe not to include anyone else on the remix.
“You know I’ve been doing this for hip-hop my whole life,” Joe said on the podcast. “I gave my life to hip-hop for real, for real. Anybody who truly understands, this is the moment. It ain’t just gonna be a posse cut. … And this the last time Drake ever asked me to do a song. But nah, man. Drake gotta forgive me. I’m like ‘Damn, man, please! Throw me a Frisbee.'”
Joe went on to say some of hip-hop’s biggest names had their eyes on the “All the Way Up” remix.
“But, yeah, it’s true,” the New York legend concluded. “‘All the Way Up’ was that big that we had the best, the biggest. You know, 50 Cent was—everybody you can fuckin’ name who’s a monster was hittin’ us up, like ‘Yo, send the Pro Tools.’”
Joe shared the Drake remix story during a 2020 episode of Open Late with Peter Rosenberg, explaining that Hov had nothing against Drake or any other interested artist; he simply wanted to be the only addition.
“[Jay-Z] said ‘Look, Joe. It means so much to the history between us, let’s not put no one else on the song,’” Joe recalled. “He’s not referring to Drake. … Everyone wanted to get on the remix.”
