We won’t speak in regards to the biggest rappers to come back out of the golden age of hip-hop with out mentioning Fats Joe. The Puerto Rican and Cuban rapper from the Bronx, NY, has undoubtedly had a serious impression on the tradition and its motion, placing out 13 studio albums and quite a few hit singles like “Move Joe,” “What’s Luv?,” “Lean Again,” and plenty of extra. The Grammy-nominated hip-hop artist additionally began his personal file label Terror Squad Manufacturing, the place he earned a repute for cultivating uncooked abilities like legendary Puerto Rican emcee Large Pun, who died on Feb. 7, 2000, at age 28.

Whereas 30 years have passed by since Fats Joe dropped his debut first album, “Signify,” in 1993, the Boricua artist nonetheless stays related as one among hip-hop’s GOATs. “I would like them to know I am one of many greats and that I’ve all the time been an envoy for hip-hop and put that first,” Fats Joe tells POPSUGAR of his cultural impression.

In relation to elevating hip-hop artists, Fats Joe has by no means had an issue taking a again seat to his personal profession to prop up gifted acts like Pun — who turned one of many hottest rappers and the primary Latino soloist to promote two million data earlier than his loss of life, per Remezcla. Signed underneath Terror Squad Productions, Fats Joe dedicated himself fully to pushing Pun so far as he might take him. To today, he considers discovering the late rapper one among his proudest accomplishments.

“I noticed what Puffy did with Biggie. I used to be there from day one and I noticed how he made him a famous person,” says Fats Joe. “And so, on my second album, I used to be about to wrap it up and I meet Pun. I instantly knew he was one of many biggest rappers I ever heard in my life, and I knew the tradition wanted him. I knew Latinos wanted him.” Extra importantly, the rapper notes, “I knew I needed to put my profession to the aspect for a second to make him the Puerto Rican Biggie.”

Bronx native Remy Ma is one other gifted emcee Fats Joe took underneath his wing, signing her to his file label in as its First Girl. Collectively, the pair made magic, with Remy’s standout model of Terror Squad’s “Lean Again” changing into a success on Billboard’s Sizzling 100 chart for 3 weeks in the course of the summer time of 2004. Even after she was discovered responsible of collaborating in a 2007 capturing at a Manhattan nightclub, serving six years in jail, Remy’s profitable comeback was in contrast to every other.

She returned to music with tasks like 2014’s “I am Round” and 2015’s “Remy on the Rocks” whereas additionally cultivating a tv profession as a forged member of “Love & Hip-Hop New York” — which she starred in for 5 seasons earlier than touchdown a derivative together with her rapper husband Papoose titled “Remy and Papoose: Meet the Mackies.” However Remy’s profession skyrocketed as soon as once more in 2016 when she teamed up with Fats Joe to launch their joint album “Plata O Plomo,” which featured their Grammy-nominated anthem “All of the Method Up.” As soon as once more, their partnership proved to be a successful formulation. As Fats Joe places it, Remy’s “acquired that Terror Squad DNA by means of and thru” — nothing can cease her hustle.

“Her going to jail and coming dwelling, one of many first discussions I had together with her was, ‘Yo Remy, it is completely different out right here. We gotta be humble. We gotta be targeted,” Fats Joe remembers. “So she got here again now not somewhat woman. She got here again a married girl and keen to develop and be a businesswoman.” The rapper takes pleasure in how far Remy’s come regardless of the circumstances she’s needed to face alongside the best way. “We’re so happy with her evolution and her progress,” he says. “She’s the proper definition of what ladies from the hood — from the interior cities — might use as a task mannequin as a result of she modified her life a lot. She went from zero to 100. She’s a businesswoman, she does films, she acts, she excursions — we’re so happy with her.”

In Fats Joe’s eyes, Remy’s one of many biggest feminine rappers of all time. However as for why she hasn’t obtained these flowers on an even bigger scale, the hip-hop icon blames trade politics. Although he does imagine true hip-hop followers and critics cannot argue that Remy is among the finest within the recreation. He declares, “As soon as we now have unbiased folks look again on the historical past of hip-hop, she’s undoubtedly a GOAT within the feminine rap degree of hip-hop.”

Fats Joe’s affect in hip-hop is an incontrovertible fact as Latines had been there when the tradition was conceived within the boogie-down Bronx within the early ’70s. It is one thing Fats Joe has been vocal about for years. In truth, final yr he discovered himself going through backlash for talking out in regards to the ongoing social media debate on whether or not Latines — together with Black Latines — performed an essential position in hip-hop’s early days. His response, in response to him, “wasn’t meant “to be disruptive or controversial.”

“My response was simply the reality. Me being 52 years outdated, hip-hop turning 50 this yr, and me rising up within the Bronx, simply think about this entire hip-hop tradition began in a single place and proper exterior my home,” Fats Joe explains. “I used to be there, you understand what I imply? I noticed all of the Latinos break dancing and doing graffiti . . . rising up with the South Bronx, it was all Blacks and Latinos . . . it was all of us collectively like gumbo. like a soup; a sancocho.”

He continues, “This all began from poor and oppressed folks within the South Bronx. The irony is that the South Bronx continues to be the poorest congressional district within the nation and [hip-hop] has [become] such a wealthy, worthwhile artwork kind — it is loopy.”

Fats Joe, in some ways, has devoted latest years to reintroducing himself as not simply one among hip-hop’s legacy artists, however a person of the folks. In the course of the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, he did his nightly Instagram Lives, which he known as “The Fats Joe Present,” and interviewed outstanding company together with Diddy, Snoop Dogg, Jamie Foxx, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and extra. Then in 2022, he launched his memoir, “The E book of Jose,” together with a one-man present that dives into his total life and musical profession, Billboard reported.

The rap star can also be partnered up as an advocate for the non-profit group Energy to the Sufferers, which helps sufferers, significantly sufferers of colour, learn to get hold of information concerning their hospital go to payments. And this yr, in honor of hip-hop’s fiftieth anniversary, he participated in Amazon Music’s just lately launched “Hip-Hop X Siempre” documentary — which celebrates the Latines, from emcees to DJs, who had been a foundational a part of hip-hop and contributed to the style’s music and tradition previously 50 years.

It doesn’t matter what endeavors Fats Joe tries subsequent, the rapper believes hip-hop will all the time play a component in his objective. And looking out forward, he needs folks to know that the style, regardless of its speedy evolution over the many years, is not going wherever anytime quickly. “It’s for everyone. It is God’s music. It is the reality,” he says. “We name it the CNN of the streets. If you wish to know what is absolutely happening [somewhere], hip-hop is all the time going to let you know the reality.”