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Margaret Hargrove: Hi, Audible listeners. This is Audible Editor Margaret Hargrove, and I'm so excited to be here today with one of my favorite music artists, Fat Joe. Fat Joe, whose real name is Joseph Cartagena, founded the Terror Squad rap collective in the 1990s, which featured artists including Remy Ma, DJ Khaled, and the late great Big Pun, best known for hits like “Lean Back,” “What's Luv?,” “All the Way Up,” and my personal favorite, “Sunshine (The Light).” His memoir, The Book of Jose, follows Joe's journey from South Bronx street-hustler to Grammy-nominated lyricist. Thank you for joining me today, Joe. Welcome to Audible.
Fat Joe: Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here with you today. I'm really excited about the book, The Book of Jose. I kept it all the way transparent, because I seen people pass away and other people tell their story, and tell it incorrect and it wasn't factual. I wanted to make sure I did it right for the people, and I wanted to be transparent. I wanted you to know about my darkest times, depressions, suicidal thoughts, triumphs, and just let everybody know that you could go through dark times, but just know you could smile again one day. And that's the main importance about the book.
MH: After years of telling your story through music, why did you decide to write a memoir now?
FJ: Well, to be honest with you, the reason why me, Jay-Z, and Meek Mill signed a bill, because prosecutors are trying to use music against our young brothers and sisters. Music is a creativity thing. We use our imagination. We exaggerate a lot. So, you're not getting the true story of Fat Joe. So, the memoir is totally a true story. The one fear I had about making this book was people wouldn't believe the stories, because it's action-packed from the beginning to the end. And so the book is much different than music.
"The one fear I had about making this book was people wouldn't believe the stories, because it's action-packed from the beginning to the end."
MH: Was there a moment that made you feel like now is the time? You mentioned losing people and having other people tell your stories. Is there one moment that you woke up that day and said, “Okay, I'm going to write a memoir”?
FJ: No, I always wanted to do it, and I knew I would do it. But everything's just God's timing. God was like, "Now's the time, bro." I think to your point, maybe when I turned 50 years old, there was a sense of maturity. Now, I feel like I was ignorant all the way up to 49.9 years old, and once I hit 50, I was like, "All right, I got to be an elder statesman. I got to guide the youth, I got to tell them the truth." I'm extremely proud of this book. One of my best friends on earth is DJ Khaled, and I remember sitting with him in the pool—we were on vacation, our families together in the the Bahamas—and I just went up to him like a little kid, and I was like, "Yo, I just finished writing my book. It's everything. It's what I wanted my whole life." I'm just so proud of the book, and I think that people will learn my story and they'll learn a lot from my mistakes.
MH: I'm from the Bahamas, so I'm glad to hear that you're spending time there, that's awesome. What did you learn about yourself from writing your memoir?
FJ: The only way you could go through what I went through—my first son being autistic, I'm just 19, his mother abandoning him. She wanted to give him up for adoption. I raised him with my moms and father. To my sister giving birth, getting into a coma, losing a kid, being in an adult assisted-living home for eight months, missing Big Pun, my best friend ever, my partner. It's just layers of things thrown at me. The only way I could deal with it is, it's there. I love everybody, but I compartmentalize it. This book made me have to open up and made me have to relive it. And then especially when you're talking audio. I'm not going to lie to you, it's tough, it beat me up. While I was doing the audiobook, I would do it for five hours a day, maybe three weeks. I would go home like a construction worker. My mind was so beat up that I go home and sleep with my clothes on. That's how much it took out of me.
MH: The Book of Jose is co-written with Shaheem Reid, who is a very well-respected music journalist and hip-hop historian.
FJ: The Walter Cronkite of hip-hop journalism.
MH: Very true. What was it like working with him to tell your story?
FJ: He would write about me for years and every article he would ever do, I would hear my voice in it. Sometimes people could write books or some people could do whatever, but they wouldn't get the person's voice. And so I felt like he would be best, to collaborate with him and give him all the knowledge so that he could turn it into the way it best reflects me. And when you pick it up, you feel like, "Wow, this is Fat Joe speaking." And that's an art in itself.
MH: True. You mentioned that the recording process was a little difficult, but have you listened to the audio yet?
FJ: No, I haven't, and I don't know if I am no time soon, because one of the hardest jobs I ever had in my life was doing this audiobook. Hardest. Because I'm a perfectionist. I want to get it right. People call me the greatest storyteller in hip-hop, and a disadvantage to me is I wasn't able to just tell a story, I had to read it. So even though I'm reading it word from word, I want you, the listener, to feel like you're in a movie. And I'm doing all that. I just don't know how to go mid. Everything I do got to be A-1, over the top. And so I went all out and it took a lot out of me, but I'm proud we did it. I want to shout out the gentleman that helped me and coached me in there. He was brutal. He'd be like, "You got another 50 pages in you, Joe." I'm like, "Oh my God."
MH: There are a lot of cool audio elements in the audiobook that people reading it won't get. You can hear the phones ringing, you hear cars vrooming, you get reenactments of phone calls. Like you said, it gives the audiobook this atmospheric feeling. We feel like we're there with you.
FJ: The way I used to write my music was I got a lot of friends. My best friend on earth is doing life in prison, and every time I did a album, I thought about him in a cell. And I said, "This album has to let this guy hear this and feel like he's on the street, like he's part of the story." And so that's how we did the audiobook. I purchased a couple of other audiobooks and they let me down, because I didn't feel like they stood true with their personality, they just read it. I want to feel like I'm at a movie. I want to make you feel like you're there.
MH: Yes, you definitely feel that way. The Book of Jose details your upbringing in the South Bronx, and it's very interconnected with the evolution of hip-hop. For example, you talk a lot about being a witness to the Bridge Wars rivalry between KRS-One and Marley Marl. How did you find yourself at so many key points in hip-hop history?
FJ: You know, they call me the Forrest Gump of hip-hop. I'm always at the right place at the wrong time. I'm so respectful, and so much an ambassador of hip-hop music that I always love to get it right. If it was anything moving, I had to be there. Whether it had something to do with me or not, just as a fan. We are part of hip-hop history in the Bronx just being fans. You ain't have to be a rapper, you ain't have to be a DJ. I was there when Biz Markie brought Big Daddy Kane out for the first time. I was there when Big Daddy Kane brought Jay-Z out for the first time. I was there when the brothers from Jersey, the Outsidaz, brought Eminem out for the first time. I was there when Lord Finesse brought Big L out for the first time. I was there when Fat Joe brought Big Pun out for the first time. So yeah, that's what they call me, the Forrest Gump of hip-hop.
MH: The final chapter of Book of Jose talks a little bit about your 50th birthday, and you say in the chapter, "Life starts at 50." You talk about how the goal in life is to get stronger as you get older. Hip-hop will officially turn 50 in 2023, and you've grown up alongside it pretty much your entire life. How do you feel about this milestone?
FJ: It's an amazing feat. Hip-hop is the United States' greatest natural resource. It came from impoverished, oppressed people in the South Bronx and they had to sing their way through the pain, and so they created this art form called hip-hop. Now it has made trillions of dollars across the world, it has employed millions of people and families. I'm so proud of where we at. I'm still believing in the youth, I'm believing in the future. When you think of Jay-Z being a billionaire, P-Diddy being a billionaire, Dr. Dre. Now the youth have a blueprint where they should be better than us and bigger than us, and they should know about ownership and equity and branding. I believe in the youth and I believe in hip-hop. Hip-hop ain't never going to stop. If you want to know what's going on in Ukraine, try listening to some Ukrainian hip-hop. If you want to know what's going on in Iran, try listening to some Iranian hip-hop. If you want to know what's going on in Cuba, try listening to some Cuban hip-hop. Because this is cheap people's music, but it's the realest form of music.
"I believe in the youth and I believe in hip-hop. Hip-hop ain't never going to stop."
MH: So, you talked about how you had to revisit a lot of sad and traumatic events in your life, losing friends to gun violence, bullying that you experienced, police brutality, the loss of very close loved ones, coping with depression, even. What do you hope that fans will take away from listening to your memoir?
FJ: They just going to be like, "Man, this guy got a poker face. All this time we was doing the Rockaway with him, all this time we was doing "What's Luv?," we did not know, behind the scenes, they was trying to frame him for murders and stuff like that, trying to get him out of there. They're going to learn, "Wow, you mean he performed the night his sister died in Chicago in the House of Blues?" I was there at that concert. I never gave up. This book is all about triumph, being relentless, never giving up on your dreams. It's also about courage. It took a lot of courage to get here. A lot. When we talk about depression, most men wouldn't go see a therapist. So many steps I made. Big Pun died of a heart attack. I wound up losing 150 pounds. No surgery. Had to get up on that treadmill.
MH: The Book of Jose is being adapted into a Showtime series with Blackish creator Kenya Barris. What can fans expect from the show?
FJ: The truth. Whatever you read in the book or listened to in the audio, you're going to get that visually like nothing else. This is just things to add on to the legacy. You going to feel like you were at that spot in the book and be like, "Wow, they created it visually."
MH: Cool, looking forward to that. You reinvented yourself a little bit during quarantine as a talk show host on your Instagram Live. You've interviewed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Dr. Anthony Fauci. You talked about everything from the election to COVID. It's also where we learned that “Yesterday's price–
FJ: …is not today's price.”
MH: Which is the quote of the century. I also read that you're going to now host a show on Starz. They've picked up a pilot for an interview series that you'll host and produce. How does it feel to be on that side of the mic nowadays?
FJ: Man, let me tell you something. I don't even know what's going on. I'm not going to lie to you, I just get up and I work every day. I have an animated show coming with Susan Sarandon called The Movers on Fox. I'm doing a one-man show introduced by Dave Chappelle. I can't even get caught up thinking about it. I can't believe this is all happening. God is great.
MH: Do you prefer making music or being a host?
FJ: It's definitely music, but I love my growth and I love where I'm at right now in my life.
MH: That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Joe. Your transparency is admirable and your fans will get to know you even better and will learn so much more about you in your memoir. The Book of Jose is available now on audio. Go get it now.
Fat Joe on turning 50
