On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Fat Joe: How To Be Successful After Hitting Rock Bottom & Stop Letting Failures Define You

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

What was your biggest challenge after hitting rock bottom? How did you manage to overcome your failures? Today, let's welcome the one and only Fat Joe, a renowned American rapper and music industry executive. He began his music career in the early 1990s and quickly gained recognition with his debut album "Represent" in 1993, featuring the hit single "Flow Joe." Fat Joe has played a crucial role in promoting other artists, notably Big Pun, who achieved significant success before his untimely death. His journey from the streets of the Bronx to international stardom is a testament to his talent, perseverance, and enduring impact on the world of hip hop. Fat Joe provides an honest look at the gritty realities of his early life, including hustling for money and living through dangerous encounters. He shares how the aggressive nature of hip hop initially required him to hide his true, more personable self behind a tough exterior. However, he credits the genre for saving his life and offering a legitimate path out of the streets. The conversation takes a turn as Fat Joe talks about the devastating losses he endured, including the deaths of his sister, Big Pun, and his grandfather, all within a short span. These tragedies plunged him into a deep depression, from which he emerged with the help of therapy, highlighting the importance of mental health and seeking help. Despite facing financial mismanagement and betrayals, Fat Joe maintains his integrity and commitment to his values.  In this interview, you'll learn: How to balance career and family How turn negative experiences into positives How to build a resilient mindset How to give back to your community How to stay true to yourself Fat Joe's story is a source of inspiration, demonstrating that with determination and support, it is possible to overcome adversity and achieve lasting success and happiness. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Special thanks to Soho Home at Soho Works 55 Water where the taping took place. What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:04 Earliest Childhood Memory 03:52 Bullying 07:53 Developing resilience  08:37 Life and Death Choices 09:51 Thug Life 12:42 Ambition to Succeed 16:43 Figure It Out 22:03 Family Tree 27:43 Losing Family Over Addiction 31:57 Loss and Grief 39:21 Sister Love 41:13 Big Pun 46:56 Financial Literacy 50:19 Take Care of Your Parents 52:13 Money and Trust 56:25 Stick Around 57:44 Kids with Special Needs 01:02:30 Channeling Energy Through Music 01:04:30 Interview Gone VIral 01:08:30 Doing Good in Silence 01:11:05 The HipHop Culture 01:13:30 Spiritual and Healing Journey 01:16:34 Hair Care 01:19:47 Weight Loss 01:25:02 Joe on Final Five  Episode Resources: Fat Joe | Instagram Fat Joe | TikTok See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Calm your mind, change your life. I got shot at maybe 30, 40 times in my life. I might be scared of a gun, I might be scared of a bazooka, but men, I've never been afraid of men. I'm afraid of fly. So, you know, every day I fly, I'm like... Ha ha ha! We got a special guest in the building!

The icon living! Fat Joey! We had to see where we were gonna put the money at. My other brother turned around and told my brother, why are we even talking in front of Joey? He's a half brother. And that devastated me. to access. By hitting the subscribe button, you're creating a habit of learning how to be happier, healthier and more healed. This would also mean the absolute world to me and

help us make better, bigger, brighter content for you and the world. Subscribe right now. The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. Today's guest is someone I've been listening to since I was a kid. Very, very grateful to have on the show the one, the only, someone who needs no introduction, Fat Joe. Joe, welcome to On Purpose. I'm grateful that you're here.

What's up, Jay? You've been a long time coming, huh? I know, this has been a long time coming. We did welcome to On Purpose. I'm grateful that you're here. Long time coming, huh? I know. This has been a long time coming. We did a short get together connection. Somehow I feel like we always knew we was going to do this sooner or later. But it's an honor to be here. No, I'm very grateful to have you here. Honestly, I grew up listening to you. I was listening to you this morning, getting ready for the show

just to prepare my mindset. And that's a different Fat Joe than Fat Joe 2024. I was listening to you this morning getting ready for the show just to prepare my mindset. And you know. But that's a different Fat Joe than Fat Joe 2024. Sometimes I listen to my music, I'm like, yo, I can't even believe I was saying like it was really, yeah, it was a different time. What's your earliest childhood memory that has defined who you are today? Wow. Just always being charismatic, always being from the class clown to people always loved me.

I always told great stories. And so when you're growing up in hip hop, we used to always have this like mean bravado, nobody talk to nobody, everybody, right? And so recently I started telling stories in the last couple of years and everybody's like, yo, wow, he's a great storyteller. But I always was this person. But unfortunately, hip hop will have you put on this facade

to where you can't even show people your true personality. So I think that's what I think coincides. It's just I've always been this person since I was a kid and the world is just getting revealed to the world. Yeah. Why do you think that is? Why did you have to hide yourself? What was the reason for the mask? Hip-hop was just really tough, man. When I grew up, we lost Biggie, we lost Pop.

You were a punk if you had security. They wanted to see you go through it. Unfortunately, there was a big stigma in hip-hop. If you didn't live it, then we didn't respect you. And so you had to live this thing out. And the last thing you wanna show people is that you're a cool funny dude that gets along with everybody, actually loves everybody.

So you had to keep that tucked away just for your family and your friends. But even when you were younger, you were bullied, right? You went through bullying and then I believe there were even some. And I became a bully. So it's like you become a product of the product. And so, you know, when I was young, I was getting bullied because, you know, I've never been a punk.

I've never been, you know, so 20 guys confronted me. I fight all 20 of them. They beat, they'll beat the crap out of me. But I always was that. What were they bullying you for at that time? Man, it was just too much. So I grew up in a 90% black neighborhood. So the way to explain this to you is,

the only thing not black about me is my skin color. So my family were there 40 years before me. So when they brought me home, it was like that was Joey. And so I grew up in that neighborhood my whole life. And so, you know, that's how I grew up. And then I went to my grandmother's neighborhood, just like 99% black, but they'd never seen a Latino like that, looking like the Beatles with blonde hair and green eyes and acting like, and saying, you know, just coming like, that was a problem. Like they had a real problem with that over there.

They were like, yo, we're not going for that over here, but I am who I am. So I've always been me, I've always been true to who I am, so I had a lot of problems, you know. And so, you know, bullies, you know know when one gets away with it, you know, then another guy tries, it's not necessarily that they're tough. It's just to say, oh, they beat them up or we could beat them up. And then, you know, you're just the guy they beat up.

And I kept telling them I'm not a punk. I kept telling them every time they beat me up. I was like, yo, I'm not a punk. I'm letting y'all know. Y'all just got the numbers right now. So I used to get beat up for a lot of things. I used to lie a lot when I was a kid. So I would say stuff like, yo, I was with that girl.

Her brother would come with five guys and be like, oh, you with my sister? Beat me up. So I remember I had a time I had to look in the mirror when I was teenager and just be like, yo, you lie a lot, bro, you gotta stop. Like you gotta, you gotta keep it real cause you getting beat up cause of this. And so, you know, life journey.

It's a journey. This the journey. Everything leads to the next chapter in life. Yeah. It's amazing wherever you grow up, just how much bullying is the norm for kids. Like, even where I grew up, I was bullied for the color of my skin because there weren't that many Indian people in the area that I grew up in.

And I was bullied for my weight because I was overweight growing up. So I was bullied for that. It's amazing how, like, kids find a way to make other kids' life hell, even though we hope that kids... You know what's crazy is not criticizing the youth of today, but when I see stuff like bullying and they, you know, kids kill themselves and because they're getting body shamed or whatever, I just don't understand. Like, do you know what levels of bullying I've been through? And I never once thought of killing myself.

Never once, you know, I just knew it was something we had to work our way through. And so, you know, I don't think there's never a time where you kill yourself. You know, I don't think there's never a time where you just say, yo, I wanna kill myself. I don't know how that comes about. And so, you know, we're bullying.

It was, you know, we've been getting bullied in the house, you know, from my father, from my family, from, you know, we've been dealing with a lot of pressure and trauma. And, you know, you know, your father comes home, he lost all his money gambling, drinking. He's going to treat you like shit that day. You know what I'm saying? So, but we don't know that.

And so we had to work through all that. We had to learn all that. So now when I see my kids or other people's kids complaining about something, you know, I got beat up by 20 guys every single day for two years straight. So you know, and I never once went home and told my mother, I can't do it. You know, so I don't I don't know. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that you had that tough skin, that resilience?

No, it was hard. Oh, it was hard. But you but you know, it was something you had to deal with. You know, you had to go to school the next day. You had to go outside the next day. You had to like you. This is where you at. You're in this environment.

You're either going to be predator or prey. And so, you know, I was always the loving, nice person I am. And then it, you know, my skin got thick. Then I was like, all right, I'm gonna be the tough guy. I'm going to be the bully. I'm gonna show them I'm not going to care. And then things changed. And thankfully, hip-hop came and saved my life. You said you had to, in those early days, make some life-and-death choices. No, I got shot at maybe 30, 40 times in my life. And I know somebody like you or some of my friends, they can't even understand that.

No, for sure. And so, you know, I tell people these stories now and now they think I'm just lying. I just make it up. The truth is the truth. And so you could imagine, I was one of the toughest kids in the neighborhood. I was always into something and I was very aggressive at getting money.

You know, I'm very aggressive at getting money. I was in six states this week alone. So I'm like, you know, I've been like that since I was a kid. So, you know, once in any neighborhood, you know, if you hear about dangerous places, it always has to do with money or with drugs or with, you know, and so that's what you say.

You say, yo, that place is so safe, yeah, but you know, they killing people. Why? The drug game, to this, to that. So I've always was aggressive, you know. And once you show people you want money and you want bigger things and you're willing to do whatever for it,

becomes more dangerous, you know. What were you doing for money at that time? Well, I was hustling, you know. What were you doing for money at that time? Well I was hustling you know I was really I was a no different than the movies you see like I was a guy they were hired to go beat people up like that's how I started in the game and so it'd be like your Joe. And how did they recruit you for something? They know that these guys are bad guys and you can pick them up. So you're a drug kingpin,

you're not necessarily tough like that, but you know Fat Joey and them, they get busy no matter what. And so you come and you say, you're Fat Joey, I got three pairs of sneakers for you, you know a jacket, I need you to go beat my competition up. So I would just jump out of van and and you know and just you know apply the pressure. Were you ever scared? No

That's one thing God never made me was scared of men, right? I might be scared of a gun I might be scared of a bazooka, but men I've never been afraid of men You know physically whether it was one twenty thirty forty. I just never been afraid of men, you know, physically, whether it was one, 20, 30, 40, I just never been afraid of men, you know, of violence or physical, you know, yet and still I ain't get grabbed by the cartel or some shit like that, you know, that's it. But I've never been afraid of men. You know what I'm saying? I'm afraid of fly.

So, you know, every day I fly I'm like I'm grabbing the old lady next to me. You know, I'm the guy I take all three air conditions when When I'm flying I grab all the three and I got it on me and I'm breathing I'm doing breathing exercises You know, I'm terrified of flying. Yeah, and I fly all the time and I just tell God I said God Thank you for letting me face my fear. You know what I mean? Because I'm able to, I don't think if I flew, I would be as successful as I am. So, and I love going places.

I love, I would love to go to India, Africa, this, this, that, it just don't like the journey. The plane flight, what's the deal? I'm like, this, this, that. It just don't like the journey. The plane flight. After all these years. I'm like, no, this is it. After all these years. Still.

Still, yeah. Every day, I fly maybe every other day and it could be the biggest. I remember one time I get on a flight with Khaled and Khaled got this plane. You know, Khaled does everything another level. So his private plane, it was white, everything, the ceiling, the floors, the couches, the ladies, the flight attendants, they were so polite.

It was the best flight you could ever take. We went up, we felt the little, I was like, it could have been American Airlines. It could have been any other plane. I was like, all the white, all Airlines. It could have been any other plane. I was like, all the white, all the fancy food, everything went out the window. I was like, terrified. And so it's something I can't get over. Yeah, with going back to that time that you're,

they're giving you a jacket, they're giving you three pairs of sneakers saying go and take care of this. How long does that continue for? Man, that continues, because I was, we were really tough. I won't say just me, but we were really tough.

And, but I, like I said, you know, when I grew up in the Bronx, it looked like bombs exploded in the Bronx. It looked like Ukraine, no exaggeration. Look it up, 70s, 80s in the Bronx. But I always had ambition to be successful, to have more. And I remember talking to a friend of mine, his name was Louis, we was like 12 years old, and I'm looking out at Rubble and I'm saying, yo, this ain't for me.

I got to get money. I got to get me a Mercedes Benz. I got to get give me it and he's like, what are you talking about? We've been so poor generational That he couldn't even fathom You know nobody in my family was rich like that or nothing like that. So he was like, what are you talking about? We straight this I was like nah I gotta get it, you know, and um, and so it's almost like a movie that you know, you I gotta get it you know and um and so it's almost like a movie that you know you got these guys that you know you just come pick up

when it's time and so I would go and and you know for me it was by any means necessary to get money and so I would do whatever but also knowing I want to be the kingpin not the guy they come get to beat people up. And so one thing led to another and we became big boys in the street before rap. So hip hop saved my life. Changed my whole life like a Cinderella movie. It was like the minute I got my record deal, I never hustled again, I never dealt with crime, I never went back there. I never dealt with crime.

I never went back there. It was like a Cinderella Robin Hood. The minute I got my deal, I was like, yo, I don't want nothing to do with this. I walked away from it, started rapping, telling my story through music. And here we are. I just knew when I got into hip hop

and I got into the rap game, I said, all right, this is it. This is the way out. And you know, no different than any other business, at one time I had the number one record, Flojo in 1993, it was the number one record in the country. I was getting $500 a show. So I was doing three shows a night.

That wasn't no money, you know what I'm saying? But I had to do what I had to do to get my money. And so that wasn't even easy. So now you in the game and you step in and it's almost like half the battle. And I was like, yo, how do we find the money in this business? Because at that time we find the money in this business? Because at that time, it was no money in the business.

Yeah, yeah, that's, I mean, yeah, that's crazy to think that in, what, 30 years, it's changed so much financially. I think, I don't want to say for a fact, but I think LL Cool J was headlining arenas for like 10,000 a show. Wow. And this is arenas, like 10,000 a show. Wow. And this is arenas.

This was like Madison Square Garden and all that. So it was like, you know, the money wasn't there. So you know, back in the days, the only way to explain it to you, back in the days, Magic Johnson was the first player to get a million dollars a year. He made the cover of Times Magazine. He was in every magazine.

It was the biggest talk. Now you got the 15th guy on the bench making 240 million. The disparity is crazy. You see a rapper now or reggaeton artists, or one of them now put out one hit and then making 400,000 a show for one song. And you're like, yo, this is prayer. I done tore, forget a chitlin' circuit.

I done went around the whole moon for $500. You know, so it's a different time. Hey everyone, it's Jay here. My wife and I have had so much fun creating our own sparkling tea, Juni. And I've got big news for you. It's at Target, and we'd love your support. If you can go out, grab a Juni,

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a Target near you. Yeah, going back to your movie analogy, I feel like in the movie, the streets always try and come back for the person who tried to move away so when someone goes I'm done with this business now I'm gonna go in shadow yeah and so with my life it was like that too and I and I and I made a lot of mistakes you know I'm more successful now than ever but that's because I'm much more mature and so you know growing up in the ghetto you have survivors guilt and so me my, you know, growing up in the ghetto, you have survivor's guilt. And so me, my community, you know, took care of me.

The only reason why I'm still here is because of them. So I had a very big obligation to try to bring everybody with me. You know, I got rich, young, and I would have 50 guys with me. Every time I would literally come to your interview right now with 50 guys, 50 trucks, 50 cars, that means 50 steaks, 50 champagne bottles,

50 hotel rooms, 50 plane tickets, you know, every day. How do you afford that? You don't, and so what happens is, you know, when you're young, if you look at the cartoons, they're telling kids, a million dollars. That's almost like you could capture a cloud, right? Like a million dollars is like, you could take a cloud and put it in a bottle.

A million dollars. And then when you get a million dollars, you think it's like this can't run out, but it runs out. And so for me, I remember going broke about three times in my life, like literally broke, being like a number one rapper, number one hit, everybody's what's up? But I'm like, and I'm just doing foolish things

and I'm just trying to take the whole neighborhood with me. And I remember that one time I tell this famous story, but I'll tell it to your audience. I remember one time I couldn't sleep. And now I know when I can't sleep, God is giving me a message. So that's a fact. Like that, when I, I can sleep all the time, right? But when I can't sleep, there's something

that I gotta figure out, dissect or whatever. God is telling me, yo, figure out, dissect or whatever. God is telling me, yo, hold up. Figure this out. Because us, we in the public light, we gotta watch what we say. I don't get high. I don't use, everybody, I encourage you to smoke weed if you want, cannabis, you could drink whatever.

I don't. And in my life, what everything has been throwing at me is almost like the matrix. If I got high, I'd have been out of here a long time ago. So you never did it? No. Wow. So the way this thing comes to me is like, you know, it throws so much things at you.

Like whether it's family, whether it's business, whether it's this, whether it's that. Is this to be successful in 2024 is like the matrix. You know, you're doing this. It's like, whoo, dodge that one. What about this one? What about that? Imagine I'm high.

I'm over here like this, doped up, I'm done. Right? And so that was back in the early days. The reason why I never got high was because I had so much violence and beef with other guys that I knew they were gonna kill me or something. Like if I was standing on a corner high, smoked out or something, I was done. And the thing is, nobody has a PhD or a master's in hip hop music. It's actually whose crew is toughest.

So every rapper you meet, they'll come up to me like, yo, hi, let's just say I'm fabulous. Yo, this is my man, just came home for 20 years. He did three murder, this, this, that, oh, how you doing? Yo, this is Jadakiss, yo, what's up, Jadakiss? Yo, this is my man, Johnny the Button, just came home for 25 years for killing five people. I mean, that's what it is.

And so, I don't care. We can do it with Drake. We can do it with all of them, right? And so, you don't need a PhD or a master's to get in hip hop. So, I'm leaving the streets trying to come in here to change my life. And streets trying to come in here to change my life. And then when I come in here to change my life,

I realize the streets come back, the shadows, you know, and then everybody wanna know, are you really tough? Are you really that guy, Fat Joe, do you talk loud? Do you just like prove to us that you really get busy. And so the streets is always with you. You know, now it's more like, you know, now we totally, you know, talk to my security, argue with my security, he's an ex-cop, deal with him.

Oh, this is, I don't even, I don't even, stuff doesn't even bother me no more. So you gotta get to that place. more. So you gotta get to that place. Spiritually, you gotta get to that place where you feel like you know what your job is in life, you know what you're trying to do, you wanna live righteous, you wanna help the people, you wanna help your family,

but all that outside noise doesn't even bother me no more. I've had some of my friends that I have for years go on YouTubes and blogs and talk bad about me and this and this. I'll be like, oh him too? Like, it just rubs off me now. It's not, doesn't even affect me. Yeah. When you were younger, one of the things that did affect you, I believe, was your half-brother,

you realizing that you weren't biologically family. No, it wasn't my problem. It was like, we grew up together. So I have two brothers and a sister, and I grew up, my father came from Cuba, and my father got with my moms after she had a husband and had three kids. So I'm the last kid. But he raised my brothers and sisters, and we were raised as brothers and sisters to

this day. Brother, not half. We never heard the word half. We had a brother. So me and my brother, we were partners in the streets. So me and my brother, Angel. And then my other brother, Raymond, was supposed to be a lawyer or whatever the case may be.

He was going to school for that. And then when we was hustling, we had a choice to make. And so the choice to make was that we had made all this money, we still lived in the projects. Like we had tons of money in the closet, right? In affordable housing projects. So we had to see where we were going to put the money at. We wasn't that smart.

We wasn't sophisticated. We didn't know about buying businesses. We didn't have accountants. We didn't have nothing. The most we had was cars and jewelry. And so my one brother said, yo, leave the money with me. And I said, and I ain't think nothing of it, he's my brother. I told my brother Angel, I said, why don't we leave half the money with him and you go

to Orlando to my aunt who's like 90 years old. She wouldn't even know she had millions of dollars in her attic. Right? And I said, split it up. You don't want all your eggs not sanded this. And so my brother, my other brother turned around and told my brother, why are we even talking in front of Joey?

He's a half brother. And that devastated me. The tears just came, I never heard that before. So my brother Angel argued with him, was like, you crazy? Joey's my brother. You know, the irony to that story is that day was Thanksgiving. The whole family, you know, we never had much or whatever, but what we always had was love and family to this day.

So I got in the car, I had a Mustang 5.0 at that time. I went to, it's in the book, Jose, I went to a place in the Bronx called City Island to where there's one way in, one way out. And so I was just driving like 100 miles per hour and I just felt like I was gonna run into a wall or something, but then at the last minute, you know, I spun out. I was actually thinking of killing myself.

I spun out, you know, said, f*** that, then I went and ate me a nice steak. You ever ate at the Seville Rich? There was a, oh my God, they had the best steaks with the best onions. Now I had the best meal that night, right? Old school joint, man. And so eventually I wrote it in the book,

but didn't really actually say it, that my brother the Feds came and locked everybody up, like 40 of us, not me, I was rapping already. Thank God, rap saved my life. But when they did that, my brother was on the run and he was calling my other brother, yo, send me money. He was in like Dominican Republic and my brother went and responded.

So my brother flies back and the brother who called me to have brother spent the millions of dollars. We didn't know. So he came and said, yo, what's up? I'm on the run. I need the money. And he's like, yo, I spent the money. We're like, you spent the money?

Millions of dollars? Like you spent the money? And it wasn't like lavish. You ain't seen no Lamborghini out there or nothing. It's like, how you spent the money and wasn't like lavish. I mean you ain't seen no Lamborghini out there or nothing like it's like how you spent the money and and so The concept of us growing up was always if my brother had it I had it So my brother was the boss. I made some dollars, but he made the real money, but I knew if my brother had it I Had it it's the same concept we have with Terror Squad today. If Joe got it, you got it.

You can't take advantage of it, but he'll help you at any given time, you know. If I got it, you got it. And so my brother stole the money. I never talked to him for 25, 30 years. I never talked to him again because my brother, not only did he steal the money, my other brother Angel started using drugs because he went from being rich to being broke. And I used to tell him all the time, you're Angel, I'm rapping, I'm going to take care of us, don't worry, I got us. But he just fell in deep depression and started using drugs and using drugs. And to this day, my brother, he'll be looking around the room and he'll be like, I used to have money.

I used to have it. These people kill themselves in Wall Street. They jump off the roof. They jump off of bridges. They hang themselves when they lose all their money. When you're used to that type of money, millions of dollars, your own brother, your own blood steals that from you. So he had a lot to deal with

and I kept putting him in drug programs. I kept begging him like, June, come on, I'm good. Like, come on, we're gonna be good. But he couldn't get over that, even to this day. But he's not using drugs no more, thank God. But if I had him, mine sound, he's smarter than me. So if I had him, you know, mind, sound, you know, he's smarter than me.

So if I had him with me through my whole career, through my whole, you know, we'd have been better off than we are now, you know, because he was really the leader. He was really the smart one. And so, but he couldn't snap himself out of that. Yeah. How hard is that watching someone you love, someone that you trust, someone that you know could have been this and had this potential and then not seeing them be there with you through it all. How do you deal with that? Well you know my best friend on earth

is in jail. He's doing 48 years. He's been in jail for 33 years and I often think about like tonight I'm going to the Knick game. I know for a fact they're gonna put me on TV. God bless. I'm on court side sitting next to Spike Lee. High five at Spike Lee. My brother got to see that in jail. In the feds. How do you think he feels? That he's in jail, my best friend, and he knows that if he comes out, Fat Joe got him.

He's right here with Jay Shetty. He's driving the best car. He's living the best life. That's what you call suffering, when you can't do nothing for it. And the same thing with my brother. You know what, my brother had a chance. So what I can tell you is that drugs is an illness,

it's highly addictive. That's why I never tried it, because I might like it. And so that's why I've always stayed away from drugs. I looked at my brother and said, damn, man, he's smarter than me. He could have been way more than me, and he couldn't shake the drugs. I don't even want to try that. I'll tell you a story for your audience.

I had a girl I used to chase for maybe 10 years. I used to chase this girl. Hey, what's up? Yo, yo, beautiful girl, right? And one day she said, tonight's your night. And I said, oh wow, really, I'm gonna get it? Like, you know, I've been after you, yes, yes. But you know, Joe, I know you don't use drugs,

but tonight, to make it special, we're gonna take these pills together. And I said, huh? She was like, we're gonna take these pills together." And I said, huh? She was like, we're gonna take these pills. I said, I'm not taking them pills. She was like, no, but this is gonna be amazing. This is it. You don't understand sex with these pills.

I said, and I was after this girl. And I was like, you ain't getting me to take the pills. And so nothing happened. So you walked out. Nothing happened, brother. You guys, you must have felt that rejection. I don't care about rejection. It's just I know too many stories.

A good friend of mine, not to put his business out there, but he talks about it, Scott Storch, one of the most talented people in the world. I owe him a lot of my career to Scott Storch, but he tried it one time. And that was it. He tried, he was with two girls, real famous girls. If you know the real story. The best movie ever made that hasn't been made

is the Scott Storch story. If he lays the goods out, it's, you know, we need Leonardo DiCaprio to play him. Like, there's gonna be one, but you know, he need Leonardo DiCaprio to play him. Like, this is gonna be one. But you know, he had two famous girls and they were like, yo, you wanna be with us? You gotta sniff this cocaine off of, you know, and he did it.

He said that he literally told me the minute he sniffed it, he was like, euphoria. Like this is the game, you know, this whole life up messing with that. Now he's doing better, but you know, he ran through like $90 million getting high, you know? Wow, yeah, cause he was the guy then, I remember. He was producing for everyone.

Yeah, like 85% of number one songs of one year. Yeah. Beyonce, Fat Joe, 50 Cent, this, this, he was in Sean Paul, this, everything was him. Yeah, I remember. And so, you know, he took a hard fall, you know. I love Scott, man. I wouldn't be where I'm at if it wasn't for Scott.

The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is an NAACP and Webby Award-winning podcast dedicated to all things mental health, personal development, and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. Here, we have the conversations that help Black women decipher how their past informed who they are today and use that information to decide who they want to be moving forward.

We chat about things like how to establish routines that center self-care, what burnout looks and feels like, and defining what aspects of our lives are making us happy and what parts are holding us back. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. And I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Take good care and we'll see you there.

Get emotional with me, Radhita Vlukya, in my new podcast, A Really Good Cry. We're going to talk about and go through all the things that are sometimes difficult to process alone. We're going to go over how to regulate your emotions, diving deep into holistic personal development, and just building your mindset to have a happier, healthier life. We're gonna be talking with some of my best friends. I didn't know we were gonna go there, Amir. I know, I know, that's because this is,

people that I admire. When we say listen to your body, really tune in to what's going on. Authors of books that have changed my life. Now you're talking about sympathy, which is different than empathy, right? And basically have conversations that can help us get through this crazy thing we call life. I already believe in myself. I already see myself. And so when people give me an opportunity, I'm just like, oh great, you see me too. We'll laugh

together, we'll cry together and find a way through all of our emotions. Never forget, it's okay to cry as long as you make it a really good one. Listen to A Really Good Cry with Rali When you find that bright spot to help you get through your day, it's powerful. That's where the bright side comes in. A new daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that's bringing you a daily dose of joy. I'm Danielle Robay. And I'm Simone Boyce. Listen, both Danielle and I are reporters. We've covered the news and we know the world can feel heavy,

but the Bright Side podcast is a space to have a little fun, to learn something new and get into some friendly debates. That's right, join us five days a week to see how life can look from the bright side. We'll hear from celebrities, authors, experts, and listeners like you. Whether it's relationships, friend advice, or figuring out how to navigate life's transitions, we'll talk through it all together.

Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine every weekday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, no, and that's the hard part, right? I tried with him. I tried to get him more drugs. Oh yeah. In many places, I'm considered the fun killer.

Cause I would come and they can't get high. Scott Storch, I'll tell you, he used to sniff kilos of cocaine, but around me, he never sniffed coke in his life. He had that level of respect. So I would go there every day and just sit there like a thorn on the side for months and just be like, making sure he don't get high.

They said the minute I walked out the door, they were like, bring it out. They hated me in the place, but you know, I tried. You know? Wow. I mean, we're talking about losing people while they're still alive, and that is a real loss. And then you've lost people who have actually lost their life, who are no longer here. You've lost three, I mean, I'm sure you've lost more than this, but three very significant

people in your life. Can you tell us what was significant about the loss of each? Because I feel like they're different types of losses, but they're all in the same year. First of all, same like week. Same week? Ah, those months. I didn't realize. Like two, three weeks apart, everything.

I'll start with my sister. My sister was like my best friend. She was supposed to be the one to be there for me. We love our wives and we want them to always be there, but one person I do know, OJ Simpson died recently and they said the only people who used to go see him every day was his sisters. When the whole world turns off the lights on you, your sisters will be there for you. Yeah, I can relate to that. So I lost my sister.

I lost my sister. She was giving childbirth. And so they gave her an epidural instead of numbing up from the waist down and numbed up from the waist up. Lack of oxygen to the brain. So she was in a coma for eight months. And that was killing me to see my mother and father every day there and we was there.

And that's horrible. I wish nobody gets to see someone they love like that. And when I got the call, she died, it was almost a relief. And I don't want to say I'm happy my sister died because that's not true, but she was suffering too much. And so my sister passes away, right? So that's the number one, right? I used to think this guy was the number one, because I love him so much.

But really, over the years, really analyzing it, my sister really knocked me out the box, right? Just to not have her in this world. Then one of my best friends, my artist, one of the most loyal guys is Big Pun. We made history together. And together, being Latino in this music business, we stood for so much. And even though I was on before him and I was on my way to success, I took the back road for him because I knew he was so much more talented and I knew we needed a guy like

that. Years later now, 30, 20 years later, we still hear his music and feel that pride. I knew that at the time. And so he passed away young around the same time as my sister, maybe a week, two weeks apart. Now I'm young, I'm 27, 28 acting like I know about the world, but I'm still really, really young. And so, you know, how scared it is to lose a best friend, franchise player.

You know, here you went from being this broke kid living in this danger zone into, you know, being successful, being rich. And now the guy you did it with is dead at 27, 28 years old. And then my grandfather, analyzing my family tree, I'm more like my grandfather than anybody. I used to call him cowboy. He had a lot of respect in the hood. So my grandfather died. So all that together, it was like a perfect storm. You know, and I never dealt with so much death like that.

And so, you know, I was really in a dark place. I'm not talking about a regular dark place, you know, sleeping in the bathtub with no water running. If I looked outside and it was sunny, it looked dark. You know, if someone shoots you, I tell people all the time, you in a gang. Say you in a gang in Chicago, and they're trying to kill you. You do know you can move to Alabama and no one will know you. You could move to LA.

You could move to New York. You could move anywhere and they won't know you. The problem with depression is, it comes with you wherever you go. So at the time I'm in depression, I'm going to Miami, I'm going to islands, I'm going to try to erase it, but I can't. It's with me everywhere I go.

And now, you know, when people say let them mourn, that means like give them time. Let them get their things together, their bearings together. But when your best friend who just died is the biggest rap star in the world, people think they're doing a good thing, a good deed. So they bring you your food. Yo, sorry about your brother, Big Pond, man. Yo, that was my man. Once again, it's back. And then I'm in a car waiting at the light,

the next up, yo, Pun, he was the man. They start blasting. So it was so hard, right? And I considered myself to be a bright person. And so the only way to put it is like, the mind's like a super complex Rubik's Cube and you just gotta, and so I never thought of, I'm gonna kill myself at this.

I just was like, Joe, you gotta get out of this. You gotta get out of this. It's like a funk and you wake up and it's a new day. Instead of just saying, it's a new day, you know, you go back to, oh, you know this. And then it's, so I went to therapy. Is that the first time you started going to therapy? Was that?

That's the only time I went to therapy, but I went to therapy for like two years. I didn't tell nobody. And this lady, this woman really, really helped me out. And her strategy, I guess therapists are all different. Her strategy is you figure it out for you like you'll tell me about you and then you just go there all the time and you tell her about you and then you figure it out you'll figure out what happened and um the one thing that happened

to me was uh we would do this mural in the in the for Big Pun. So I started out a graffiti artist and shout out the Tats crew. So every year they would do a new, they would change the mural for Pun, Rest In Peace Pun. So I'm out there, it's two years has gone by, two dudes walk by. I always say I owe these guys so much money. And one dude was like, yo, what they doing? He wasn't from the neighborhood. He was like, ah, that's the big pun boy. They change it every year. He said, they change it every year. It's been that long?

He was like, yeah, it's been two years. And I swear to God in my brain, all I heard was two years, two years, two years, two years, two years, two years. And then something in my mind told myself, like, yo, Joe, you've been beating yourself up for two years. You gotta snap out of it. That same night, boom, I was back to the way I am now. Wow.

You know, just two years, Joe. You try to kill yourself. For two years, you've been beating yourself up. Maybe you could have did something. Maybe you could have lost weight. Maybe you could have helped your sister. Maybe you could have, you know. So you go over beating yourself up. So, you know, it finally was done two years and I run away from dark thoughts and depression. Like now I don't even get in the area. If I ever feel something like that,

I'm running the other way. See, people walk to it for some reason, you know. But me, I run away from any type of dark times, any type of dark moments, I move on. Your sister, if she could talk to you today, what do you think she'd say? She'd be proud. But she also was very supportive and simple. But, you know, she knew her brother had her back.

She'd call me any time of the day, any time of the day, you know, bro I need money, that car be outside our window in five minutes. Like yo, come down, here you go. You know what I'm saying? So she know I always had her back. You know, she, the only thing I would say, the only regret my sister had with me is I used to beat up her boyfriends.

And so that was like a major problem, like for real though. If a guy came to visit my sister, I would sit there with a baseball bat while he's sitting on the couch with her and I'm looking at him and she always hated me for that. Yeah, that's fair. You know that? You know, I'm just telling you what she, you know, she wasn't feeling me on that tip right

then because I'd be like, you know, yo, you ain't going to do that to my sister. Yeah. And so, you know. Was that your younger sister? She was older. Older, she was older. She was older, but I was always, you know, I'm young, but I've, you know, I'm the baby of the family, you say, but always the, but I'm the baby of the family,

you say, but always the leader. I don't know. It's just, that was me. I have a younger sister. I'm very protective as well. And I could relate to what you were saying about the love that you have for your sister. That kind of- It's different.

Yeah, it's different. The brother, sister love is a whole different, because she really got your back. Yeah. You know what? Nah, she got your back. Yeah, I could do no wrong in my sister's because she really got your back. Yeah. You know? Nah, she got your back. Yeah, yeah. I could do no wrong in my sister's eyes. Yeah.

She got your back. So when it's all said and done, you know, God forbid, hopefully you live with your wife till y'all die together. But if you ever go through something with your wife or something like that, the one woman that is going to hold you down is your sister. What about Big Pun if he was to talk to you today? I don't know. Big Pun, man, he was so good.

He was like a freaking nature, bro. He was a genius. So I don't know. I know I try to impress him with moves I make musically. I've always been a real man. I've always been a loyal man. I always stuck to the code no matter what. I never let the... Punk has this famous line in the record where he says, I wear the crown

to never let it touch the ground. So we never let the crown touch the ground. We always kept that same, you know, but I can't tell you because he was so much better than me. He was just like light years better than me. So he really actually taught me how to make hits even though I discovered him. We would sit there, so he would scream at me like, yo, you're limited, you're limited.

Keep thinking, switch it up. At the end, he was just so great that, you know, he was like, I'm coming up and he's a Shakespeare or some shit, like he was, literally. He would be like, no, you gotta do it like this, no, like that, so I don't know. You know, I've had some anthems, I've had hits. I don't know if it was to big pun standards.

I'm telling you, he was asleep. He had that thing, what is it, narcolepsy or something? He would fall asleep right on you. This is a true story. He would wake up and be like, pass me the book. He would have a whole song. He would write it in his sleep. He would have a whole song to start writing it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, this guy was phenomenal. From the first time I ever heard of him, I knew like, this guy's like the greatest. He's the best. Like it was another level, yeah. Yeah, well, I remember when we were coming up listening to you, it was because of you that we were coming up, listening to you, it was because

of you that we got introduced to Big Pun. That's how we even discovered him. Yeah, that's how we even discovered who he was because we weren't aware in London. I was Big Pun in London. He was on fire out there. Because of you. Yeah, yeah, I know. That was the entry point for all of us.

Like that's how we discovered his music. Yeah. But it was for the people who were like listening. Like it was for a real listener. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't for the people who were listening. It was for a real listener. It wasn't for the master. It was lyrics. It was for someone who was actually listening and was trying to understand. Beautiful time.

I think my best time in hip hop music. Just growing together, becoming the first soloist, Latino to win, to sell two million records. Back in them days, you know, you had to go buy them records in the snowstorm, you know, it was physical. It wasn't just streaming. And so we were so proud of him. And you know, he died so young, so that really devastated me.

To this day, you know, the way the crew works is, he's everywhere. So if you go in my house, you see Big Pond. You go in my businesses, you see Big Pond. You go in any one of the crew members' houses, Big Pond is up. You know, we never forgot him. You know, what's crazy is I throw this up,

I'm gonna invite you this year. I throw a birthday party every year. Forget about it. Whoever you think of is in there, right? Every year we have fun. So if you don't dance, you're not invited. We are dancing. The good thing is I don't do drugs and alcohol, so that's good.

You see, but you gotta dance, brother. You gotta dance. We'll make that happen. And so one year, a reporter snuck in the party. We didn't even know. And so the reporter wrote for the post, I believe, she wrote, I was in the party, it was amazing, this one, that one was there, this.

She said, they kept mentioning Big Pun every 30 seconds like he was alive at the party. And so I think you would be proud of that, that we make sure that we represent him at the highest standard as a rap god, because that's what he is. That's beautiful. The party and I'm waiting for my Terror Squad chain as well. Those are the two things I wanted as a kid.

That's an expensive... Everybody was waiting on that Terrorra Squad train. You know? You made us one of his kids, you know? That was like the thing. Still. You know, I remember one day I had to give my train to Drake off my neck. Like, I had it on my neck. He was like, yo, man, I always wanted that.

You know, this and that. I was like, damn, man, here you go. But that's expensive. That's a heavy thing to give away. Oh, that's expensive to just, you know, everybody you imagine. How rich? Everybody wants a Terrasquad chain. We used to go get the cubic zirconia one down the road that they used to sell.

No, but these ain't cubic zirconias. Yeah, I know, I know. And they'd be people I really love and they'd be like, yo, I need that chain. I'm like, sheesh, man. You know what these chains cost? Yeah. Yeah, but it's beautiful, man. Terris Squad started out as a graffiti crew.

The guys who started it passed away, but before they got off graffiti, they gave it to me. I'll never forget. I was in the back of my projects. I was maybe like 13 years old, and I remember I made a pledge. I didn't know it was going to be music, but it was Terror Squad. It's going to be the biggest crew you ever seen in your life. And then I had my sister and her friends was like Terror Squad ladies. We did this our whole life.

I hope when I'm gone, it'll stick around with all our family members and all our friends. It means a lot to us. Something that makes me crazy is when people say, well, I had this career before, but it was a waste. And that's where the perspective shift comes, that it's not a waste that everything you've done has built you to where you are now. This is She Pivots, the podcast where we explore the inspiring pivots women have made

and dig deeper into the personal reasons behind them. Join me, Emily Tish Sussman, every Wednesday on She Pivots as I sit down with inspiring women like Misty Copeland, Brooke Shields, Vanessa Hudgens, and so many more. We dive into how these women made their pivot and their mindset shifts that happened as a result. It's a podcast about women, their stories, and how their pivot became their success. Listen to She Pivots on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I don't understand what the big fat ones are. You don't put those inside of you, do you? I mean, you do? This is a show about women. Okay, so I just reapply my lip gloss after eating a delicious lunch. We are headed back now to the European Political Systems class at Baruch College. Woo! Finally, a show about women that isn't just a thinly veiled aspirational nightmare.

That's it, that's actually the name of the show. It's not hosted, not narrated, we're just dropping into a woman's it. That's actually the name of the show. It's not hosted, not narrated. We're just dropping into a woman's world. It's like reality TV on the radio. I found out when my dad was gay when I was 10, we were in a convertible on the 405 freeway listening to the B-52s. Looking back I should have said this is gay. This is already all gay. Listen to finally a show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine you ask two people the same exact set of seven questions. I'm Minnie Driver, and this was the idea I set out to explore in my podcast, Minnie Questions.

This year we bring a whole new group of guests to answer the same seven questions, including actress and star of the mega hit sitcom Friends, Courtney Cox. You can't go around it, so you just go through it. This is a roadblock. It's gonna catch you down the road. Go through it. Deal with it. Comedian, writer and star of the series Catastrophe, Rob Delaney. I shouldn't feel guilty about my son's death. He died

of a brain tumor. It's part of what happens when your kid dies. Intellectually you'll understand that it's not your fault, but you'll still feel guilty. Old rock icon, Liz Farr. That personal disaster wrote Guyville. So everything comes out of a dead end. And many, many more. Join me on season three of Mini Questions on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Seven questions, limitless answers. Yeah, it's amazing to see you so, you know, having gone through so much trauma, loss, and I think people underestimate how what you said, that journey of when you're from the streets,

and then you suddenly get a million dollars through a talent that you have. And then it's like, you don't know what to do with it. You don't know how it works. You know what to do with it. It's better. But you mean that we need financial literacy. Yeah, financial literacy. One million percent. We didn't know what to do with it. Even today, even today, like now when influencers, TikTok, Instagram, like people are coming into wealth so early in their life without...

What they say, so that's a great question. I don't know if it's a question statement. It is, it is. It's a question, it's a question. I was just framing it up. Who it is, it is a question. It's a question, yeah. I was just framing it up. Who are we? This is the problem.

Right, so Fat Joe is always open for advice. Young artists, you know you do it all the time, you can still do it. You can hit me in the DM, I'll talk to you, I'll give you advice. My advice is free all the time. But who are we to tell a young guy or young girl? Who had nothing in life?

Let's take a sexy red who are who are we to tell a sexy red who came from nothing? And now she's making millions of dollars and she's enjoying it with her friends. It's just who are who are we? To tell her that she's wrong. Who are we to tell her that she's wrong? Who are we to tell her anything? She made it. It's a miracle. It's a miracle that she made it coming from where she coming from. So I can't talk down on them or tell them, y'all, don't do that or whatever.

Now if you want advice, I'll tell you what I did and I blew a lot of money. You know, it's just now in life that I'm understanding, you know, investments and taking care of my money and taking care of my family on another level. And I still have a problem with Louis Vuitton and Gucci and diamonds and, you know, I'm still attracted to the stuff, you know, but still in all, you know, I look at all these young artists, I don't, I can't tell them, you know, but still in all, you know,

I look at all these young artists, I can't tell them. You know, now if they ask me, yo, gee, what you think I should do? Then I'll sit down and be like, yo, go buy a bunch of Subways franchise, go buy some Wingstops, go buy some McDonald's, you know, something that you, because artists, the sad thing about hip hop is you could go from one day being the biggest artist in the world,

getting 250,000 to show, and four years later, you're not hot and you're getting 15,000 to show. That's a big disparity. And so I don't know why, I don't know why it's like that, why they don't value the artists where the money value stays up, but that's how it is in hip hop. That's just a reality.

And so, so many of us artists are driven off of our performance money, our show, our touring, that when something goes wrong like COVID, you in the house scared to death, because you can't go out there and make no money. So you gotta diversify. You gotta buy businesses, you gotta investments, you gotta do different things so that money

could come into all different angles. And so that's something I learned at an older age, invest in sneaker stores, invest in that, invest in this, invest in that. And so that way money comes in from all over. Yeah, I think we have to learn from that hindsight because even for me, when I started out as a creator, I could see YouTubers who...

And YouTube's the same, right? Like one year it's amazing and then the next year it's not. And I saw so many people who came before me that were paying off their parents' mortgages one year, but then the next year they didn't have money to pay their own rent because it switches up so fast. That's how it is. And you just see that happen to people overnight and it's painful because their intention was good. They were trying to take care of their family.

Of course. But now it's like long-term they've lost out. It doesn't work that way. Well, you know, we have a thing in Terris Squad. We always take care of family and always take care of mothers and dads. You know, if your mother and dad wasn't rich or didn't have to take care of you, we take care of them. And so it's a great honor to look at my brothers and know that each one of them take care of their mother, take care of their father. Because we at this age, if we 50 years old now, they're 80 years old, so these times

you got to really look out for them. And so I love a person that actually takes care of their mother, takes care of their father. Now if they're wealthy or they have money at a time, great. Nothing wrong with that. But if they ain't got it, I'm all for taking... I went through a tax problem one time. It wasn't really my fault, but I did. And the biggest thing I got scared of when they told me,

you didn't pay your mortgages, you didn't pay your car notes, you didn't this. I had an accountant. I'm sending him wire transfers, and he's robbing me. He's not paying my bills. But my biggest fear at that moment was like, oh, my God, my mother's house? We didn't pay the mortgage for my mother's house?

That would have been the worst thing that ever happened to me for somebody to show up to my mother's house and throw out my mother and father. I cared about their house, that would have been the worst thing that ever happened to me for somebody to show up to my mother's house and throw out my mother and father. I cared about their house and they live in a modest house. I care about their house more than mine. That's just me. What's that like when it feels like everyone's, like you're trying to take care of people with an accountant, friend, people stealing from you.

I mean that. Man, they stole from me a lot of times. What I realized is just not too many people can have access to money and not have the temptation of stealing. And so you learn, you know, I'm a very trusting person, you know, I'm a very trusting person. So, but you learn that these guys, they can't handle that. And so catching your best friends stealing from you, catching managers, catching accounts, we just caught an accountant now, we sued them with millions of dollars.

And so now they got to pay back, you know, through the insurance or whatever the case may be. But we went through a lawsuit, forensic account, these people, you bring them to your house like they're family, you're around their kids, like, and you know, and they them to your house like they're family. You around their kids, and they stealing your money. And you're so busy working, trying to get to money, that you ain't busy watching, oh, I got $5 deposited in the bank. I got this and this and that. So it's like, they prey on you when they figure out, oh, he ain't watching.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But everybody what comes out in the wash, what don't come out in the wash, comes out in the rinse. Yeah. Yeah. How hard is it to stay trusting and soft-hearted and a good person when these things are happening? That's just who I am.

Yeah. So you're going to carry on being that way because that's who you want to be. That's who I am. Yeah, so you're gonna carry on being that way because that's who you wanna be. That's who I am. A lot of times, you know, people done stuff to me, not just still, but just where, you know, me and my wife have discussions and she's like, y'all don't change.

You know, you are who you are, you can't let people change you. Cause a lot of times we dread things and people do horrible stuff to us and then you yourself could become that person. You know, and so we're not doing it. You know, I told you the story of I was bullied and then became the bully.

And so we don't let people affect who our true morals and our true character is. You know, it happens, hurts you, move on. Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah, what we often's true, yeah. What we often judge in a person is who we become. Because you're thinking about that quality in them so much that all of a sudden that becomes your reality.

Yeah. Because you repeat at that door. Yeah, you think like, yo, you know. Yeah. They did it to me, I'm going to do it to somebody else. Yeah. And it's just a cycle that you gotta snap yourself out of. And people, you don't think that that's cool

because you've seen somebody do that. You gotta say, this is weird. But the story of my life is all about taking the negative and turning it into a positive and stopping the years of being poor, not being successful, not going to another level of my family tree. From here on, I want to pass it down to my sons, my daughters, my grandkids, and give them that motivation to change that family tree because before me, everybody were hard workers,

but they ended up being poor, regular people. And so that's why I press on. That's why I'm in six cities in one week. That's why I'm like, it's not greed. It's just taking it to another level so that generations behind me could follow that example. I don't know if it's... I'm not telling you I got money the last generations. I'm telling you that I've given them that motivation.

But they can say, my grandfather, my great grandfather, this guy, he worked six days out the week. He didn't like to fly. He flew. He did, you know, just that. You know, to change the whole mindset of our family tree before me. Yeah, yeah.

And that's powerful and needed because I feel like if people are seeing like even you at your career at this stage, you're still working that hard. And that's what I see when I look at people in the industry that come on the show that have been famous for three decades, you know, making money for three decades and they're still working harder today. You know, there was guys like that.

What's my man, Richard Simmons, Richard Simmons. It was guys that I wish I knew their names, that they used to have something called, was it Family Squares or, back in the days, where they would take these squares, like it's like tic-tac-toe, and they'll have your celebrity that been around for 30 years. And they're, damn, that's very famous in America.

Like now we got Hip Hop Squares, but Hollywood Squares. So they would take Jay Shetty, 20 years from now, and you'll be up there answering the question of this. So they've been doing this a long time. You know, there's been celebrities that held on. You know, you'll always get a Danny DeVito, Jersey Subs commercial or something like, these guys been sticking around a while.

And so that's Fat Joe. You know, until I'm out of here, you know, I want to stick around, you know I want to bump into you in a red carpet. I want to this, you know, that's that's what I want to do Yeah, I love that I mean talking that you were talking about taking care of your parents a big part for you is also taking care of like you said future generations and I know that you're a father to a child who has Down syndrome autism and As far as I know at least at at the time you were a single parent

for a while or maybe even- Well, I'm a kid. I was a kid. He was like 19, you know? So me and his mother was together. Then we broke up and there was this one rainy day. She walked up. We had some like makeup sex. She comes back. She says she's pregnant. I tell her I don't want to be with you, you know, and she's like, no, this is my baby, this, this, that. So thank God we didn't have an abortion. But Joey's born and it's crazy, he's born in the same hospital that my sister caught the coma in, Bronx, Lebanon hospital. So if I get shot, I'm going to another hospital. I'm not going there, trust me.

And so, you know, the doctor comes and says, listen, we got bad news. I never forget that. And he sat me down at her and she was like, oh, I can't raise this baby. We gotta give him a way for adoption. And then my mother and father just jumped in right at me. They was like, oh no, this is our baby.

We're not doing that. And so we've had full custody since he was born. I gotta thank my mother and my father for pretty much raising Joey. You know, he's their kid. You know, he's my kid. You know, but he's their kid. He's my kid, but he's their kid. My father to this day sleeps next to Joey in the same bed. And now my father's older and Joey watches him.

So Joey, if my father sleeps too long, whatever, Joey's in his wheelchair, he's watching my father. When my father's outside telling jokes, he's happy that he's telling jokes. He's a very smart kid and we just say he's our biggest blessing. I feel like if I would have abandoned Joey, I would have never had the success I have. I feel like it's hard to deal with a special needs kid, but they bring so much joy to the world. And if me and you, we get sad, we get happy, we talking about depression, this guy's always happy.

Like he's in a state of happy. You know? Sure, we want to, you know, if he could have talked, if he could have walked, you know, but you know, like I tell you, part of my process of not being depressed, not being mad, not blaming God, is always saying, all right, dealing with this is what it is, we did it, and we got to look forward towards the positive. And so I never blame God. I never blame nobody. I just said, yo, this is what it is.

We love him. He's ours. We're gonna take care of him forever. We're gonna make sure he's great. He's loved. He's happy. And so that's how we deal with Joey. And another thing, I never blame God for anything.

I accept the good and the bad. My belief and my faith in God is just legendary. I believe that all our blessings come from God. That's my true belief in my heart. So just let your audience know that. Yeah, no, that's beautiful. I mean, with Joey specifically, what was the most challenging phase?

And because I know you do a lot to also empower communities, raise awareness about this because of course. Man, it's hard. And then going back to the hip hop bravado being tough. So for many years, I wouldn't let people see Joey or nothing like that because hip hop was so beef problems. I never wanted nobody to disrespect my son. And so, but you know, we always, you know, had this loving relationship.

You know, the bottom line is, you know, in life, whatever God throws at you or whatever they throw at you, you got to deal with it. You got to man up, you know, and I'm proud of the job we've done with Joey. He's just a beautiful kid. He knows he's the Don. We go to dinner with my son and my daughter. He sits at the corner of the table and looks at them like, this my little brother, this my little sister.

He knows that. So he's the biggest blessing. That's beautiful, man. It sounds like, you know, again, I'm going back to what you said at the start of the interview was that the guy who made the music, the fact Joe that made that music is very different to the Joe that I'm sitting with 2024. What are the biggest differences in what's love, lean back, like all the way up? What's the, Lean Back, All the Way Up. What's the difference between that and-

All I can tell you is that every one of those songs you described, my back was to the wall, I was fighting for my life. The only way I knew how to make it was through music. And so I channeled this energy in this music. And thank God they became anthems and hits. But Fat Joe the person has always been different. I've always been a family man. I've always been for my community.

Before we had social media, before we had, I've been raising money for people. I've been giving back to my community, computers to schools, libraries. I have a business in the Bronx now, a sneaker store called Up NYC. We have a school in the store where the kids come after school, they eat, they learn computers, they get mentored. I mean, we don't stop. Just last week we gave to Haiti, right Rich? My best friend Rich is Haitian. So the turmoil and everything that's going on in Haiti, where kids are in famine, for

some reason I feel like they don't get this awareness. I feel like they don't get this same love as anybody else. So we raised a bunch of food for Haiti and money. And so, you know, we've been doing this when the cameras is off, man. You know, I just feel so blessed that I'm able right now when I cut it with you, if I want to eat a steak or a lobster, I can eat it, whatever I want, I can get it.

I'm not feeling bad about that. I worked for it, you know, but I do believe in, yo, what about them? You know what I'm saying? What about taking care of the less fortunate? What about providing for the people? So we've been like this forever. It's just now it's social media.

Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt, and we're the hosts of Grown Up Stuff, How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts. It's a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting. We're the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts. It's a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting. Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more. We're back with season two of the podcast, which means more opportunities to glow up

and become a more responsible and better adult one life lesson at a time. And let me just tell you, this show is just as much for us as it is for you. So let's figure this stuff out together. This season we're going to talk about whether or not we're financially and emotionally ready for dog ownership. We're going to figure out the benefits of a high yield savings account. And what exactly are the duties of being a member of the wedding party? All that plus so much more.

Let's learn about all of it and then some. Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Grown Up Stuff. For all the parents out there, picture that it's bedtime. You and the kids have been busy all day. You know they're tired, but with all that anxious energy, they just won't go to sleep. This was my kids every night. But I did find that stories calmed their mind and gave them something to focus on. So six years ago, I created the kids podcast Bedtime History to help solve that problem.

Bedtime History is a series of relaxing history stories that end with an inspirational message. We have episodes about Jackie Robinson, Neil Armstrong, Maya Angelou, and Sokka Jowaya. Episodes also include topics like space exploration, engineering, the rise and fall of civilizations, and major events like the civil rights movement and the transcontinentalroad. With over 2,000 positive parent reviews, Bedtime History is one of the top education podcasts. This week join me and listen to Bedtime History every Monday and Thursday on iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, host of Womanica, a daily podcast that introduces you to the fascinating lives of women history has forgotten. This month, we're bringing you the stories of disappearing acts. There's the 17th century fraudster who convinced men she was a German princess, the 1950s folk singer who literally drove off into the sunset and was never heard from again. The First Nations activist whose kidnapping and murder ignited decades of discourse about indigenous women's disappearances.

And the young daughter of a Russian Tsar whose legendary escape led to even more intrigue and speculation. These stories make us consider what it means to disappear and why a woman might even want to make herself scarce. Listen to what Manika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, it's nice to be able to see it though, because I feel like we're talking about there are so many dark moments in your life, but even sitting with you for a few moments, I'm like, you have a light energy about you, right?

Like, as in light in the sense of- You know what's so crazy is there's this video going viral. I don't know why. Something here is going viral. I don't know what it is. You can't put a camera on Fat Joe and it just don't go viral. It's going viral.

I love it. There's no way around it. I love it. Hellenic loves the sound of that. And so I did, no, it's going. I don't know what to tell you. Something's gone, right? And so I did, no, I said, it's going. I don't know what to tell you, something's gone, right? And so I did an interview maybe a year ago, right?

And I remember I was tired and the guy came up to me, I was in Vegas and I wanted to get some sleep. I flew in, I was like, fat Joe, man, I got a podcast. I want you to do it. And somehow I allowed him in my room, dead tired, and he interviewed me. And I said, I told the story about one time when I was young, you know when I was in high school,

I robbed my whole gym class. So I stuck up the gym class. It's like 70 students. He says, without a gun, I said, nah, without a gun, you know, I robbed everybody. In fact, the guys I robbed helped me carry the jackets and the walk-ins and stuff outside the school. I couldn't even carry, it was 70, you know.

But it was power tripping. It was like, see if I could do it. But in any case, I told this story, right? And now all of a sudden, I don't know, yesterday and today, it's been viral mania. And everybody's like, oh, this guy's a liar. Like, I can't believe, like, you know, it's that type of thing. But I looked at it oh, this guy's a liar. Like, I can't believe, like, you know, it's that type of thing.

But I looked at it today, this morning, when I got in the car, and I said, man, this is crazy. You believe this guy who tells this story raises food and money for Haiti just last weekend and gives back to the community and this and that. It's just such a contradiction. And so, Puerto Rico, we send a million pounds of women's hygiene, food, water, when they had the hurricane. It was four airplanes we

sent over there. Just last year, some Muslims from the Bronx, 17 of them died in a fire. We raised over $2 million for them. And so we just constantly, but you know me, it's like to the point out there, be careful what you wish for, because soon as something happened, they knocking on that door. And they're like, yo Joe. And I'm like, all right, I'm with you guys. What we doing, man? How we raising the money? How we gonna make this happen? But I love that.

I tell you a story. One day I'm driving by myself and I'm in the Rolls Royce and I gotta get gas and I pull over in the Bronx. That's where I'm from. You let me tell it, I'm the king of the Bronx. And so I go to the Bronx, I's where I'm from. You let me tell it, I'm the king of the Bronx. And so I go to the Bronx, I go to the gas station, I go in the gas station to get me a water when I'm coming out, it's a homeless guy there.

Now this guy ain't homeless by choice, he ain't one of these hobos, he's homeless. You know, all you want, he's a real, I'm at which end, right? And so he comes up, he's like, fat Joe. And I know, Witson, right? And so he comes up, he said, fat Joe. And I said, could we curse on this? Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. So he says, fat Joe, and you fly mother, you,

you fly mother, right? He's dead homeless, right? He says, I don't want no money. I don't want no money. So I'm like, yo, what's up? He's like, I just want you to know a homeless man is the closest to the street. We know what you do out here for us. We know how you take care of us.

I got so emotional that day driving home. I was like, but that's what it's about. When you got a homeless dude talking about, yo, I don't want no money, but I know what you do for us. I know how you take care of us. I'm like, wow. That's what it's all about. You know what I'm saying?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's, I think doing good in silence is what real doing good is. Because then you're really doing it for the people. Then you're really doing it for the people, then you're really doing it for the people that you're serving. I have a lot of friends, Muslim friends, and I'm Christian, right? But a lot of my best friends are Muslims and they're very successful, but they have big hearts and they give back so much, and

they never brag. They never say, I gave this, I never gave that, I never gave this. You know, a whole different culture. And so, you know, I've seen them the way they move. You know, I love how they move with how they give back to their community. You know, and they're not trying to shame their community by giving back. They just, you know, embrace them, give it, let's move on. Just thank God that we can give back.

That's the whole thing. Yeah. You know, you know, you got to thank God that he gave you an opportunity to give back. And I believe, you know, I went to a funeral one time and, you know, it hit me. Well I knew this before that, but it was Reverend Al Sharpton. He was at a funeral and he said, you know when you die, nobody cares what car you drive, nobody cares what clothes you had, nobody cares what this, what they want to know is what did you do for the people?

And it resonated with me so much because it's like, what are you doing for the people? You know, we happy for you, you're successful, you're living a great life, you just, but what did you do? How did you come back and give to the? Community, how did you come and change lives? How did you mentor people? How did you put people? Give them jobs so that you know in my store both two of my three stores

I own two two stores two of my stores that manages the single parent mothers. One of them just bought her first house. She called me one day, I get it, Joe, man. I'm so happy. I bought my first house. I know what you mean now, Joe. When you like, yo, we're doing this so you can change your life. These impactful stories, they make the legacy. They make everything. And that's how I look at it.

Yeah. Do you think hip-hop's changing slightly when you look at like J. Cole apologizing after, you know, he got involved in the beef and then he stepped back and he actually said, Oh, you know what, I was being an old version of me. That's not me anymore. I don't know if you saw that video. I love, well me, you know, the biggest thing is just yesterday, you know, I had one of the biggest, most dangerous rap beats with 50 Cent. I was sitting next to him in the game yesterday. Having the best time in the world. We're brothers. Um, I get that. But when you called out in hip hop, you got to respond.

And so I'm a big fan of J. Cole, but it started from that. So I see he probably saw that it could get real messy and real ugly. And so he said, yo, you know what, this ain't me. I don't want no parts of it. But he definitely got a stripe off his, you know, whatever he's a sergeant or whatever he is. The corporal, they took a stripe off for that because in hip hop, they call you out, you come out. That's just what it is.

That's the sport. That's the sport. You got to come out. And a guy like him, he was a king. Yeah, he's so talented. He's so talented. He's a king. So it was like, wow, Cole, you did that? But I get it. I get all scenarios. He was mature enough to think past the lyrical beef and say, yo, this might turn physical. Yeah, and also it felt like he was kinda like, that's just not the energy he wants to play in anymore.

That's just not- I'm not mad at him. Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying from a real hip hop artist, I've been called out and I gotta step up even if I think the artist is a million times better than me. You know, it's crazy because I remember one time a funny battle was Everlast. You remember, I jump around, him and Eminem.

Eminem, I think, called him out, but he came out. Like, Everlast said his rhyme, it was incredible. And he moved. You know, you he came out. Like Everlast said his rhyme, it was incredible. And he moved, you know, you gotta come out. You know, hip hop, you talking all this, somebody calls you out, you gotta step out. Yeah, yeah. Okay, interesting. So the sport is the sport.

I love J. Cole. I'm a huge fan of him. I get it from a mature standpoint, but also, you know, hip hop, you gotta bring the sword out when it's time. That's what it's about. Yeah. Well, we were saying earlier that you were the, we were in the JLo movie together, you play this prominent role of being a therapist.

You in the movie too. Yeah, I'm in the movie too. I'm a, I play, what am I? I forgot, what is it? What is it? I got the big horn. A guard or something. Yeah, I forgot which one. I forget which astrological sign am I? I forgot. I'm in the big Aries, maybe. Anyway, yeah, I'm one of the astrological signs. And you played the therapist, but it sounds like you've been on,

would you say you've been on some more of a spiritual journey, a healing journey across your life? My whole life. God has had his hand on me. I've been shot at maybe 30, 40 times. There's times I deserved it. There's times I seen the bullet go like this and I knew God was there. And so that's why you say, Joe, why you help the people? I mean, Jesus, man, this guy saved my life so many times, like stuff that I was supposed to go down for and I never did. And so I'm like, wow, I'm just so grateful to God that I got to help the people. I got to spread the message. I got to say I'm faithful to Jesus Christ. That's my God, my Lord and Savior.

So my whole life is a spiritual journey. And just me being a leader in my community, you know how many people's lives I saved? You know how many killers came to me and was like, Joe, could I talk to you? And I'm like, yeah, homeboy diss me, I'm gonna kill him. And I sat with them and literally, I'll tell you, I don't drink, sat with them all night

and drank Hennessy with them to convince them not to kill that guy. And that guy never knew that I'm the guy who convinced this guy not to kill that guy. I don't even like that guy. But I don't want my friend to go to jail. So I'm like, yo, bro, here you go. Nah, that ain't it. Don't worry, gotta deal with that guy.

This is usually the... I'm serious. You know what I mean? It's a different world. I've serious. You know what I mean? Times I've been a therapist my whole life. Talking people off the edge. I'm telling you, man. Like, yo, you know, it's like, forget about it.

I got a friend now, he's fighting cancer. Shout out Pretty Lou. It came back and went away, it came back. Now he just got the thing, thing, thing. And then, you know, I gotta go in there. You know, now I gotta go to the, he says, you're on the list. Beside my wife, you're the only person

in the world on the list. He got hundreds of friends, but I'm the one on the list. I'm the guy that gotta go in there and pray with Pretty Lou and see him fighting the cancer and this. And so it's tough for me. People don't really realize, in all one day's work, I'll come do this.

I'll go to an old lady I know's funeral after, pay for the funeral, then go and make a song later. And like, you know, my life is crazy. So it's almost like I'm a hip hop evangelist at all times though. This is every single day, you know what I mean? Where I can't just be Fat Joe the rapper, I got to go and heal the people in a strange

way. And you got a new business venture too, right? Like that's part of- Why fight the time when you can rewind the time? That's a great picture of you. Now listen, J.Sep James, let me tell you something. You don't need it now, but one day you might need it. I'm going to be very happy about it.

And if your wife tells you she loves the salt and pepper, she's lying. You got to stay in the game. Guys, why fight the time when you can rewind the time? It's Rewinded. It's the number one product. We have it in Sally's Beauty. It's the number one product. We have it in Sally's Beauty. It's the number one product, man or female. And so we got rid of the stigma. We got Travis Kelce on the box. We got Tyson Beckford, one of the biggest supermodels in the world. We

got DJ Khaled. I mean, John Carlo, Novella, famous guy. And so, you know, I've been, I love Famous Guy. And so, you know, I've been... The one thing you can bully me or clown me for is I hate white hair. And so since I was 27, I was getting white hair, and I've been using all these other products. Some of them will burn my skin. Some of them, it ain't true to color. If I get a brown, it'll look purple.

You know, they clown me on Twitter. Joe got the shoe polish on again. So I wanted to be a creative product. Alone with my sister, Carolyn Aronson and Jeff Aronson, they own It's a Tense. They own Women's Hair products. This is a billion dollar company. So we're best friends.

We've been on vacation with each other 15, 16 years. My wife and her are best friends. And I was like, yo,ala, let's make a product. And it's moving, it's gone. It's messed up, man. I think in another year it'll be everywhere, you know? Yeah, no one wants to get bullied for having purple hair or like some orange color.

We gotta get rid of the stigma. Even me, when I used to go in there, I used to sneak in there almost like I was buying my wife some, when your wife tells you to buy her some tampons, that's like recon, bro. You diving through the aisles, you rolling on the floor, you don't want nobody to see you. You go up to the counter, CVS, you like,

yeah, get me out of here. It's the same thing with the hair coloring, with men's hair coloring. Nobody wants to know. And, but we getting rid of the stigma of it because men were really ashamed to say they were doing it. But I had some artists I stepped to to get on the box and they were like, yeah, I don't do that.

I'm like, bro, like you fully rewind. Like, you gotta be kidding me, bro. You don't use the product. Like, you know, you 50 something, your lines are like this, like you're broke. You can tell. One million percent. Yeah, you can tell, your lines are like this, like your bro, alright. You can tell. One million percent. Yeah, you can tell.

I'm like a detective. One thing I could tell is, not in a terrible way, you do what you want, it ain't my fault, but I could tell Botox, and I could tell men's hair coloring. I just don't know why, I could just tell. I'm like, alright, you know what I'm saying? And let's keep it real.

If you 60 years old looking 30, you're doing something. Like, you know, it is what it is. Smokey Robinson, the living legend, the icon, he look 23 still. You know, I mean, I'm not disrespecting him. I'm saying, you know, that's what he feels. And you know, he wants to look young till he dies. I respect that, I ain't got no problem with that.

Yeah, for you as well, I mean, you went on your whole weight loss journey. Yeah, absolutely. I'd be dead by now. What was that? Why did that become so? The first thing was Big Pun died, right from a heart attack, 20 something.

You know, only people I knew that got, that died were like murdered. And you know, being 27 and dying because of your weight, that was like half the journey, because I was 480 pounds at one time. That was half of it. Then I had another friend who was another guy, 20 something years old. He passed away of a heart attack.

I went to the funeral, He had a daughter like me. He was funnier than me. And when I sat there, it was almost like an episode of Ebenezer Scrooge, where he takes you back to look at your life. So I looked at it. I was like, oh, this is me next. So I had no choice but to, you know, work out, eat right, stay off the carbs. You know, you know, I went through all that.

How did you set all those habits up? Because those are hard things. Like people struggle. Like this is a struggle. You gotta live. It was just pure motivation from that. Yeah, you wanna live. People tell me all the time, you're not so fat, Joe.

I just say, yo, I just wanna live. And so this world is so beautiful that I just wanna live. And every day I wake up, I call some of my friends, I'm like, you believe we got another day? You believe we got another day? And so I just want to live. So health is wealth.

And you could be, I got a friend, he caught a terrible infection, right? This guy's a billionaire. He got a boat, he caught a terrible infection, right? This guy's a billionaire. He got a boat bigger than this building. He got everything he want, but we thought he was dying for like a year and a half. They couldn't find this infection. He got skin, he was IVs on him, this and this and that.

And so thank God he snapped back and they found it, what it was. But I mean, that's the true meaning of it. Health is wealth. If you ain't got your health health and you got all the money in the world You can smile at it all you want, but if you ain't got your health, you know, you ain't got nothing Yeah, how long did it take you? Like what was that process? Yes, yes, I used to at one time when I was really on I used to work out maybe three times a day I used to, at one time when I was really on it, I used to work out maybe three times a day. Three times a day?

Three times a day. I was addicted. And if I flew to Vegas to do a show, I'd go straight in the gym. I wouldn't need a cracker. There was that one time I wouldn't need a cracker. I wouldn't need a, I was just like, you know, and every day with a trainer, my man, his name was the Mind Muscle Connection.

He'd be like, buying muscle connection. And he would come and do all that stuff, pushing the 18 wheeler tire in the middle of 90 degree weather box, you know, I did it all. You know, and then eventually you learn how to eat. Because at the end of the day, the carbs is killing us. So it's bread when you eat it. So you take a salty pretzel, it turns into sugar. Rice turns into sugar. Pasta turns into sugar. All these things you don't know.

I've met people who say, yo, I'm diabetic. And they like, I don't even eat sweets. But they don't realize that these carbs they're eating is actually going in your body as sugar. And so I had to teach myself how to eat. You know, now, every time I eat, I eat defensively. If I eat bad, it's because I really wanna eat bad. But other than that, I'm defense.

So I'm like, if I get a rice and chicken. So yesterday I bought, it was kind of whack too, a yellow rice with lobster, right? And then I brought it to my house. I ate the lobster and might've touched the rice, like tip, tip, the whole thing in the garbage. You know, if I eat sushi, the least rice in the world, don't try to bring the rice. Everything I'm eating is defense.

Everything is defense. Everything is like, yo, try to stay away from the carb. Try to stay away from the carb. Get the chicken with the salad. It's an amazing transformation. It's like the way you brush your teeth, hopefully everybody here brushes their teeth. Twice a day.

As soon as you wake up, twice a day. As soon as you wake up, you got to brush your teeth. Hopefully everybody here brushes their teeth. Twice a day. As soon as you wake up, twice a day. As soon as you wake up, you gotta brush your teeth. That's number one. And so that's how I eat. Now I eat like, even if I wouldn't got a sandwich right now, somehow I would eat one part of the bread and the three parts of the bread is still there, but I ate the meat with the,

that's how we do, right, Rich? That's how we do all the time. You gotta eat defensively. It's an amazing transformation, man. Thank you, brother. It's amazing. It's inspiring for others as well, as you're making it possible.

I still feel like me. So even though I slimmed up, I still feel like the same person. So when people tell me all the time, yo, Joe, I'm like, what they talking about? Like, I'm still, what's that movie? Hello, Shall? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I'm shallow, what are they talking about? Like, I'm still, what's that movie? Hello, Shall? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, I'm shallow how, man. I look in the mirror, I'm still Fat Joe. I'm like, yo, this day, they be like, yo, you lost weight, not so fat, Joe. I'm like, yo, what's these guys talking about? I'm shallow how, you know? Yeah, it's crazy. It's great.

Joe, it's been such a joy talking to you, man. Thank you so much, brother. Thank you for your time, your energy. We end every episode with a final five. These have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum. As a poet and a rapper, I'm sure this is very doable. But Fat Joe, these are your fast final five. So question one is, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received? Don't stop, keep going.

And that's from DJ Khaled. heard or received? Don't stop, keep going. And that's from DJ Khaled. Nice. Don't stop, keep going. They want you to stop. They want you to stop. He's a guy, I tell him, and you just can't impress Khaled. So I tell him, yo, I just got a TV show.

Don't stop, keep going. Nice. Keep going. Nice. So he keeps me motivated. I like that. Okay, second question. What's the worst advice you've ever heard or received?

I would say the worst advice I ever received was drugs are good. Yo, these drugs are good. Nah. Not worth it. I'm good. Question number three. If they make a movie about your life, who's going to play you? It's going to be a young, handsome, Spanish, Latino guy for sure.

And I'm going to pick him out. I'm going to make sure this guy is fly as hell. But I don't believe we have one out there yet. I don't believe the guy who plays Fat Joe is a star yet. It'll be somebody we'll host, do a casting. They're not born yet. They're born. But we don't know them yet. They're walking around Brooklyn. They're walking around LA. They're walking around Chicago. Inspiring artists, but they haven't been on

TV or movies yet. I've never seen a guy on TV and say, oh, this fat Joe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, question number four. When you were referring to movies that it feels like your life has been sometimes, what's a movie that's already out there that you think is the best depiction of what it was like? I'm a movie guy. Yeah, I'm a movie guy too.

That's what I'm asking. I love movies. Bronx Tale? Godfather. Godfather, okay. Go straight there. And right now I'm at that Michael Coleon phase. You know what I'm saying? I got to move in silence now. This is tricky out here.

I got to be Michael right now. It's so crazy. Just last week I was thinking to myself, I said, all right, now this is Michael Coleon time. It's just so wicked out there. You got to think like Michael. You know what I mean? So I would say Godfather.

But Bronchtale is definitely one of my favorite movies of all time. I learned a lot from Bronchtale. You know, I got shot one time. I know we can't go into that now. But the guy owed me $10 and I kept harassing him. And the guy was so scared of me that he came back and shot me out of fear. So you seen the movie Bronx Tale when Collodio kept chasing the guy that owed him $2. And Sonny the Don told him, yo, you got rid of him for $2.

I should have learned that in the Bronx Tale. So I love movies because I always learned so much from movies. Yeah, nice. And fifth and final question, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? One law that everybody else, it would be give back to the less fortunate. I got friends that are billionaires. I got a friend.

That's a great one. I can't tell you who he is. He's bigger than everything, bigger than rap and everything. This guy's big. His backyard is the beach. He has maybe a $200 million house and the backyard is the beach. Guy published over 60 books.

You read his books. And he told me, you know, he looked at me and he said, man, you too generous, man. Like, what? Says the guy with a billion dollars. He's like, he says, I'm not like you. I'm not as good as you. I see how you always give him back and all that. He says, I'm not. He's like, nah, I don't give back. He says, you know what? When I died, my grandchildren, I got them all college, that's it. They're not getting my money. You know.

I'm like, wow. You know, so I would tell everybody to give back. Have a kind heart. Give back to the less fortunate. If you ain't got nothing to give back, give back your time. Whatever you can do for your community, you need to do that, man. And try to mentor the youth. Always try to tell them the right thing. I've been seeing you a lot in Washington, D.C., lately, as well.

So tell us about what's going on there. You know, just fighting health price transparency. You know, I teamed up with an organization, Power to the Patients. One of my friends is the founder, Kevin Moore. He's been there. He's been my friend for over 20 years. So he told me what's going on in America and how many people. It's over 100 million Americans in debt due to health pricing. It's 100 million. It ain't but 300 million, right? So that's one in three. And people losing their families, you know, when you go to the hospital,

you sign over a waiver that says if you can't pay, they could take your property. And you know, I read up on this Amish family where they had a granddaughter and she needed a kidney and they were afraid to take her to the hospital and sign the papers because they were afraid of losing the farm to get her a kidney. And you know, people are scared to go to the doctor

because of the price. So you see, you walk around New York, you see people limping, people just getting worse and worse because they, what do you do? You send your kid to college or you fix your leg. Or you know, and this is going on like crazy and you know, there's actually a law out there that says you gotta enforce and you gotta tell people

the price when they're going there and for some reason they're not enforcing this. And so we're bringing awareness, so I've been going to Hollywood, yeah, that's what, Washington is sorta like Hollywood, right? So I've been going to Hollywood. Yeah, that's what Washington is sort of like Hollywood, right? So I've been going to Washington dealing with all the politicians trying to get a law passed and Senator Braun and Bernie Sanders came up with a law

which finally says you have to tell us the prices, not estimates, estimates of BS. We wanna know what it is. And you know, what does that do for you? It creates competition. Say I gotta go somewhere, I gotta get an MRI. I pull up my three favorite hospitals. One of them is, believe it or not,

one of them would be 1,200. One of them would be 28,000. One of them would be 7,800. Of course I'm going with the 1,200, but it makes competition. Now they can charge you whatever they want. So shout out the powers to the patients and all the politicians, let's make this happen.

Yeah, that's needed. I mean, I moved from London to the US eight years ago, and in London we have the National Health Service, the NHS, which is available for everyone for free. But then, and then you have private healthcare if you want like, you know, a particular service level of service. You want a suite looking at Big Ben. Totally, yeah.

That cost you more. But that's the funny thing, the private healthcare in England is actually private in the sense of it's an elevated experience. Whereas private healthcare here is like, even when I moved in, I was playing like five, 10,000 a year. Oh man. You're like, it doesn't. And you don't even get nothing.

Yeah, you don't get anything. Every time I go for a prescription, it's like I'm still paying the same thing. Yeah, I know, yeah. I get it. It's all a gimmick. It's amazing. It's all a gimmick, man.

And so we bringing awareness to it. It's shining a light on it. That's brilliant, man. No, that's really important. Yeah, I feel that. Very. We need to find a way to, I can't, yeah, it's so sad to see how many people are on

the streets or struggling because they can't afford their medical. It's a fact. Yeah, it's painful. Thank you for doing that. That's amazing. How can people support, help? How can they learn actually? How can people learn?

You can follow Power to the Patients. We're always informing on Instagram, on social media. And we out there, man. We out there. We're in their faces. We're going to get the job done and help the people. This is another way of you know helping the people, using my voice. You know I used to say I'm a voice for the voiceless but now I say I'm a voice for those unheard. Meaning there's people they got a

voice. They're shouting but you can't hear them. It's just you can't hear them. Well said. Thank you so much man. Appreciate you. So love. Thank you so much. We did it baby. We did it finally. Finally. It's in the books.

It's in the books. If this is the year that you're trying to get creative, you're trying to build more, I need you to listen to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break into your most creative self, how to use unconventional methods that lead to success, and the secret to genuinely loving what you do. If you're trying to find your passion and your lane, Rick Rubin's episode is the one for you. Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value. Like, as an artist, if you like it, that's all of the value.

That's the success comes when you say, I like this enough for other people to see value. That's the success comes when you say, I like this enough for other people to see it. Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, host of Womanica, a daily podcast that introduces you to the fascinating lives of women history has forgotten. We've always been intrigued by stories of disappearances,

whether it's a fraudster from the 17th century who kept evading the authorities or a novelist who taunted the Nazis and faked her own death. We all want to know. What happened next? To find out, listen to a manica on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Black Effect presents Family Therapy, and I'm your host, Elia Konnick. Jay is the woman in this dynamic who is currently co-parenting two young boys with her former partner, David. David, he is a leader. He just don't wanna leave me. Well, how do you lead a woman? How do you lead in a relationship?

Like, what's the blue part? David, you just asked the most important question. Listen to Family Therapy on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Guess what, Will? What's up, Mango? I've been trying to write a promo

for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we've done over 250 episodes, we don't really talk about murders or cults. I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy. We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money? And then of course, can you game a dog show? So what you're saying is everyone should be listening. Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.