Fat Joe
I was a diabetic for 16 years, since I was 14. Being that I lost weight, no more diabetes. You don't have to lose your eyesight, cut off your toes, have a stroke, get kidney failure. You just have to lose weight - you know - for most of the diabetes.Collection: Failure
Food is like a legal drug. You can take 50 cents and walk into the store and buy a Twinkie and get high. And it's killing people.Collection: Legal
To be slandered the way I get slandered is really uncalled for, but life goes on.
My parents are overweight, and I think the biggest problem we have in America is a lack of education. The place to start is with parents and teaching them to cook healthier.
DJ Premier, this guy is like a god, a walking god. Guru, he put it down legendary.
The biggest killer of people is food.
I started out in the Apollo Theater. That's where I got my start. I won Amateur Night four weeks in a row.
Mister Cee's a legend, man.
Puerto Rico is a powerful island.
I love to eat. If I could eat everything in the world and still be healthy or wouldn't catch a heart attack or stroke, I'd eat everything. I just can't. So I got to watch my health and take care of my family.
Envision what the end result is supposed to be... what do you want to be when you grow up? Where do you see yourself? Once we identify what the painting on the wall is, it is so much easier to bring in the right colors, canvas and brushes to paint that picture.
As long as you get your education and you stay focused, you can do anything.
What I can tell you is that for Puerto Rico being such a small island, it has culturally impacted the entire world.
The 'hood don't really wanna hear it, but you need brown rice, you need wheat bread, stuff like that.
I come from nothing, and growing up, I really didn't have many people to inspire me, at least no good people to inspire me.
When I came up in hip hop, there was no such thing as a Puerto Rican rapper doing hip hop for many mainstream people, so I was the ship, the captain, and the crew.
I have been Fat Joe since I was a kid. It's always been my name and always will be.
I think I'll die underrated, but it's alright, man.
We go after legacies because we just know that, sooner or later, people will understand what we bring to this culture and bring to the game.
All I know is stars and hits, you know what I mean? I don't just sign a guy because he has a hot record. I sign a guy because he's a star. He's a pillar of the community.
Everything has to evolve. Music has to go somewhere. That's what keeps it fresh.
To have so many years in the rap industry and so many number one songs, and sold so many millions of records, introduced the world to people like Cool & Dre, DJ Khaled, Pitbull, Rick Ross, Trick Daddy, Remy Ma, Big Pun, Rico Love... I could go on and on. Having been able to influence the rap game for so long is very important to me.
As a little kid, I watched hip hop get created. So it's an honour for me to represent the Bronx, the motherland of hip hop.
Man I got so many regrets. The biggest is that Eminem gave me so many demos - six different times he approached me, and I didn't sign him. Shame on me.
Never get involved with a business that you can't really be hands-on - that if your employees quit, you can't run yourself. If I can't cut hair, why open a barbershop?
The hip hop industry is most likely owned by gays. I happen to think there's a gay mafia in hip hop. Not rappers - the editorial presidents of magazines, the PDs at radio stations, the people who give you awards at award shows.
Before I was rapping, I was always around the rap game, even though I was in the streets. I would be at all the parties and all the events, and I was pretty hard to miss. I was one of the few Spanish cats sitting there with jewelry on, Dapper Dan suits. It was pretty hard to miss me.
When I first started, I thought I was wack. Lyrically, I thought I was wack. The thing I had over everybody was that I was the realest rapper.
If you really analyze my music, there is a lot of violence in my music because the Bronx, at the era and time I was coming up, was almost equivalent to how a 'Braveheart' or 'Gladiator' movie would be.
Fat Joe ain't out here trying to battle-rap everybody in the world. That's not what I'm about.
See, me, I don't run away. During my successes or my failures, I put it on me.
I never lose touch. If you let me tell it, I'll tell you I never got my just due and my respect for being one of the greats in hip-hop, and because of that, the fire never burned out. There's more and more of a need for me to succeed or take the legacy a step further, and that's what it is.
Pun was just a natural-born genius with music, and he basically taught me so many tricks on how to make better music, even though I was the one that discovered him. He was so far advanced than me; he taught me a lot.
Chances are if I am the one to cosign people, they will become a big part of the industry.
The biggest misconception in the hip-hop industry is that people are only focused on the money. We should just be happy for everybody that is working in the hip-hop culture.
Once you achieve a level of success... you learn, something tells you, 'Man this ain't even for you.' You got to share with the people. You got to inspire the people.
I'm known to be hands on 100%. I don't know any other way to be than a leader by example.
Talking to people from the heart matters, and it's unfortunately something brands have forgotten about. Celebrity endorsement deals try to gain recognition for brands, but at their core, what matters is if the celebrity truly backs the brand.
If you gay, you gay. Like, that's your preference, you know?
Mike Bibby's my brother.
There's millions of gay people in the world. In 2011, you've got to hide that you're gay? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, be real.
I ain't here to tell nobody what's right or what's wrong.
Allen Iverson was the Tupac of basketball; he was a true revolutionary.
I don't rate Heat fans like I rate Knicks fans. We are true basketball fans. No matter what - rain, sleet or snow, or even if we don't make it to the playoffs for 10 years - the Garden stands are still full.
J. R. Smith's incredible, man, just incredible off the bench.
I would love to coach. I'm not saying I'm qualified to do it in the N.B.A., but I would love to try.
I've failed once or twice real big, independent.
MTV shows me love.
We're in the same ghettos, same inner cities, and we're suffering from the same problems. Every problem the blacks have, the Latinos have.
There's two systems of health care: the one for the rich that's really good, then there's the one for the inner city, where they leave ladies in the emergency room unattended for 24 hours until they drop dead.