S. Samuel
New York rap veteran Fat Joe has reason to lean back and smile these days in light of getting inducted into the Bronx Walk of Fame, however, a New York Daily News writer is lashing out at the Terror Squad leader.
Daily News writer Patrice O’Shaughnessy publicly put Joey Crack on blast in a new column this week, attacking Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.‘s decision.
“I thought maybe Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. had temporarily lost his mind,” she wrote May 17th. “He announced that this weekend, he will induct rapper Fat Joe into the Bronx Walk of Fame, for being “an outstanding citizen and a role model to countless Bronxites. He has positively represented the Bronx and throughout his music career has helped keep the Bronx on the ‘musical map,’ becoming one of our very own homegrown success stories.” I guess one can get beyond Fat Joe’s brushes with the law, and even his gangsta lyrics idolizing guns and demeaning women; most people are kind of inured to that stuff now.” (New York Daily News)
O’Shaughnessy used the rap veteran’s music catalogue against him, pointing out specific tales and threats of violence.
Fat Joe — aka Joseph Cartagena of the Forest Houses — sang a downright horrifying song on his 2008 album, “Elephant in the Room,” called “K.A.R.,” which stands for Kill All Rats. The chorus is “How do we get rid of rats, in the ghetto/We kill ’em” Other lines are: “Trinity’s the avenue, anybody yappin’ well, they got to go.” This Sunday, Cartagena and the other Bronx Walk of Fame inductees–model/actor Tyson Beckford, jazz musician Valerie Capers and cinematographer Sol Negrin–will take their rightful place on the Grand Concourse when Diaz unveils street signs bearing their names. If Fat Joe wants to return the honor, he’ll help his home borough through his rhymes. He’ll make it cool to stop the killing. And then Diaz can put up a larger-than-life statue of him. (New York Daily News)
Despite her stance on his music, Joe has publicly spoken out against gun violence in the past.
Rapper Jim Jones will join hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons to pound the streets of New York later in August 2010 as part of an anti-violence rally. Big Apple natives Jones and Simmons will be joined by Fat Joe, Maino, and Juelz Santana on the Tsunami of Peace: Ride, Walk & Rally Against Violence protest against the rise of gun crime in some of the city’s toughest areas. (Ace Showbiz)
Outside of music and local rallies, Joe used a majority of 2011 promoting his massive weight loss campaign.
“I was talking to my trainer yesterday and he asked me, ‘When was the last time you were slim?’ I swear to God I think when I was a month or two months old. That was it, I was Fat Joe ever since. — [I thought] ‘I’m rich now. I can go to Mr. Chow’s and eat all the steak and lobster I want.’ … I think I weighed about 450, 460 at my heaviest. I always took pride in being fat. That’s why my name is Fat Joe. And I always represented for the big people. But I realized at a certain point all my big people were dying — my best, best, best, best friends don’t even know this but I was diabetic for 16 years — since I was 14. And being that I lost weight [I have] no more diabetes.” (CNN)
