June 13, 2023 • 47 mins
When Fat Joe joined me on That Moment with Daymond John, he chose to be as vulnerable as anyone can be and share the experiences of losing his sister, best friend, and grandfather all within a short window, and how that grief ultimately shaped his life. Mixed in with stories about his mother and the way she raised him to be above all a supporter of his community, this was an incredible discussion that so many can relate to.
The story of how, after 2 years, a chance encounter with strangers was what it took to snap Fat Joe out of his state of grieving is the type that really embodies being at the right place, at the right time, and it’s only because of his loss that he was even at this place to begin with! I won’t spoil it here, but Fat Joe was able to turn criticism into the fuel he needed to drive him back on top.
One of the crazier moments he reflected on was when all of NYC shoe stores were looted except two of them - and he owned both. As you’ll hear in the episode, it’s really a testament to how much the community valued the respect that he continued to show them even after he made it big.
You’ll also appreciate learning how Fat Joe developed a healthy sense of paranoia and how this translates into his relationships - I definitely walked away with a new perspective on how to balance optimism and vulnerability with protecting yourself and your brand. Tune in to this all new episode now of That Moment with Daymond John!
Host: Daymond John
Producers: Beau Dozier & Shanelle Collins; Ted Kingsbery, Chauncey Bell, & Taryn Loftus
For more info on how to transform your life and business to the next level, check out DaymondJohn.com and @thesharkdaymond on all platforms!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I have a hunter right now speaking to somebody I
have a massive amount of respect for. And you know,
as we talk about that moment, there's a lot of
moments that we're gonna go reflect on, and honestly, I'm
going to ask them about some stuff that I've really
never heard before publicly, maybe because there's a lot of
information out there, or maybe it's something that I kind
of heart briefly and I didn't want to face or
(00:35):
or work with because I know that this man has
been through a lot. But one of those moments for me,
and I've shared it with Joe many times, is as
a struggling kid, we had a couple of hats. I
took them over to a store and Joe was literally
one of the first stores in the world that would
carry my stuff. And I remember I was in love
at the time. I was still working in red lops.
I was in love with my first wife, and it
(00:58):
was this moment where I been dating before whatever, but
I was thinking about shoes just on my I was
whipped baseball. I was just open. I drop out the
hats of the store and there is skinny looking guy
and that's kind of muscular. Later on, his name would
be big pun. He was guy at the front door
at the store. I dropped to the hats. Joe comes
with a baseball glove. I don't remember what year it was,
(01:22):
but Joe was a star already as far as I
was concerned. And he say, hey, man, once you drive
me down a block to go play some baseball, drop
with something, some stuff like that. And I'm like, man,
I gotta I got a call. I got three he
got three wheels on it. Listen, it's smoking. But this
dude is supposed to be back Joe. This guy's probably
has limbous E's. That's time limous e. He dropped to
(01:42):
the car and I'm driving with him, and he's like, oh, man,
look at that girl. Don't look at that girl. Don't
look that girl. And I'm like, and I'm just driving
because I'm whipped right. This is this is this is
when I'm like, yo, I'm gonna marry this Dominican girl
that I know any red mass And then he stopped, saying,
oh man, you okay. I said, what was up? He said,
(02:05):
you ain't even looking any place that I'm talking about.
And I'm not sure if he was saying, hey, am
I I don't know, I don't find girls attractive or
am I so focused I can't even look around, But
he like kind of played me in the car. But
then it was that moment that I went home and
I said, I'm going to marry this woman. I think
Joe brought it to my attention in a very Joe
(02:29):
way that you're focused, because all I was doing was
thinking about that woman. So thank you Joe for being
here with me.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Brother, my brother, Thank you man.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
You know Tim flies man, and I'm proud of you
and everything you've done and everything you've accomplished and everything
you've done to accomplish. So you know that's you know,
I'm glad to enjoy this journey of life with you. You
know what I'm saying as brothers and friends and comrades.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, it has been we don't see each other as
much as we would like to, and sometimes we were passing.
But you know, we're going to get right into this
because we can talk three hours and maybe we'll do
one hour here and one hour on your joint, one
hour and somebody else has joined about our history of
First of all, you being one of the most solid
dudes in the industry, you never acting fun. You've given
me breaks and various other ways. Hopefully I've supported you.
(03:21):
But we're going to go into something man. And as
we talk about that moment, you know, people know the
public Joe, they know the laughter, the love, the breaking
it down, the vulnerability Joe. But I just saw this
and I didn't know that there was a time of
your life where you lost And we've all lost a
lot of people, but the was a time in your
(03:41):
life where you lost two very very special people. One
publicly we know who was Big Pung God God us dead,
and you lost your sister. Now can you tell us,
because this is the first time I'm hearing and maybe
you've talked about publicly what happened and how did you lose?
Was your sister?
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Well, it was actually big Prime, my sister and my
grandfather in like a whole, like a week or two,
and so it was so overwhelming. My sister was giving
birth and she was perfectly healthy, but she was going
through a lot of pain. And in the South Bronx
(04:23):
they used a lot of students and not you know,
real doctors to deliver these babies. And so they gave
an epidoro, which is supposed to number her from the
waist down and then numbered the place up, and so
a lack of oxygen to the brain. She got into coma.
(04:47):
Then they put it in an assistant living. So it
was really really hard going to see my sister for
eight months. She was in a state like she was
a vegetable. Seeing my mother go through the pants and
my father go through the pain, and then at the
same time, out of nowhere, just losing Big Pond. Big
(05:08):
Pom was my best friend. He meant so much to us,
not just as a brother, but as an icon for
the hip hop community, and so that you know, it's
one thing when you're going through some depression of something,
you going through it under the radar. It's another thing
(05:29):
when people think they're helping you stop at the light,
B B beep, sorry for your brother.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
You know, you go eat a meal.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Sorry about your brother. Such.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
So there was no way to escape.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
That pain.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Same thing with my grandfather died around the same time,
and so all of this trauma just it forced me
to go into a dark place and and so I
seek help.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
You know, I had help.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
I went to a therapist for two years straight, and
I was depressed for two years. So I would wake
up and the sky it could be a sunny day
like it is today in New York, and it would
look cloudy and dark, and I'd be jealous if my
wife came downstairs and smelled good and was going with
her girlfriends they eat lunch. You know, I really went
(06:21):
through it. Prior to that, I never drank. I drank
so much I ballooned into like five hundred pounds. You know.
I was losing a bunch of friends, was losing respecting
business because I wasn't on my game. And so it
was a real tough time for me. But it taught
me a lot in life. It took me two years.
(06:42):
I remember one night we were doing the Rest in Peace
big punt wall in the Bronx like a graffiti war
graffiti artist.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
So every year we changed this muror the task group.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
And so we was out there in middle of the
night just painting, and two guys walked by. I owe
these guys so much money, David. Two guys walk about
one and one guy said, Yo, what they doing And
the other guy was like, Oh, they're doing a big
pun ball.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
He was like, they're doing a big punt.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
He said, they do it every year, and he was
like every year, he said, hasn't really been that long since,
pundt He said, yeah, two years, and out of nowhere
it just said two years, two years and two years
two years.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
And so all of the feeling guilty.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
What if I could have did something for pun What
if I could have stopped them from eating like that
or being unhealthy? All that just it just I just
looked at myself like a mirror. They just said, yo, Joe,
you gotta let it go. It's been two years. And
from that moment on, you know, I just came back
to regular life.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
But you know, Joe during that time, and it's hard
for anybody to get over. One loss was the city.
Was she your younger sister or she.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Was like one year older than me. She was perfectly
healthy too, she lost the baby as well as she
passed away. And so you know you you started off
saying you was once deeply in love with a Dominican girl.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Right, he's no longer your girl. Right.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
What people have to understand is when you got a
sister that your ride or die, your sister, that's the
one who's.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Supposed to go all away with you. And so I
lost it.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
You know, it was a vulnerability in life that I lost,
the one sister I had that would hold me down
when we're old and gray, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Uh so it was it was very painful.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
What and of course it's very hard to lose people
like that through that two years of the darkness. And
how did that affect you in regards to like you
gain weight, how your career because I think at that time,
like Napster and all these things were coming out you
the industry was changing, and you're an artist. You know,
(09:07):
people starting to have musical beefs with each other. I mean,
it was it was just everything was imploding, you know,
planes crashing in the buildings in New York City and
probably hearing of other loss How most people, a lot
of people would have never come out of that. What
(09:27):
even though he said to you, what did you have?
Anything you leaned on at least gave you light during
that time? A song? Let mean, you know, maybe there
was a song out of something and you focused on the.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Power of prayer.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
And I praised so much to God, so much to
God to take me out of this depression. Also, Big
Point I had discovered him and mentored him. Executive produced
him assigning to my label. But the truth is he
was a hundred times better than me. So the streets
were talking. My closest friends, people I love since kindergarten,
(10:04):
were saying, you know, it's over for Joe. Uh, he
can't do it by himself. He had pun punt passed away.
So there was a lot of doubt and to me,
the best, the best revenge and success. And so a
lot of people let me down and gave up on
me and counted me out. And so you know, with
(10:25):
the power of prayer and just a determination of will,
of relentlessness to never give up and believe in myself,
you know, I never forget. When they were all saying
that it's over for fat Joe, I went to Jacob
to Jeweler and I spent like three four thousand dollars
(10:46):
on the biggest Telesquad chain. Knowing that everybody thought he'd
be broken one day. You know, it's over for Joe.
I went to really show them. I went and got
a TS chain. There was as big as a serial
box with dinond we here to stay and uh and
I and I often and always love to bet on myself.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And you know that's.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
That that's that entrepreneurial.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Oh and I've always been a boss since I was fourteen,
and so I've always been an entrepreneur. I've always believed
in myself, never had a problem with reinvest investing in myself.
And uh, and so that was that was that time
right there where I had to find myself and come
(11:32):
through the light and show everybody that I was capable
of doing it.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Did yeah, that that that the loss of at that
time in your life and either have a couple of
uh effects on you because I know you're being a
very loving person. I don't know how you are, you know,
necessarily with the with the family. But did you find
what you know not families give me friends and stuff?
Did you find that after that you didn't want to?
Because there could be two ways. It could be I
(11:59):
don't want to get close to people anymore because I
lost Pa and I lost my sister, I lost my grandfather.
Like the loss of that lead me in an open
shell and no matter how much I love somebody, I
don't want to lose them again and feel this feeling.
Or did you say, man, I got to double down
on who I love because you know, this thing happens
so quick because a lot of people right now have
been through loss who are listening to this and they
(12:20):
either want to protect themselves. They got to find the
best way to survive, or do they become even more
more vulnerable. You know, well a last for.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Me human nature and people have letting me down during
the years. You know, a lot of friends I believe
to be my friends caught them stealing. You know, the
biggest betrayal in the world is when your real friend brother.
You know, you treat people like blood, like family, and
(12:51):
you catch them do harmful things to you. And so
you know from artists, you know, you discover somebody, so
think about it. Born by yourself, you become successful. God
gives you an opportunity to discover somebody and put them
in the game and use all your relationships that you
have and make them superstars. And then they turn around
(13:13):
and look at you and say, you never did nothing
for me, Right, These things just constantly happened to me
in my life where I'm very guarded on the who
I truly love and who I let in my life
like that twenty twenty three. Prior to that, I thought
everybody loved everybody. I thought everybody cared about everybody. I
(13:37):
thought everybody.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Could do anything for you.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
So I was very vulnerable and very gullible when it
came to One of the worst things you could do
is think that everybody thinks the same way as you.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
You know, I really thought that at one time.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
I really thought it was friends to the end, you know,
that type of thing, you know, Lloyd with everything, and
so it's been proven.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah, of course I have some.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Day ones that are loyal to me, but it's been
proven more than disloyalty. The layercy employ.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Well, how do you differentiate that? Because you've been able
to move throughout the world from you know, from an
author too, I see you. You know, you started off
trying to, you know, help people in the pandemic broadcasting,
and now you know, people writing stories about you and
you're going over to you know, You've just been able
to transition and move so fluidly, and generally only people
(14:53):
that can move fluidly through situations like that are people
who are They're very giving, right, and people love them.
And when you walk in a room, people love you,
and a lot of people very literal, like my wife
is literal. She's like I either like you or not
I'm not gonna be in between and she come in
the room and she don't like you. She ain't gonna
say nothing bad to you, but she ain't gonna be
(15:14):
that entity that you are HOTI for all the people
listening right now, Like, how would you be able to
tell them you can be have that energy but yet
not give to you much of yourself but still be
the one making people feel good even though they may
stab you in the back. How do you do that?
How do you master that tight rope?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Me personally? You know, I grew up very, very poor,
and I attribute everything that I have, every way of being,
to my mother. You know, back in the days, we
used to take taxi cabs and my mother would it
would be a two dollars cab and she would give
(15:53):
the guy five dollars and the tip would be three dollars.
But we barely even knew if we had bread, and
so she was always given.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
It's a classic story.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
You know.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
My mother used to work in a number spot, so
before there were a lottery, the hood had these number
spots where people could go gamble. And people would go
there and they would gamble and they would make a
couple of dollars or whatever the case may be. So
my mom was the number lady and one time one
of her best friend's sons, I'll never forget him. It
(16:26):
was a kid named Rollo. He stuck my mother up,
he robbed her, and he took her money and all this.
I was maybe five years old and I heard all
this chat up, you know, throughout the family, and yo,
you believe such and such son rob ruby and big talk.
The very next day, I saw the kid in my
(16:46):
house and my moms were serving them a plate of food.
And so I come from that, I come from with
my mother was so I told my mother, isn't this
the guy that robbed you? And she was like, yeah,
but he's on drugs and you don't understand.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
And like, you know he's I know, he's a kid,
you know.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
My mom's No matter how you could picture this, no
matter how successful I was, like I was already platinum,
I was already rich.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
We refuse to move out the projects. Refused like she.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Would not nice to beg up, mom, Please let me
get you a house, let me get you something.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
She would just stay in the projects.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
And when I would randomly pull up in my mother's house,
and I go to the house, the door's wide open.
I go to the kitchen. There's kids that's you know,
really crackheads making sandwiches in my house. And I'd be like, yo, Mom,
what's up with this? She Oh, that's the litle Johnny.
That's you know, I knowing my whole life. So I
(17:46):
always came from a giving background, and so with me,
I always feel as if God has blessed me so
much that it's only right for me to give, for
me to do philanthropy, for me to give back, for
me to be available for my community. So no matter
how many people let me down, it's always in my
spirit to give back and take care of the community.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
And and God bless Similarly, she said, with us, yeah,
she's with us. Good, the good good. Now I'm not
this have told us that. But as as people will
want to reach for success, and we look at things
like the nipsey hustles of the world and the barriers
of the you know, people who have stayed in the
(18:32):
community always wanting to give back, and you work so
hard to not get out of the community but make
life better for yourself. And as you do that, you know,
of course it creates a lot of jealousy, or people
just don't understand and they have not Sometimes they're like
the first target. They're going to go for the halves.
It's not even that that they don't even want to
they don't even intend to do that, but they just need.
(18:55):
Right at what point do you do you say I
can't I can give to this community, but I can't
live here, or I can live here, but I can't give,
because then once I do that, the ones who don't have,
you know, say what's up? And where do you draw
(19:16):
the line? If you I don't even know if you
have an answer for.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
That, I do.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Oh. You know, our own several businesses in the hood
South Bronx hallm Washington Heights. We built a classroom in
my store in the South Bronx and we have an
after school program where the kids have access to computers.
At the end of the semester, we give them the computers.
We have mentors come and talk to them. I looked
(19:44):
at my businesses as like a hug and so I
refuse to run away from the hood. And I also
I look at it as passing a baton of hope.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Now, if you do something to fact Joe in the hood.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Who's the only guy who gives food to the people,
gives computers to the people responsors.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Shame on you.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
And it's been a passion of mine in my whole
life that people could still no matter how affluent we get,
how successful we get, people have a direct line to
Fat Joe. They could walk in my store and if
they're a pastor of the church, there's somebody from the
community that wants to see Joe. They'll get Joe on
(20:26):
FaceTime and be like, all right, hold up, here he goes.
And I love that because you know, in the past
and then and you're right, you know, something happens to
fat Joe, they like, shame on him. He could have
been in Beverly Hills, could have been Oh, you know,
he didn't have to be here. Obviously, I don't live
in the hood. I live in a beautiful neighborhood in Jersey.
(20:49):
But I like to provide opportunity and jobs and hope
for our people to let him know that we don't
have to run away, that we can invest in our community.
You know, it's not really your community if you're living
in the black and brown community, and when you go
to the store, the person behind the cash register is
(21:09):
never black and brown and so right, And so that's
how I choose to reinvest in my community.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
And I think that, I mean, listen, you're a legendary
for doing it, and I just think that, you know,
maybe it's because you're so loved that whoever comes up
with something you know crazy, you know somebody else checks up.
So why don't we switch Gars for man, we know
we're in the fiftyth anniversary hip hop the s to
talk about.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
It be a little firm fact real quick. And yeah,
it's not bragging because unfortunate. This is a sad situation.
But when they had the uprisings in the streets and
they was looting the businesses, there's two hundred and seventy
seven sneaker stores in New York City. They looted two
hundred and seventy five. The only two that didn't get
(21:58):
looted in the whole New York City was Fat Joe's stores.
And that's not because Fat tougher than nobody. It's because
I take the community and they said not here. They
stand in front of this store and set it's not
gonna happen in this right here, And so uh, I
feel like you can make money in the community, but
you have to also have a presence and let them
(22:20):
know that you're giving back to the community. I'm sorry
for cutting you off about.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
The No, that's the first Nah, you know, I want
I want to hear them that is not that is
not brighton, that is that is a bad honor. And
like you said, we said, yah, I'm tough. I mean
we obviously Listen, when you get to a level of
we're at, a lot of people say, you know, you
may have lost the hood of this and that. When
you have money, you can hire anybody you want to
hold the hammer if you want, right, and that's not
necessarily going to be the need. So like you know,
(22:47):
people will be like, oh, you know, listen, you don't
want to do you want to mess with Bill Gates.
He can hire somebody to to take a battleship to
your ass. So so it's never about making money and
you can't keep it real. But the more important part
about keeping it real you are people people will mess
with you and you don't need that stuff. You got
people who will say this is Joe and don't do
(23:07):
this to our community because he's so you know, he's
so loved and so as we talk about the anniversary hipot,
I don't even know're going to get into that. I
want to know because coming up in Queens, when I'm
driving down the block, when I was broke, it was
rising to the top that I kept saying, Man, I'm
gonna make it right. Or it was some Bob Molly's
(23:28):
song though We're Jamming by Stevie Wonder when you were
coming up in any part of your life, was there
a song or a certain moment that it just made
you wander off and say things gonna be all right?
Or I have asked racis I'm gonna get this? Or
I'm not gonna let hold me back.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
There's so many.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
I mean, my record All the Way Up was a
record of triumph hours.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
I was all the way down.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
I went to prison for taxes and found a way
to make a song that uplifts everybody who says nothing
could stop me. I'm all the way up.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
But to answer your.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Question, there's several souls. Right. Of course, it's always we
are family with me, you know? That was that was
That was the family all thing. And I could tell
you my favorite hip hop record of all time is
from uh rest in Peace biz Monkey and it was
(24:22):
the Vapors. So I grew up so poor and so
it was four of us and my mother. If I
wanted to Vbama, she get it from me. But four
years after it was the stop Like that's true. When
Swaye Pumas got played out, that's when I got my
Swaye Pumas.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
But she made she made on a promise. So the Vapists.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
I would drive around when I was in the streets hustling,
and I got my first BMW. I would drive about
two miles per hour and blast the stereo and it be.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Like noon to noon.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
They caught the vapist my favorite hip hop record of
all time.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Oh and and I'll give you another one.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Uh. The third was we are family and I know
there's any things that held us down?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I finally did it.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Accident it going.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
They don't know, Wow, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
I used to watch Muhammad Ali come into the ring
with that song like that was that's the official. I
think that's the official, like black Spiritual Upliftments song of
all time, right, you know? Uh?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And so that that that song is so.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Powerful and that that's a song that it gets you
going and just.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Can I let me let me dig on, let me
dig in on those a little bit for a second.
So because if I look at those songs, there are
three elements to the song, right, ain't no stopping us now?
By mcfann and the white Head. We are family, sister
slurrier than baby by Biz who I think you even
named your dog or something like that, have the biz right?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, my dog is called mark Man.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
It's my son.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
So we are family. Did you were you like? You know?
Because when I think of that song, were family? I
think about cleaning up the house and doing my chores
on a Saturday and Sunday, mom cooking, and you know,
people coming in and out of the house, the doors
open wide open, people stopping by, and you're just feeling
good about it. You're not even thinking about the song
at the moment. You just in that moment. Was that
(26:43):
how it was for you? Because I think we're around
the same age.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
No, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I remember my mom's, my aunts on Saturdays, cleaning, cooking. Uh,
they used to love this. Uh this song.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
I will survive.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Gloria Gaina.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Oh now, no walk out the door your Oh my god, this.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Is the uh the guy haters anthem of walltop Yea.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
In my house it was I don't know what type
of stuff my father was into, but it was ringing
off in that house like that would play twenty times,
Gloria Gaina, I will survive. Yeah, but you're right, you
hit it on the head. That's the family anthem on
a Saturday when they cleaning.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Ah. And then but let's lets let's pay, let's let's
pay the movie. Let's pay the movie though far. But
ain't no stopping us now, because my understanding that we're
the same age is I'm walking into the pipe. The
fire hole is busted open, right, the kids are playing,
the food is are and I'm walking into a block
part and I'm hearing it ain't no stopping us now.
(27:54):
And it is a nice day in July, and New
York City is bright. Miss. The softee is right there
on the corn, and it's right before it get dark,
because you know, when it get dark, it may you know,
it may start popping off. And you are just seeing
every whether you ain't see it no long time if
it's on the block. Plus you're seeing all the people
(28:16):
you have seen the past. The moms they making cupcakes,
they're all bringing food out and they're playing eight no
stopping us now, and it's like they ain't care in
the world. So they were out there playing dominos and cars?
Is that the movie?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
You have to that is exactly the same movie? And
you know, I'll tell you something that's a little bit
too real. You know, before Instagram and before the internet.
You know, my father's Cuban, right, So my father always
traveled back to Cuba, and I would ask him how
(28:53):
is it in Cuba, because you know they most people
are pour over there. If you don't have family over
here that sends you money over there, you're poor. And
he would be like, it's poor, it's whatever. But they
still having a good time because they don't know what
they're missing.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
And so what we had in the Bronx.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Was just such a sense of community that we did
not know if we didn't have nothing to eat, the
lady next door would give us some poor chops.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
They'll give us some chicken wings.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
We loved each other as a community, so it ain't
no stopping us now. Had us all like, you know,
we laughing at people's uncle who's drunk. We just this,
but it was love and we didn't know what we
were missing. We just didn't. Now it's a bigger problem.
This is where they start talking about mental illness. And
(29:45):
watch your kids with our social media because now you know,
I'm broke. They got it and how do I get
And so that's the difference with social media doesn't let
doesn't let you figure out, oh we ain't got it.
It's that you know, oh no, you ain't got it,
(30:06):
you know. And so that's why people trying to be
something that not or taking these kind of risks, or
you know, kids, you know, realizing oh well my father
ain't here or my mother ain't here, and I ain't
got it, And that's where it becomes of a situation.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
You know, Joe, I think that I think that's the truth,
right and I think that right now we're a time where,
you know, we have social media anxiety or social media depression.
I will say every time I pick up the damn following,
everybody riches skinnier than me. They all in Jamaica. I
don't know when these people work, Joe. I know I
deal with these people work, Joe. But you know, you
(31:11):
have a calming sense. You have this kind of like,
uh and hopefully I have it too, the sense of
security and people like you, me and all the a
type personality of the world. We always have a form
of a healthy parrot. Nooila, there is not It's not
that we do things anymore for money, but we do
things for purpose. And if you would really think about
(31:32):
years ago, somebody said, well, I ain't gonna you know
fifty old rappers we were growing up fifty years Oh,
you were dead right, And music is even Dre was saying,
music's the voice of the young or or the spirit
of the youngbo. How do you have this comfortable demeanor
because yeah, I know you got a great catalog, but
you know you ain't Michael Jackson. I know I got
(31:53):
great companies, but I ain't Mark Cuban. You know what
I mean, I'm Mark Cuban. I ain't you know Mark Cuban.
Wig up my money, boy, he jumping out the window.
He like, I'm a practice you know. So how do
you have this comfortable kind of position, but yet you're
hustling and moving fast. You're working more than anybody else.
But you kind of have to mean to like it's Okay,
I'm gonna get it. Don't worry about me. I'm gonna
(32:14):
get it and I'm going to keep getting it for
the rest of my life. And I ain't gotta stress it.
I ain't gotta be thirsty, I ain't gotta be doing
stuff that everybody else is doing. But I'm gonna get it.
And I don't have it figured it out fully? Maybe
you do. I would love to get your insight. You
got this calming the meaning to you. Even though you
are hard, your your your brons all the way, your
(32:36):
New York all the way. You just you're just dirty
all the way. You're the most ship talking person all
the way. But you still got this omness. How do
you have that?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Well? Uh, practice makes perfect. You know I've been rich.
I've been broke up in ridch of it, broke up
in riach of it, brouh and believe it or not
it Uh you know recently within this last year, I
found an account stealing.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
From you millions and problem. There's gotta be a problem
with you, man. Everybody stealing I have Can I steal
from you?
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Man?
Speaker 1 (33:13):
I'm selling I'm the only.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Person listen, man, But they get caught and so Eventually,
when you stick your head at the cookie jar, you
get caught for millions of dollars. And so this is
about the third time this happened to me. It's a
weird feeling. It feels almost like when you see a
bakery and you see doe being made. The machine goes
(33:38):
like this. Your stomach stretches like this. Right, because you
you pick people to protect you, you work like an animal,
and the people who are supposed to protect you, they
feel like they're smarter than you, so they start playing
games with your money, right, and start thinking it's their money. Right.
(33:58):
But when this happened, normally I would have been shocked
or I would have been but being that I've actually
been through this before, I knew how to take the
slow breath and say, all right, I know how I'm
gonna do this. You know, I know how to get
up out of this. I know we're gonna suit these people,
even though we're not suing type of people.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
And I know we're gonna win.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
But at the end of the day, you know the experience,
you know, I say, God gives you experiences and it's
only to prepare you for the future, and so you
take that knowledge and it's only really you like if
you like why God be careful in ten years, because
(34:39):
you're gonna know why he taught you that lesson, cause
in ten years you're gonna know how to react to it.
And so oh, you know, I'm always been optimistic, man,
I've always been a dreamer. I'm like a bugsy seal.
He went to Vegas and just made Vegas. He went
to a desert and made Vegas. I'm like that, a dreamer.
(35:00):
And if we bet on something we believe in that
we lose. I never have a problem losing. I never
have a problem losing, even though we win more than
we lose.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
And so.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
At the end of the day, I'm a hustler. I
was born to make money no matter what. There's nothing
you can do to stop me from making money unless
I'm unhealthy, God forbid. I know how to get to
the bag. I know how to adjust, I know how
to move with the times. I know to be how
to be ahead of a curve, and believe it or not,
(35:34):
I'm always preparing for that next like I haven't hit
what I want to hit. And you know what I'm
talking about. So you know, when you hear people say
I invested in the next suber, I invested.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
In the ring. You know, I'm in that. I'm all
in that.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
I haven't cracked one of those open yet, but trust me,
I'm all in it. My wife was like, yo, I was.
I was just recently in Dubai for two weeks straight.
I'm trying to put a move together, right, And she
was like, what do you think. I said, well, you know,
these type of things never worked out speak but at
least I'm trying and and.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
So you you know, it's funny.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Uh. I used to go to Angola, Africa, right, and
it's a very rich country in uh, diamonds and gold
and oil, but it's also a very poor country, very poor.
The disparate disparency is is is you got it?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Got it all? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
I would go on to I would go on a
plane to an all black African country and half the
plane is white. And it recently I just came out.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Of civil war.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Uh, thousands of people died and these guys was on
the plane.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
And I remember looking at them all.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
The time time when I would go over there, and
I'd be like, these guys ain't scared to go nowhere
for the dollar.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
They ain't scared to go. And that's the type of stuff.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
You know, we're hunters, you know, we're here to provide
our family, you know, and nine times are out of
ten unless you're a super lucky guy who has a
woman who understands finances.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Know, you know, if you're just.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
The provider your whole life, you know, you got a
problem with trying to make them understand the things you
gotta do.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
It's almost like I get upset.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Every year what I deal with accountants right when it's
tax time, because if you got a good accountant, nine
times out of ten their number, Like it's almost like
when a doctor comes and says, oh, you're gonna die.
But it's like it's like it just be like, hey,
you made a lot of money you got and you're like, no,
(37:52):
I had to go to the jungles, I had to
go to Thailand. Do you know what diarrhea from spicy food?
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Do you know what?
Speaker 3 (38:00):
They do? Everything in the world.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
And you come back and you got a fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Partner with you, so you're trying to at least the
only person who get because you're definitely not arguing with
the with the government or the irs The only person
who gets to get your your screams and your anger.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Is your accountants.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
You know, these guys they're just like, hey, man, this
is what you gotta do. And he's just like wow.
They just understand the numbers. They don't understand what it
took to get it.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Well, you know what, Joe, I gotta tell people this
because when I learned, when I when my accountants, I've learned,
always get an account first of all, recommended by somebody
who has never lost to the I R S. Because
first of all, when you are they're gonna be people
gonna keep you on the track. When the IRIS goes
after you, they say, oh, this dude's accountant has not
(38:52):
lost any you know, any orders. Let's move on to
a softer target. But just like you saying yelling, I
get a after taxis every year I get over, I
call my other part and I'll call my Jewish part,
I was, go, listen, man, I want to fire this guy.
You know personally, this guy's an a hole. And they
say to me, let me tell you something. Damon, if
(39:15):
your accountant is always agreeing when you're unhappy, he's stealing
or she's still if he's an asshole. That means you're
not stealing from you. Then I say to my part
and I go, well, normal, you know normal, I'd be
like normal, but you and I never get into arguments.
We're always good, and he'd be like this da, So
he may be like, yo, man, you want your you
(39:36):
want your accountant to be an asshole because he knows
she know you mad. It's not like you go, yo,
I'm mad mine, Oh yo.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
You stealing?
Speaker 3 (39:42):
They don't kid, Tell me, tell me pulld up. Tell
me about that partner ship. You've been in it for
twenty thirty years, and you guys are thick, and then
you guys are like got each other's bats, you guys,
and you started from different worlds, and you know you
got his back, he got your back. Like what is
(40:03):
that like?
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Knowing that you could wake up and.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Know, yo, I got a partner who got my back
and I got his back no matter what goes on.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Man, you know what it is the greatest feeling of
it is the fact that and I think that I've
seen you around people of otherth messities, genders, all kind
of stuff like that. And for this Jewish family to
do a deal with us, and and and they didn't
have a lot. They had distribution and we didn't have
a lot, and we found ways to meet in the middle.
(40:34):
And I've been in more bar minsters, boat misters that
I've been at anything else. I consider them. You know,
if I'm on my deathbed, there's going to be a
couple of people I'm gonna call, and I call them,
you know, And it is an honor right when you
start to see and like you said, man like being
so loving for each other. We tend to walk into
the room and because society has told us, now, yo, Joe,
(40:57):
keep it real, don't hang out that first. And because
I don't know they live over here, or they gay,
or they're they're straight, or whatever the case is. And
I think the end of the day, when you are
absolutely dedicated to somebody, you know that, when you're in
yourt deathbed and you want the people around you, you
ain't gonna give a shit about who they sleep with,
what God they prayed to, and what the color skin
they have. I think it's the best feeling in the world.
(41:18):
And like you said, you're gonna get hurt by some
of these people. Sometimes you know there's something's gonna happen
but I've never gotten hurt by any of these type
of people that I trust so much, because you know,
it takes half a lifetime for somebody to find a
friend and the other half of them to prove it.
That's what they say, and and and I'm, I'm that's
just the way it is. And I'm it's like you
(41:40):
all with j R.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
J R.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
And Lauren, right, God bless Jay all will passed away
only vacation he ever had, and I don't know, twenty
thirty years and it's an aneurysm, and didn't enjoy life
like you and I get to enjoy it. Even though
he had everything. It didn't take that minute decide to
have this type of conversation, you know.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Yeah, Well with me, I'm about humanity and I'm about
uh people being righteous, people being good people, people being
family people. Uh.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
And you know, I'm cool with the Jews. I'm cool
with the Muslims, you know.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
And so you know, I sit down with my with
my Jews, and they turn around, my Jewish people, and
they turned around and they say, you know, Joe, you know,
anybody who teaches you the Torah or tries to make
you uh Jewish, they really love you right. And then
I sit some of my Muslim guys and they got Joe.
(42:38):
You know, anybody who tries to teach you the Koran,
they really love you, right, And I'm like, yo, but
I'm Jesus Nights right, But Jesus Jesus Christ was a joke.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Right.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
But uh, you know me, just like you, I've learned
to overcome whatever this propagandam is and I love people
who love me will always do right by me, and
I stand up for that wherever I go in the world.
It's just you know, if this is my brother, this
is my sister, that's what it is. They've showed me
(43:10):
nothing but though ut they showed me nothing but love
to my family.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
You know what? That leads me to my final questions,
very simple one. You know, as you and I we
came up with nothing. You know, the streets are not
taught us to be vulnerable because people exploit that. But
as you just talked about the people around you, the
place you've been, who do you ask for I know
you all with your student in life, people want to
(43:35):
seem like they know what all? Who do you ask
for for advice? And why do you go to like
when you're in a room. You have a concept of
I'm always going to ask for advice. I'm not going
to act like I'm tough. What is the kind of
way that you go after and look for advice with people?
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Well, God bless the dead, it was JR. Right, it
was JR. Writing girl friend of ours, mutual friend of
mine and yours became a billionaire from nothing, and he
taught me a lot about business, and I was by
side every day. Another person that's Desret Perez and my
manager at Rock Nation, very very very very intelligent woman.
(44:15):
And every time I need a guidance or I need
some sort of help, she's always there for me, one
million percent above and beyond. And I would say those
are the two go to people I go to if
I'm jammed up or I don't understand the situation or
I don't know what's going on, and then they'll just
(44:36):
break it down to me.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
So those are two people I really really trust and
giving me the right information. Well, I.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Believe you should do that, and I agree like a JR.
And I don't know, Des Ray heard one of things
about it, But JR didn't need you. They all didn't
need me, and I love to ask people who don't
need you, you know, for advice. And that's why often
when you and I talk, I can ask you for
advice because you don't need me. I don't need you.
And that's the best people in the world that they
(45:06):
want to do it because they love you. As you
said about the way of the Koran of the Taro, right,
So man, I love you. Man, Joe, done so much
for my career. You've done so much for other people's career.
You used to call Russell Simmons everybody of a private partner,
or you said silent partner. I think you're everybody's silent
partner in the game. And man, I appreciate you for
(45:27):
spending that moment with me. And go take care of
those nicks and take care of that opportunity and celebrate that.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
M somebody I want to shout out somebody very important,
our boy, Chauncey shot Tell, who reached out and made
this up. You know he used to take me to
Cabrity greet. You know you ain't always have the suit
with the well Tell you no. I know Chauncey from
the streets out Chicago. That's our brother Pa.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Thank you, thank you man. There you have it. I
can talk to Joe forever. I think we we touched
on so many amazing things, from you know, how he
invested in people are or how do you still have
the wherewithal to trust people? How he's still being betrayed
but how he's old other thing outside of the box.
And more importantly, we learned Joe's life and how we
(46:17):
can apply it to ourselves. So I'm glad that you
two and in I hope I took me down a
very special moment yourself, as with Fat Joe, because you're
here with that moment with Damon John. If you have
any more ideas and or questions that I a should
ask some of our upcoming guests, I want to deep
and go down rabbit hole. Good of make sure you
send it over to us at at that moment at
(46:37):
Damon John out, thank you for spending the time with me,
and I look forward to hanging out with you again.
That Moment with Damon John is a production of the
Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black
Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(46:58):
wherever you listen to your favorite show, and don't forget
to subscribe to the show and.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
Rate the show.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
You can all connect with me on any social media
platform at the Shark daymon as in Raymond with a
D
I have a hunter right now speaking to somebody I
have a massive amount of respect for. And you know,
as we talk about that moment, there's a lot of
moments that we're gonna go reflect on, and honestly, I'm
going to ask them about some stuff that I've really
never heard before publicly, maybe because there's a lot of
information out there, or maybe it's something that I kind
of heart briefly and I didn't want to face or
(00:35):
or work with because I know that this man has
been through a lot. But one of those moments for me,
and I've shared it with Joe many times, is as
a struggling kid, we had a couple of hats. I
took them over to a store and Joe was literally
one of the first stores in the world that would
carry my stuff. And I remember I was in love
at the time. I was still working in red lops.
I was in love with my first wife, and it
(00:58):
was this moment where I been dating before whatever, but
I was thinking about shoes just on my I was
whipped baseball. I was just open. I drop out the
hats of the store and there is skinny looking guy
and that's kind of muscular. Later on, his name would
be big pun. He was guy at the front door
at the store. I dropped to the hats. Joe comes
with a baseball glove. I don't remember what year it was,
(01:22):
but Joe was a star already as far as I
was concerned. And he say, hey, man, once you drive
me down a block to go play some baseball, drop
with something, some stuff like that. And I'm like, man,
I gotta I got a call. I got three he
got three wheels on it. Listen, it's smoking. But this
dude is supposed to be back Joe. This guy's probably
has limbous E's. That's time limous e. He dropped to
(01:42):
the car and I'm driving with him, and he's like, oh, man,
look at that girl. Don't look at that girl. Don't
look that girl. And I'm like, and I'm just driving
because I'm whipped right. This is this is this is
when I'm like, yo, I'm gonna marry this Dominican girl
that I know any red mass And then he stopped, saying,
oh man, you okay. I said, what was up? He said,
(02:05):
you ain't even looking any place that I'm talking about.
And I'm not sure if he was saying, hey, am
I I don't know, I don't find girls attractive or
am I so focused I can't even look around, But
he like kind of played me in the car. But
then it was that moment that I went home and
I said, I'm going to marry this woman. I think
Joe brought it to my attention in a very Joe
(02:29):
way that you're focused, because all I was doing was
thinking about that woman. So thank you Joe for being
here with me.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Brother, my brother, Thank you man.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
You know Tim flies man, and I'm proud of you
and everything you've done and everything you've accomplished and everything
you've done to accomplish. So you know that's you know,
I'm glad to enjoy this journey of life with you. You
know what I'm saying as brothers and friends and comrades.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, it has been we don't see each other as
much as we would like to, and sometimes we were passing.
But you know, we're going to get right into this
because we can talk three hours and maybe we'll do
one hour here and one hour on your joint, one
hour and somebody else has joined about our history of
First of all, you being one of the most solid
dudes in the industry, you never acting fun. You've given
me breaks and various other ways. Hopefully I've supported you.
(03:21):
But we're going to go into something man. And as
we talk about that moment, you know, people know the
public Joe, they know the laughter, the love, the breaking
it down, the vulnerability Joe. But I just saw this
and I didn't know that there was a time of
your life where you lost And we've all lost a
lot of people, but the was a time in your
(03:41):
life where you lost two very very special people. One
publicly we know who was Big Pung God God us dead,
and you lost your sister. Now can you tell us,
because this is the first time I'm hearing and maybe
you've talked about publicly what happened and how did you lose?
Was your sister?
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Well, it was actually big Prime, my sister and my
grandfather in like a whole, like a week or two,
and so it was so overwhelming. My sister was giving
birth and she was perfectly healthy, but she was going
through a lot of pain. And in the South Bronx
(04:23):
they used a lot of students and not you know,
real doctors to deliver these babies. And so they gave
an epidoro, which is supposed to number her from the
waist down and then numbered the place up, and so
a lack of oxygen to the brain. She got into coma.
(04:47):
Then they put it in an assistant living. So it
was really really hard going to see my sister for
eight months. She was in a state like she was
a vegetable. Seeing my mother go through the pants and
my father go through the pain, and then at the
same time, out of nowhere, just losing Big Pond. Big
(05:08):
Pom was my best friend. He meant so much to us,
not just as a brother, but as an icon for
the hip hop community, and so that you know, it's
one thing when you're going through some depression of something,
you going through it under the radar. It's another thing
(05:29):
when people think they're helping you stop at the light,
B B beep, sorry for your brother.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
You know, you go eat a meal.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Sorry about your brother. Such.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
So there was no way to escape.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
That pain.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Same thing with my grandfather died around the same time,
and so all of this trauma just it forced me
to go into a dark place and and so I
seek help.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
You know, I had help.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
I went to a therapist for two years straight, and
I was depressed for two years. So I would wake
up and the sky it could be a sunny day
like it is today in New York, and it would
look cloudy and dark, and I'd be jealous if my
wife came downstairs and smelled good and was going with
her girlfriends they eat lunch. You know, I really went
(06:21):
through it. Prior to that, I never drank. I drank
so much I ballooned into like five hundred pounds. You know.
I was losing a bunch of friends, was losing respecting
business because I wasn't on my game. And so it
was a real tough time for me. But it taught
me a lot in life. It took me two years.
(06:42):
I remember one night we were doing the Rest in Peace
big punt wall in the Bronx like a graffiti war
graffiti artist.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
So every year we changed this muror the task group.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
And so we was out there in middle of the
night just painting, and two guys walked by. I owe
these guys so much money, David. Two guys walk about
one and one guy said, Yo, what they doing And
the other guy was like, Oh, they're doing a big
pun ball.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
He was like, they're doing a big punt.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
He said, they do it every year, and he was
like every year, he said, hasn't really been that long since,
pundt He said, yeah, two years, and out of nowhere
it just said two years, two years and two years
two years.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
And so all of the feeling guilty.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
What if I could have did something for pun What
if I could have stopped them from eating like that
or being unhealthy? All that just it just I just
looked at myself like a mirror. They just said, yo, Joe,
you gotta let it go. It's been two years. And
from that moment on, you know, I just came back
to regular life.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
But you know, Joe during that time, and it's hard
for anybody to get over. One loss was the city.
Was she your younger sister or she.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Was like one year older than me. She was perfectly
healthy too, she lost the baby as well as she
passed away. And so you know you you started off
saying you was once deeply in love with a Dominican girl.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Right, he's no longer your girl. Right.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
What people have to understand is when you got a
sister that your ride or die, your sister, that's the
one who's.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Supposed to go all away with you. And so I
lost it.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
You know, it was a vulnerability in life that I lost,
the one sister I had that would hold me down
when we're old and gray, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Uh so it was it was very painful.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
What and of course it's very hard to lose people
like that through that two years of the darkness. And
how did that affect you in regards to like you
gain weight, how your career because I think at that time,
like Napster and all these things were coming out you
the industry was changing, and you're an artist. You know,
(09:07):
people starting to have musical beefs with each other. I mean,
it was it was just everything was imploding, you know,
planes crashing in the buildings in New York City and
probably hearing of other loss How most people, a lot
of people would have never come out of that. What
(09:27):
even though he said to you, what did you have?
Anything you leaned on at least gave you light during
that time? A song? Let mean, you know, maybe there
was a song out of something and you focused on the.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Power of prayer.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
And I praised so much to God, so much to
God to take me out of this depression. Also, Big
Point I had discovered him and mentored him. Executive produced
him assigning to my label. But the truth is he
was a hundred times better than me. So the streets
were talking. My closest friends, people I love since kindergarten,
(10:04):
were saying, you know, it's over for Joe. Uh, he
can't do it by himself. He had pun punt passed away.
So there was a lot of doubt and to me,
the best, the best revenge and success. And so a
lot of people let me down and gave up on
me and counted me out. And so you know, with
(10:25):
the power of prayer and just a determination of will,
of relentlessness to never give up and believe in myself,
you know, I never forget. When they were all saying
that it's over for fat Joe, I went to Jacob
to Jeweler and I spent like three four thousand dollars
(10:46):
on the biggest Telesquad chain. Knowing that everybody thought he'd
be broken one day. You know, it's over for Joe.
I went to really show them. I went and got
a TS chain. There was as big as a serial
box with dinond we here to stay and uh and
I and I often and always love to bet on myself.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And you know that's.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
That that's that entrepreneurial.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Oh and I've always been a boss since I was fourteen,
and so I've always been an entrepreneur. I've always believed
in myself, never had a problem with reinvest investing in myself.
And uh, and so that was that was that time
right there where I had to find myself and come
(11:32):
through the light and show everybody that I was capable
of doing it.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Did yeah, that that that the loss of at that
time in your life and either have a couple of
uh effects on you because I know you're being a
very loving person. I don't know how you are, you know,
necessarily with the with the family. But did you find
what you know not families give me friends and stuff?
Did you find that after that you didn't want to?
Because there could be two ways. It could be I
(11:59):
don't want to get close to people anymore because I
lost Pa and I lost my sister, I lost my grandfather.
Like the loss of that lead me in an open
shell and no matter how much I love somebody, I
don't want to lose them again and feel this feeling.
Or did you say, man, I got to double down
on who I love because you know, this thing happens
so quick because a lot of people right now have
been through loss who are listening to this and they
(12:20):
either want to protect themselves. They got to find the
best way to survive, or do they become even more
more vulnerable. You know, well a last for.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Me human nature and people have letting me down during
the years. You know, a lot of friends I believe
to be my friends caught them stealing. You know, the
biggest betrayal in the world is when your real friend brother.
You know, you treat people like blood, like family, and
(12:51):
you catch them do harmful things to you. And so
you know from artists, you know, you discover somebody, so
think about it. Born by yourself, you become successful. God
gives you an opportunity to discover somebody and put them
in the game and use all your relationships that you
have and make them superstars. And then they turn around
(13:13):
and look at you and say, you never did nothing
for me, Right, These things just constantly happened to me
in my life where I'm very guarded on the who
I truly love and who I let in my life
like that twenty twenty three. Prior to that, I thought
everybody loved everybody. I thought everybody cared about everybody. I
(13:37):
thought everybody.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Could do anything for you.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
So I was very vulnerable and very gullible when it
came to One of the worst things you could do
is think that everybody thinks the same way as you.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
You know, I really thought that at one time.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
I really thought it was friends to the end, you know,
that type of thing, you know, Lloyd with everything, and
so it's been proven.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah, of course I have some.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Day ones that are loyal to me, but it's been
proven more than disloyalty. The layercy employ.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Well, how do you differentiate that? Because you've been able
to move throughout the world from you know, from an
author too, I see you. You know, you started off
trying to, you know, help people in the pandemic broadcasting,
and now you know, people writing stories about you and
you're going over to you know, You've just been able
to transition and move so fluidly, and generally only people
(14:53):
that can move fluidly through situations like that are people
who are They're very giving, right, and people love them.
And when you walk in a room, people love you,
and a lot of people very literal, like my wife
is literal. She's like I either like you or not
I'm not gonna be in between and she come in
the room and she don't like you. She ain't gonna
say nothing bad to you, but she ain't gonna be
(15:14):
that entity that you are HOTI for all the people
listening right now, Like, how would you be able to
tell them you can be have that energy but yet
not give to you much of yourself but still be
the one making people feel good even though they may
stab you in the back. How do you do that?
How do you master that tight rope?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Me personally? You know, I grew up very, very poor,
and I attribute everything that I have, every way of being,
to my mother. You know, back in the days, we
used to take taxi cabs and my mother would it
would be a two dollars cab and she would give
(15:53):
the guy five dollars and the tip would be three dollars.
But we barely even knew if we had bread, and
so she was always given.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
It's a classic story.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
You know.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
My mother used to work in a number spot, so
before there were a lottery, the hood had these number
spots where people could go gamble. And people would go
there and they would gamble and they would make a
couple of dollars or whatever the case may be. So
my mom was the number lady and one time one
of her best friend's sons, I'll never forget him. It
(16:26):
was a kid named Rollo. He stuck my mother up,
he robbed her, and he took her money and all this.
I was maybe five years old and I heard all
this chat up, you know, throughout the family, and yo,
you believe such and such son rob ruby and big talk.
The very next day, I saw the kid in my
(16:46):
house and my moms were serving them a plate of food.
And so I come from that, I come from with
my mother was so I told my mother, isn't this
the guy that robbed you? And she was like, yeah,
but he's on drugs and you don't understand.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
And like, you know he's I know, he's a kid,
you know.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
My mom's No matter how you could picture this, no
matter how successful I was, like I was already platinum,
I was already rich.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
We refuse to move out the projects. Refused like she.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Would not nice to beg up, mom, Please let me
get you a house, let me get you something.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
She would just stay in the projects.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
And when I would randomly pull up in my mother's house,
and I go to the house, the door's wide open.
I go to the kitchen. There's kids that's you know,
really crackheads making sandwiches in my house. And I'd be like, yo, Mom,
what's up with this? She Oh, that's the litle Johnny.
That's you know, I knowing my whole life. So I
(17:46):
always came from a giving background, and so with me,
I always feel as if God has blessed me so
much that it's only right for me to give, for
me to do philanthropy, for me to give back, for
me to be available for my community. So no matter
how many people let me down, it's always in my
spirit to give back and take care of the community.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
And and God bless Similarly, she said, with us, yeah,
she's with us. Good, the good good. Now I'm not
this have told us that. But as as people will
want to reach for success, and we look at things
like the nipsey hustles of the world and the barriers
of the you know, people who have stayed in the
(18:32):
community always wanting to give back, and you work so
hard to not get out of the community but make
life better for yourself. And as you do that, you know,
of course it creates a lot of jealousy, or people
just don't understand and they have not Sometimes they're like
the first target. They're going to go for the halves.
It's not even that that they don't even want to
they don't even intend to do that, but they just need.
(18:55):
Right at what point do you do you say I
can't I can give to this community, but I can't
live here, or I can live here, but I can't give,
because then once I do that, the ones who don't have,
you know, say what's up? And where do you draw
(19:16):
the line? If you I don't even know if you
have an answer for.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
That, I do.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Oh. You know, our own several businesses in the hood
South Bronx hallm Washington Heights. We built a classroom in
my store in the South Bronx and we have an
after school program where the kids have access to computers.
At the end of the semester, we give them the computers.
We have mentors come and talk to them. I looked
(19:44):
at my businesses as like a hug and so I
refuse to run away from the hood. And I also
I look at it as passing a baton of hope.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Now, if you do something to fact Joe in the hood.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Who's the only guy who gives food to the people,
gives computers to the people responsors.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Shame on you.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
And it's been a passion of mine in my whole
life that people could still no matter how affluent we get,
how successful we get, people have a direct line to
Fat Joe. They could walk in my store and if
they're a pastor of the church, there's somebody from the
community that wants to see Joe. They'll get Joe on
(20:26):
FaceTime and be like, all right, hold up, here he goes.
And I love that because you know, in the past
and then and you're right, you know, something happens to
fat Joe, they like, shame on him. He could have
been in Beverly Hills, could have been Oh, you know,
he didn't have to be here. Obviously, I don't live
in the hood. I live in a beautiful neighborhood in Jersey.
(20:49):
But I like to provide opportunity and jobs and hope
for our people to let him know that we don't
have to run away, that we can invest in our community.
You know, it's not really your community if you're living
in the black and brown community, and when you go
to the store, the person behind the cash register is
(21:09):
never black and brown and so right, And so that's
how I choose to reinvest in my community.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
And I think that, I mean, listen, you're a legendary
for doing it, and I just think that, you know,
maybe it's because you're so loved that whoever comes up
with something you know crazy, you know somebody else checks up.
So why don't we switch Gars for man, we know
we're in the fiftyth anniversary hip hop the s to
talk about.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
It be a little firm fact real quick. And yeah,
it's not bragging because unfortunate. This is a sad situation.
But when they had the uprisings in the streets and
they was looting the businesses, there's two hundred and seventy
seven sneaker stores in New York City. They looted two
hundred and seventy five. The only two that didn't get
(21:58):
looted in the whole New York City was Fat Joe's stores.
And that's not because Fat tougher than nobody. It's because
I take the community and they said not here. They
stand in front of this store and set it's not
gonna happen in this right here, And so uh, I
feel like you can make money in the community, but
you have to also have a presence and let them
(22:20):
know that you're giving back to the community. I'm sorry
for cutting you off about.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
The No, that's the first Nah, you know, I want
I want to hear them that is not that is
not brighton, that is that is a bad honor. And
like you said, we said, yah, I'm tough. I mean
we obviously Listen, when you get to a level of
we're at, a lot of people say, you know, you
may have lost the hood of this and that. When
you have money, you can hire anybody you want to
hold the hammer if you want, right, and that's not
necessarily going to be the need. So like you know,
(22:47):
people will be like, oh, you know, listen, you don't
want to do you want to mess with Bill Gates.
He can hire somebody to to take a battleship to
your ass. So so it's never about making money and
you can't keep it real. But the more important part
about keeping it real you are people people will mess
with you and you don't need that stuff. You got
people who will say this is Joe and don't do
(23:07):
this to our community because he's so you know, he's
so loved and so as we talk about the anniversary hipot,
I don't even know're going to get into that. I
want to know because coming up in Queens, when I'm
driving down the block, when I was broke, it was
rising to the top that I kept saying, Man, I'm
gonna make it right. Or it was some Bob Molly's
(23:28):
song though We're Jamming by Stevie Wonder when you were
coming up in any part of your life, was there
a song or a certain moment that it just made
you wander off and say things gonna be all right?
Or I have asked racis I'm gonna get this? Or
I'm not gonna let hold me back.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
There's so many.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
I mean, my record All the Way Up was a
record of triumph hours.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
I was all the way down.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
I went to prison for taxes and found a way
to make a song that uplifts everybody who says nothing
could stop me. I'm all the way up.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
But to answer your.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Question, there's several souls. Right. Of course, it's always we
are family with me, you know? That was that was
That was the family all thing. And I could tell
you my favorite hip hop record of all time is
from uh rest in Peace biz Monkey and it was
(24:22):
the Vapors. So I grew up so poor and so
it was four of us and my mother. If I
wanted to Vbama, she get it from me. But four
years after it was the stop Like that's true. When
Swaye Pumas got played out, that's when I got my
Swaye Pumas.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
But she made she made on a promise. So the Vapists.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
I would drive around when I was in the streets hustling,
and I got my first BMW. I would drive about
two miles per hour and blast the stereo and it be.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Like noon to noon.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
They caught the vapist my favorite hip hop record of
all time.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Oh and and I'll give you another one.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Uh. The third was we are family and I know
there's any things that held us down?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I finally did it.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Accident it going.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
They don't know, Wow, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
I used to watch Muhammad Ali come into the ring
with that song like that was that's the official. I
think that's the official, like black Spiritual Upliftments song of
all time, right, you know? Uh?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And so that that that song is so.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Powerful and that that's a song that it gets you
going and just.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Can I let me let me dig on, let me
dig in on those a little bit for a second.
So because if I look at those songs, there are
three elements to the song, right, ain't no stopping us now?
By mcfann and the white Head. We are family, sister
slurrier than baby by Biz who I think you even
named your dog or something like that, have the biz right?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, my dog is called mark Man.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
It's my son.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
So we are family. Did you were you like? You know?
Because when I think of that song, were family? I
think about cleaning up the house and doing my chores
on a Saturday and Sunday, mom cooking, and you know,
people coming in and out of the house, the doors
open wide open, people stopping by, and you're just feeling
good about it. You're not even thinking about the song
at the moment. You just in that moment. Was that
(26:43):
how it was for you? Because I think we're around
the same age.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
No, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I remember my mom's, my aunts on Saturdays, cleaning, cooking. Uh,
they used to love this. Uh this song.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
I will survive.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Gloria Gaina.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Oh now, no walk out the door your Oh my god, this.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Is the uh the guy haters anthem of walltop Yea.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
In my house it was I don't know what type
of stuff my father was into, but it was ringing
off in that house like that would play twenty times,
Gloria Gaina, I will survive. Yeah, but you're right, you
hit it on the head. That's the family anthem on
a Saturday when they cleaning.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Ah. And then but let's lets let's pay, let's let's
pay the movie. Let's pay the movie though far. But
ain't no stopping us now, because my understanding that we're
the same age is I'm walking into the pipe. The
fire hole is busted open, right, the kids are playing,
the food is are and I'm walking into a block
part and I'm hearing it ain't no stopping us now.
(27:54):
And it is a nice day in July, and New
York City is bright. Miss. The softee is right there
on the corn, and it's right before it get dark,
because you know, when it get dark, it may you know,
it may start popping off. And you are just seeing
every whether you ain't see it no long time if
it's on the block. Plus you're seeing all the people
(28:16):
you have seen the past. The moms they making cupcakes,
they're all bringing food out and they're playing eight no
stopping us now, and it's like they ain't care in
the world. So they were out there playing dominos and cars?
Is that the movie?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
You have to that is exactly the same movie? And
you know, I'll tell you something that's a little bit
too real. You know, before Instagram and before the internet.
You know, my father's Cuban, right, So my father always
traveled back to Cuba, and I would ask him how
(28:53):
is it in Cuba, because you know they most people
are pour over there. If you don't have family over
here that sends you money over there, you're poor. And
he would be like, it's poor, it's whatever. But they
still having a good time because they don't know what
they're missing.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
And so what we had in the Bronx.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Was just such a sense of community that we did
not know if we didn't have nothing to eat, the
lady next door would give us some poor chops.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
They'll give us some chicken wings.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
We loved each other as a community, so it ain't
no stopping us now. Had us all like, you know,
we laughing at people's uncle who's drunk. We just this,
but it was love and we didn't know what we
were missing. We just didn't. Now it's a bigger problem.
This is where they start talking about mental illness. And
(29:45):
watch your kids with our social media because now you know,
I'm broke. They got it and how do I get
And so that's the difference with social media doesn't let
doesn't let you figure out, oh we ain't got it.
It's that you know, oh no, you ain't got it,
(30:06):
you know. And so that's why people trying to be
something that not or taking these kind of risks, or
you know, kids, you know, realizing oh well my father
ain't here or my mother ain't here, and I ain't
got it, And that's where it becomes of a situation.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
You know, Joe, I think that I think that's the truth,
right and I think that right now we're a time where,
you know, we have social media anxiety or social media depression.
I will say every time I pick up the damn following,
everybody riches skinnier than me. They all in Jamaica. I
don't know when these people work, Joe. I know I
deal with these people work, Joe. But you know, you
(31:11):
have a calming sense. You have this kind of like,
uh and hopefully I have it too, the sense of
security and people like you, me and all the a
type personality of the world. We always have a form
of a healthy parrot. Nooila, there is not It's not
that we do things anymore for money, but we do
things for purpose. And if you would really think about
(31:32):
years ago, somebody said, well, I ain't gonna you know
fifty old rappers we were growing up fifty years Oh,
you were dead right, And music is even Dre was saying,
music's the voice of the young or or the spirit
of the youngbo. How do you have this comfortable demeanor
because yeah, I know you got a great catalog, but
you know you ain't Michael Jackson. I know I got
(31:53):
great companies, but I ain't Mark Cuban. You know what
I mean, I'm Mark Cuban. I ain't you know Mark Cuban.
Wig up my money, boy, he jumping out the window.
He like, I'm a practice you know. So how do
you have this comfortable kind of position, but yet you're
hustling and moving fast. You're working more than anybody else.
But you kind of have to mean to like it's Okay,
I'm gonna get it. Don't worry about me. I'm gonna
(32:14):
get it and I'm going to keep getting it for
the rest of my life. And I ain't gotta stress it.
I ain't gotta be thirsty, I ain't gotta be doing
stuff that everybody else is doing. But I'm gonna get it.
And I don't have it figured it out fully? Maybe
you do. I would love to get your insight. You
got this calming the meaning to you. Even though you
are hard, your your your brons all the way, your
(32:36):
New York all the way. You just you're just dirty
all the way. You're the most ship talking person all
the way. But you still got this omness. How do
you have that?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Well? Uh, practice makes perfect. You know I've been rich.
I've been broke up in ridch of it, broke up
in riach of it, brouh and believe it or not
it Uh you know recently within this last year, I
found an account stealing.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
From you millions and problem. There's gotta be a problem
with you, man. Everybody stealing I have Can I steal
from you?
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Man?
Speaker 1 (33:13):
I'm selling I'm the only.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Person listen, man, But they get caught and so Eventually,
when you stick your head at the cookie jar, you
get caught for millions of dollars. And so this is
about the third time this happened to me. It's a
weird feeling. It feels almost like when you see a
bakery and you see doe being made. The machine goes
(33:38):
like this. Your stomach stretches like this. Right, because you
you pick people to protect you, you work like an animal,
and the people who are supposed to protect you, they
feel like they're smarter than you, so they start playing
games with your money, right, and start thinking it's their money. Right.
(33:58):
But when this happened, normally I would have been shocked
or I would have been but being that I've actually
been through this before, I knew how to take the
slow breath and say, all right, I know how I'm
gonna do this. You know, I know how to get
up out of this. I know we're gonna suit these people,
even though we're not suing type of people.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
And I know we're gonna win.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
But at the end of the day, you know the experience,
you know, I say, God gives you experiences and it's
only to prepare you for the future, and so you
take that knowledge and it's only really you like if
you like why God be careful in ten years, because
(34:39):
you're gonna know why he taught you that lesson, cause
in ten years you're gonna know how to react to it.
And so oh, you know, I'm always been optimistic, man,
I've always been a dreamer. I'm like a bugsy seal.
He went to Vegas and just made Vegas. He went
to a desert and made Vegas. I'm like that, a dreamer.
(35:00):
And if we bet on something we believe in that
we lose. I never have a problem losing. I never
have a problem losing, even though we win more than
we lose.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
And so.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
At the end of the day, I'm a hustler. I
was born to make money no matter what. There's nothing
you can do to stop me from making money unless
I'm unhealthy, God forbid. I know how to get to
the bag. I know how to adjust, I know how
to move with the times. I know to be how
to be ahead of a curve, and believe it or not,
(35:34):
I'm always preparing for that next like I haven't hit
what I want to hit. And you know what I'm
talking about. So you know, when you hear people say
I invested in the next suber, I invested.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
In the ring. You know, I'm in that. I'm all
in that.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
I haven't cracked one of those open yet, but trust me,
I'm all in it. My wife was like, yo, I was.
I was just recently in Dubai for two weeks straight.
I'm trying to put a move together, right, And she
was like, what do you think. I said, well, you know,
these type of things never worked out speak but at
least I'm trying and and.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
So you you know, it's funny.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Uh. I used to go to Angola, Africa, right, and
it's a very rich country in uh, diamonds and gold
and oil, but it's also a very poor country, very poor.
The disparate disparency is is is you got it?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Got it all? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
I would go on to I would go on a
plane to an all black African country and half the
plane is white. And it recently I just came out.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Of civil war.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Uh, thousands of people died and these guys was on
the plane.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
And I remember looking at them all.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
The time time when I would go over there, and
I'd be like, these guys ain't scared to go nowhere
for the dollar.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
They ain't scared to go. And that's the type of stuff.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
You know, we're hunters, you know, we're here to provide
our family, you know, and nine times are out of
ten unless you're a super lucky guy who has a
woman who understands finances.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Know, you know, if you're just.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
The provider your whole life, you know, you got a
problem with trying to make them understand the things you
gotta do.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
It's almost like I get upset.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Every year what I deal with accountants right when it's
tax time, because if you got a good accountant, nine
times out of ten their number, Like it's almost like
when a doctor comes and says, oh, you're gonna die.
But it's like it's like it just be like, hey,
you made a lot of money you got and you're like, no,
(37:52):
I had to go to the jungles, I had to
go to Thailand. Do you know what diarrhea from spicy food?
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Do you know what?
Speaker 3 (38:00):
They do? Everything in the world.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
And you come back and you got a fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Partner with you, so you're trying to at least the
only person who get because you're definitely not arguing with
the with the government or the irs The only person
who gets to get your your screams and your anger.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Is your accountants.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
You know, these guys they're just like, hey, man, this
is what you gotta do. And he's just like wow.
They just understand the numbers. They don't understand what it
took to get it.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Well, you know what, Joe, I gotta tell people this
because when I learned, when I when my accountants, I've learned,
always get an account first of all, recommended by somebody
who has never lost to the I R S. Because
first of all, when you are they're gonna be people
gonna keep you on the track. When the IRIS goes
after you, they say, oh, this dude's accountant has not
(38:52):
lost any you know, any orders. Let's move on to
a softer target. But just like you saying yelling, I
get a after taxis every year I get over, I
call my other part and I'll call my Jewish part,
I was, go, listen, man, I want to fire this guy.
You know personally, this guy's an a hole. And they
say to me, let me tell you something. Damon, if
(39:15):
your accountant is always agreeing when you're unhappy, he's stealing
or she's still if he's an asshole. That means you're
not stealing from you. Then I say to my part
and I go, well, normal, you know normal, I'd be
like normal, but you and I never get into arguments.
We're always good, and he'd be like this da, So
he may be like, yo, man, you want your you
(39:36):
want your accountant to be an asshole because he knows
she know you mad. It's not like you go, yo,
I'm mad mine, Oh yo.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
You stealing?
Speaker 3 (39:42):
They don't kid, Tell me, tell me pulld up. Tell
me about that partner ship. You've been in it for
twenty thirty years, and you guys are thick, and then
you guys are like got each other's bats, you guys,
and you started from different worlds, and you know you
got his back, he got your back. Like what is
(40:03):
that like?
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Knowing that you could wake up and.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Know, yo, I got a partner who got my back
and I got his back no matter what goes on.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Man, you know what it is the greatest feeling of
it is the fact that and I think that I've
seen you around people of otherth messities, genders, all kind
of stuff like that. And for this Jewish family to
do a deal with us, and and and they didn't
have a lot. They had distribution and we didn't have
a lot, and we found ways to meet in the middle.
(40:34):
And I've been in more bar minsters, boat misters that
I've been at anything else. I consider them. You know,
if I'm on my deathbed, there's going to be a
couple of people I'm gonna call, and I call them,
you know, And it is an honor right when you
start to see and like you said, man like being
so loving for each other. We tend to walk into
the room and because society has told us, now, yo, Joe,
(40:57):
keep it real, don't hang out that first. And because
I don't know they live over here, or they gay,
or they're they're straight, or whatever the case is. And
I think the end of the day, when you are
absolutely dedicated to somebody, you know that, when you're in
yourt deathbed and you want the people around you, you
ain't gonna give a shit about who they sleep with,
what God they prayed to, and what the color skin
they have. I think it's the best feeling in the world.
(41:18):
And like you said, you're gonna get hurt by some
of these people. Sometimes you know there's something's gonna happen
but I've never gotten hurt by any of these type
of people that I trust so much, because you know,
it takes half a lifetime for somebody to find a
friend and the other half of them to prove it.
That's what they say, and and and I'm, I'm that's
just the way it is. And I'm it's like you
(41:40):
all with j R.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
J R.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
And Lauren, right, God bless Jay all will passed away
only vacation he ever had, and I don't know, twenty
thirty years and it's an aneurysm, and didn't enjoy life
like you and I get to enjoy it. Even though
he had everything. It didn't take that minute decide to
have this type of conversation, you know.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Yeah, Well with me, I'm about humanity and I'm about
uh people being righteous, people being good people, people being
family people. Uh.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
And you know, I'm cool with the Jews. I'm cool
with the Muslims, you know.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
And so you know, I sit down with my with
my Jews, and they turn around, my Jewish people, and
they turned around and they say, you know, Joe, you know,
anybody who teaches you the Torah or tries to make
you uh Jewish, they really love you right. And then
I sit some of my Muslim guys and they got Joe.
(42:38):
You know, anybody who tries to teach you the Koran,
they really love you, right, And I'm like, yo, but
I'm Jesus Nights right, But Jesus Jesus Christ was a joke.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Right.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
But uh, you know me, just like you, I've learned
to overcome whatever this propagandam is and I love people
who love me will always do right by me, and
I stand up for that wherever I go in the world.
It's just you know, if this is my brother, this
is my sister, that's what it is. They've showed me
(43:10):
nothing but though ut they showed me nothing but love
to my family.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
You know what? That leads me to my final questions,
very simple one. You know, as you and I we
came up with nothing. You know, the streets are not
taught us to be vulnerable because people exploit that. But
as you just talked about the people around you, the
place you've been, who do you ask for I know
you all with your student in life, people want to
(43:35):
seem like they know what all? Who do you ask
for for advice? And why do you go to like
when you're in a room. You have a concept of
I'm always going to ask for advice. I'm not going
to act like I'm tough. What is the kind of
way that you go after and look for advice with people?
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Well, God bless the dead, it was JR. Right, it
was JR. Writing girl friend of ours, mutual friend of
mine and yours became a billionaire from nothing, and he
taught me a lot about business, and I was by
side every day. Another person that's Desret Perez and my
manager at Rock Nation, very very very very intelligent woman.
(44:15):
And every time I need a guidance or I need
some sort of help, she's always there for me, one
million percent above and beyond. And I would say those
are the two go to people I go to if
I'm jammed up or I don't understand the situation or
I don't know what's going on, and then they'll just
(44:36):
break it down to me.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
So those are two people I really really trust and
giving me the right information. Well, I.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Believe you should do that, and I agree like a JR.
And I don't know, Des Ray heard one of things
about it, But JR didn't need you. They all didn't
need me, and I love to ask people who don't
need you, you know, for advice. And that's why often
when you and I talk, I can ask you for
advice because you don't need me. I don't need you.
And that's the best people in the world that they
(45:06):
want to do it because they love you. As you
said about the way of the Koran of the Taro, right,
So man, I love you. Man, Joe, done so much
for my career. You've done so much for other people's career.
You used to call Russell Simmons everybody of a private partner,
or you said silent partner. I think you're everybody's silent
partner in the game. And man, I appreciate you for
(45:27):
spending that moment with me. And go take care of
those nicks and take care of that opportunity and celebrate that.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
M somebody I want to shout out somebody very important,
our boy, Chauncey shot Tell, who reached out and made
this up. You know he used to take me to
Cabrity greet. You know you ain't always have the suit
with the well Tell you no. I know Chauncey from
the streets out Chicago. That's our brother Pa.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Thank you, thank you man. There you have it. I
can talk to Joe forever. I think we we touched
on so many amazing things, from you know, how he
invested in people are or how do you still have
the wherewithal to trust people? How he's still being betrayed
but how he's old other thing outside of the box.
And more importantly, we learned Joe's life and how we
(46:17):
can apply it to ourselves. So I'm glad that you
two and in I hope I took me down a
very special moment yourself, as with Fat Joe, because you're
here with that moment with Damon John. If you have
any more ideas and or questions that I a should
ask some of our upcoming guests, I want to deep
and go down rabbit hole. Good of make sure you
send it over to us at at that moment at
(46:37):
Damon John out, thank you for spending the time with me,
and I look forward to hanging out with you again.
That Moment with Damon John is a production of the
Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black
Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(46:58):
wherever you listen to your favorite show, and don't forget
to subscribe to the show and.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
Rate the show.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
You can all connect with me on any social media
platform at the Shark daymon as in Raymond with a
D
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