Fat Joe has recalled how Big L hurt his relationship with Ma$e one night at the legendary New York City venue, The Tunnel.
The Bronx rapper recently guested on Mike Tyson’s Hotboxin’ podcast alongside Angie Martinez. While reflecting on their memories of The Tunnel, which shuttered in 2001, Joe recalled the fateful encounter with the late D.I.T.C. MC and Bad Boy hitmaker.
“One time I got set up. Rest in peace Big L, [he] comes up to me in The Tunnel and he’s like ‘Yo, Crack, come bring your n-ggas, I got some beef,” he remembered. “So we come — Big L’s our brother, you know Diggin’ in the Crates — and when I come up, it’s fucking Ma$e. He’s arguing with Ma$e, they from the same block!
“I’m like, ‘I was hanging out with Ma$e the night before at Puffy’s studio!’ Ma$e was looking at me like I was the greatest snake ever lived. He’s like, ‘For real?’ I’m sitting there and, you know, L is my crew so L was like, ‘We will fuck you up right now, we don’t give a fuck, it’s whatever.”
Fat Joe added Big L turned to him and asked, “Right, Joe?” To which he awkwardly nodded his head. “I don’t think Ma$e ever trusted me again in my life after that,” he said. “That shit was foul, man.”
Big L grew up with Ma$e in Harlem and they later formed the rap group Children Of The Corn, which also included Cam’ron, Herb McGruff and the late Bloodshed. The group broke up after Bloodshed passed away in a car accident in 1997, with the surviving members embarking on solo careers.
Fat Joe previous shed light on the incident in 2020 during an Instagram Live with Jim Jones, another Harlemite who grew up with Big L. According to Joe, his studio session with Ma$e the night before was full of good vibes — until things went awry at The Tunnel the next day.
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“L was talking to him, but [Ma$e] was looking at me like he couldn’t believe that shit,” Joe told Capo. “He was like, ‘Word? Like for real, Crack?'”
Jones added: “All of them had their little rifts Uptown. Cam, Ma$e, L. Everybody got into issues back in the day ’cause they were so young with that success and they start getting money, it was just different.
“Ma$e popped off. Ma$e was looking like the king of Harlem. He wasn’t showing no love, he wasn’t giving back to the community. He wasn’t picking n-ggas like L up.”
Ma$e explained his fractured relationships with some of his Harlem brethren during his interview with Million Dollaz Worth of Game in August. According to the former pastor, his lavish purchases rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but little did they know, he wasn’t as rich as they assumed.
“When I got the money it just changed everything, but at first my problem with I think Cam was just that they thought I had money I didn’t have,” Ma$e said. “I was flexing crazy, so n-ggas was like, ‘Yo, Murda ain’t sharing the bag.’
“I never got the bag. Now that we looking back you can see he never got that bag, and then by the time I got the bag we was enemies already. So I didn’t get to break ’em off.”
He added: “That’s one of the relationships I regret. I think I got two that I regret, and going at Killa, I wanted to do that but that was like my n-gga, you know what I’m saying? So that really hurt me.”
After 20 long years, Ma$e finally buried the hatchet with Cam’ron last month. The same couldn’t be said for Big L, though, who was tragically shot and killed in Harlem in February 1999.
Fat Joe da African Don
Big L seemed like a cool guy who just rapped hardcore in the booth. It’s hard to believe he was beefing with people especially the story Cam’ron told a few years ago.
I thought so too.. but apparently the dude that killed him (who he was cool with at one point), L mighta had something to do with setting him up to get robbed.
It’s not hard to believe if you get off his top. Ppl swear they favorite rappers do no wrong. Joe was corny for that. And so was L. How you gonna come between a friendship just because the other barked some orders without telling you the true story. DITC was grown men that made music together not a gang.
Ok, but Mase and Big L were on McGruff’s song Dangerzone in 1998. They either squashed the beef or the beef happened after this song was recorded.
It’s equally not hard to believe that fat Joe is full of shit and is just trying to stay relevant
Many of times shit goes down or happens for some strange reasons tho yo! Yeah Joe it may had been quite disappointing at the time but then again perhaps for a reason, know what I mean? So no need to bother take that crap too personal but jus push that to the side and keep it movin yo!! Rest In Paradise to Big L.