Fat Joe has said that he and the late Big Pun once waited in line at Tower Records to get themselves a copy of Eminem‘s Slim Shady LP.
Joey Crack sat down for an interview with Rap Radar, and recalled that he and Pun spent the night before the 1999 Grammys, at the height of their fame, waiting in line at Tower Records. Joe called Em a living “god,” and said the two of them were desperate to get their hands on a copy of Slim Shady’s major label debut when it dropped.
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“Eminem is a god, I don’t give a fuck who or what you think, he’s a god,” Joe said. “Somebody shifted the whole algorithm when he came up. Me and Big Pun, Big Pun was the fist Latino to sell two million records solo.
“We’re nominated for a Grammy and the night before we go to the Grammys we are waiting on line in L.A. at Tower Records for fucking Eminem album. On line, nominated for a Grammy, me and Big Pun on line to get that muthafuckin’ Eminem album. You tell me he ain’t a rap god.”
Pun’s debut album Capital Punishment was up for Best Rap Album in 1999, the same year Eminem dropped off his seminal The Slim Shady LP. The album put Em on the map, debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, and No. 1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
As for Pun, he ended up losing to JAY-Z’s Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life, which apparently didn’t sit well with the Terror Squad member.
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“Big Pun was nominated for two Grammys. He went and got the finger waves like Dru Down. It’s that iconic picture where we look like the kingpin. The big-ass suits,” Joe told XXL back in March. “I remember when we went to the Grammys, they had told us that they do the Hip Hop awards before, and we lost. Ricky Martin was doing the ‘Living La Vida Loca’ and I’m looking around. It’s Aretha Franklin. It’s Kirk Franklin. I waited my whole life to get there.
“Pun was like, ‘Yo, fuck these people, man. They jerked us.’ I was like, ‘What?’ and he was like ‘Let’s go.’ I was like, ‘Yo, Pun, are you serious?’ He was like, ‘Yo, let’s go. Fuck that, you my brother, let’s go.’ I was like, ‘Aight, fuck it. We gotta go.’ That was a big moment for us. We left. We left the Grammys. And we were strapped, like the cover, at the Grammys.”
This isn’t the first time Joe has stood firmly by Eminem. Back in March, he and Papoose defended Eminem’s No. 5 ranking on Billboard’s Top 50 Greatest Rappers of All Time list, despite Furious Five MC Melle Mel questioning his placement because of his skin tone.
“Obviously, he’s a capable rapper. If you was talking about sales, he’s sold more than everybody. If you talking about rhyme style, okay, he got a rhyme style,” Melle Mel said at the time. “But he’s white!”
He continued: “If Eminem was just another n-gga like all the rest of us, would he be Top 5 on that list, when a n-gga that can rhyme just as good as him is [number] 35? … If he was a Black rapper, he wouldn’t even make the list probably.”
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“I disagree with that because even though Eminem is Caucasian, you cannot front on his skillset, man. You can’t deny that skillset!” Pap retorted in an Instagram Live convo with Joe, to which the latter replied: “No way.”
“As much as I love and worship Melle Mel, I think he’s wrong with this one,” Joe concluded.
