Fat Joe has admitted that he doesn’t understand a lot of current Hip Hop.
Speaking to Complex, the “Lean Back” legend confessed that some of the rap music released by younger generations leaves him feeling “confused.”
“I encourage the youth and I love the youth, [but] I’ve sat in traffic and [heard the music] — I felt like they were playing devil music right next to me,” he said. “I’m like, ‘Yo, what the fuck? That’s Hip Hop?!’ They got some weird shit going on.”
Joe added: “I fuck with them, I’m always gonna salute them. I don’t know how they spiraled into this particular sound. Hip Hop’s so diverse — we got Lauryn Hill, we got Biz Markie, you got Eric B. and Rakim, you got Nas… You’re not gonna open this shit and hear the same shit.”
The Bronx native then explained his gripes with the rap music currently emanating from his hometown: “Sometimes when I’m listening, especially in New York youth, I’m hearing the same shit, the same beats, and I’m numb. I’m like, ‘Yo, this is crazy.’
“[Back in my day], if we had a love song, it’d be LL [Cool J] going, ‘I need love / Sometimes I stare at the room, I hear my conscience call.’ [Now], if you hear a love song, it’s over the same beat and it’s, ‘I’ll kill you! Fuck ya mother!’ It’s the same shit. I’m confused.”
Fat Joe also emphatically ruled out the prospect of him putting his prejudice to the side and making a “sexy drill” — the smoother, more sensual style of the NYC subgenre popularized by likes of Cash Cobain and Ice Spice — song.
“That’s definitely not in the works,” he said while holding his head in his hands. “I got a love song with fucking Babyface.”
Fat Joe is confused by current rap music 🧐 pic.twitter.com/e2XEr7isk6
— Complex Music (@ComplexMusic) January 20, 2025
Fat Joe is not the only rap veteran to be baffled by some of the recent developments in the genre.
Last year, LL Cool J was asked in an interview with The New York Times what he feels is missing from today’s Hip Hop, simply replying: “Songwriting.”
He elaborated: “There’s nothing wrong with rapping about money and success, and there’s nothing wrong with rapping about pure sex — I love them both. [But] there has to be more to it than that, to me, in order for a project to be compelling.”
His comments were somewhat echoed by Dr. Dre, who said on Kevin Hart’s Peacock series Hart to Hart in 2023: “Anybody that’s talking about the state of Hip Hop right now, when talking about it from a negative place, sounds like somebody’s fuckin’ grandfather. This is just what it is. Hip Hop is evolving. If you don’t like it, don’t listen to it, you know what I’m saying?”
However, he added: “I’m keepin’ it all the way 100 with you. Some of this shit, most of this shit, I don’t like. I don’t listen to a lot of that shit. But I’m not hatin’ on it. I’m never gonna hate on it.”
I am confused by Fat Joe’s beard.
It looks painted on lol 🧔🏿♂️
It is painted on, he’s been doing it for years
Fat Joe always been confused about music cause his shit ain’t ever been good!
Clown statement. First three albums are very solid. You obviously weren’t around 93 to 97 times and in NYC.
His new album is surprisingly good. I definitely fuck with it.
I agree. The new Fat Joe is tough.
He got a point. But than again new york lyrics bevweird too. I never understood why new york MCs try to sound so educated on the mic. Youre stereotypical new york MC would make a song about a drive by shooting but fill it with metaphors and weird words from the dictionary nobody uses in real life, make that make sense. Whatvreslly confuses me more about yourg rappers is how they dress. How did dressing “punk” become cool ? Rockers used to hate hip hop culture and vice versa.
sounds like typical dumb ass talk to me – the “rap fan” who hates any good rap or rappers. can’t understand why someone would want to even be good at rap. but is such a big “rap fan” – fuck rap music at this point. clowns will not support anything worthwhile and too many sellouts will do anything for cash no matter how petty, evil or self- degrading
I might be able to give a reason why that could be.
I was born in NY, but moved to the south for high school. The education system north has been more advanced than the south, for decades, statistically.
I can give a lot of contrasts, but here’s one. In about 4th maybe 5th grade, we were reading books like the autobiography of miss Jane pittman, Tom sawyer, Watership down, etc. If we didn’t understand a word, we had to look it up and write the word/definition down ten times. This advanced our vocabulary at an early age. When I started 9th grade in the south, the class had to read autobiography of miss Jane pittman for the first time. I had to tell my teacher I had read it 4 or 5 years prior. She was amazed.
That’s cuz most these rappers nowadays are gay.
Nothing wrong with sounding like a grandparent. Most of the mfs making this music were probably raised by one anyway. The problem is these young mfs not respecting their elders. Because if they did they wouldn’t be making or even listening to this trash ass trap, drill and thot rap in the 1st place.
Fat Joe is fulla sht, again. This dude ain’t made hip-hop music for a long time now, and his current stuff mostly uses the same blueprint as the sound he’s complaining about. Dude really needs to just stop the bs.
I feel where he’s coming from but saying it sound like devil music is old man shit. Most mainstream is just trash. They originally called hip hop devil music and rock and roll was the same way.
shut the fuck up yt – 2025 rap is for sellouts and cocksuckers. disgraced all of us