Fat Joe loves giving his longtime friends their flowers, and his recent Verzuz opponent Ja Rule was next in line. On Wednesday (September 15), Fat Joe and Ja Rule hopped on Instagram Live to break down their historic Verzuz battle from the night before.
Both rappers had a stranglehold on Hip Hop and pop in the early 2000s and Fat Joe made it a point to uplift Ja’s incredible career, saying the Queens legend did what Drake is currently doing long before the 6 God was breaking records.
“No disrespect to your Hip Hop roots, you’re a pop star,” Joe told Ja Rule. “I always tell everybody you was the Drake before Drake. You had hit after hit after hit after hit.”
Ja laughed off the compliment before claiming Drake is one of the greatest of all time, which Joey Crack agreed with — but that didn’t stop him from giving the Murder Inc. rapper his flowers.
“He’s the GOAT, we not going there,” Fat Joe added. “But what I’m saying is for the youth who’s tuned in, they don’t realize that this guy Ja Rule had a run like Drake for years. Just hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, hit.”
Fat Joe made a bold claim, but it’s hard to argue Ja Rule’s remarkable run during Hip Hop’s early transition into the pop world. Ja sold over 30 million records worldwide and had several Top 20 Billboard Hot 100 hits, three of which went No. 1 (“I’m Real (Murder Remix)” and “Ain’t It Funny” both featuring Jennifer Lopez and “Always On Time” featuring Ashanti).
He topped the Billboard 200 twice with Rule 3:36 in 2000 and Pain Is Love in 2001 and was nominated for four Grammy Awards.
Later on, during their Instagram Live, Fat Joe and Ja Rule had Ashanti join them to discuss her and her ex-boyfriend Nelly seeing each other after so long on Tuesday night. Fans were quick to assume the two were reconciling, but that wasn’t the case.
“Listen, there’s nothing happening,” Ashanti said. “Now look, this is the crazy part. I had no idea he was gonna be there, and I haven’t seen him or spoken to him since we broke up. Six years or something? So, I didn’t know what to expect. I seen him move you out the way.”
Ashanti Addresses Reconciliation Rumors With Ex Nelly Following Fat Joe + Ja Rule Verzuz
Ashanti continued, “Listen, I wasn’t expecting it. And that’s the crazy thing! I seen his eyes get big and I didn’t know what was gonna happen. I didn’t know what to expect. It was positive.”
Ja Rule added, “You know, Nelly’s single now,” but Ashanti replied, “Yeah, but I ain’t! So…”
Fat Joe’s Ja Rule-Drake comparison set off a debate on rap Twitter. Check out some of the reactions to his hot take below.
Loved Ja growing up but Drake has stayed longer n is bigger n dopper.
Stayed longer snd bigger In ur a$$
Ja Rule had a couple nice albums and big hits. Definitely set the stage for an MC like Drake to become popular on the charts. On the one hand Drake is way bigger than Ja Rule ever was but that doesn’t mean Ja Rule didn’t help create Drake’s lane and also drop some huge records. In the end the beef with 50 really hurt him because he started wanting to compete with street rappers like when he first dropped and he should have left that in the past and gone the Akon route.
Ja didn’t create any lane, he just rode the slipstream of others. There was a ton of rappers that already did what Ja did.
Like who? I’ll wait d!($ wad.
He ripped off 2pac, DMX and Fabolus. RnB rap goes back as far as LL Cool J. Nelly was doing sing song rapping onhos first album in 99 before Ja started doing it on his second album. Know the history before chatting nonsense you vegetable.
Ja Rule wrote most of the songs he was featured on like Rainy Dayz and a few for J-Lo. He also wrote What’s Love and gave it to Fat Joe. Ja was going triple platinum back when you had to buy CDs not this streaming BS.
Wow! We need Rapper’s to get along! Things are very serious now! We need Unity in the Hip Hop
Game! Our youth are watching!
The youth are idiots. I wish to slap all their parents for not putting them on to the history. If auto tune and rap singing makes up a portion of your so called “hip hop list,” I deserve to be punched in your ovary.
Taking the actual sound of the music out of it then drakes probably closer to a jay-z career, just consistently goes number one and always works with the newest in the biz. Also seems kind of calculating and just knows how to play the game.
Nope. Nelly was the Drake of that time. Only Nelly wasn’t a meme salesman and actually wrote his own rhymes.
Nelly didn’t do the singing hooks like Ja. And remember how Ja was clowned then? But it’s okay to do it now. Same shit happened to Hammer about endorsements and being called a sell out. But yet here we are with idiotic responses from the likes of you.
Nelly didn’t sing in his hooks? Wtf are you talking about? He even had songs that were only singing like that one with Tim McGraw lol.
Are you smoking crack or have you literally never listened to any Nelly song in your life? Only one idiotic comment here and it’s yours.
Boy nobody is buying whatever this article is trying to say. Give ja back his 200 dollars for asking yall to right a article on him because those tweets either 0 or 1 comment, nobody believe you you need more people
Give 50 his semen back after jerking it to you to write this stupidity.
@burn I feel sorry for ya mother, she should of had a bltch since you act like one, lol
fat joe always goes over the top with the love. He also said LiL Mo was an ICON while apologizing and and called dj khaled quincy jones LMAO GTFOH
Fat Joe the Florist
ja rule had a 2 year run of hits relax
How old are you lol?
I can’t tell if you’re making fun of him for being too young or too old
That Fat Joe + Ja Rule Versus battle was slammin’! Shoutout to the G.O.A.T.s
Ja, Nelly, 50 and Drake all owe flowers to LL
Drake is Drake and Ja Rule was and is Ja Rule. You take away from Both when you compare. Their is no need to say Ja Rule was the Drake of his era. Ja Rule was the Ja Rule of his era. Ja had a lot of hits and great songs and collabs imo. Love is pain is one of my favorite rap albums even though it’s more laid back than hard core. He is talented and showed it through his music and movies. People just turn they backs on him because people have a herd mentality to follow popular opinion. I never understood the hate he has gotten it’s been one of the weirdest things in Hiphop.
If ja dropped a album today who’s buying. I’ll wait……. Exactly
Ja had his run….To the Cookie Jar.
Can’t lie, them shits had the women on the dance floor and me going Str8 in. If the women like I couldn’t give a fuck