One of the biggest mistakes Fat Joe ever made
“One of my biggest mistakes ever,” Fat Joe tweeted in 2018, openly declaring to his followers that he’d messed up. He was responding to another tweet in which someone mentioned a beat that Joe had passed on—and which later brought another rap act a huge amount of success.
The beat in question ended up becoming the Fugees’ 1995 hit ‘Fu-Gee-La,’ which was a massive song for the group. It only peaked at number 29 on the US Billboard Hot 100, but it marked the Fugees’ best chart performance at the time and it has since solidified into something of a classic—and Fat Joe could have had it for himself.
The beat’s producer was Salaam Remi, who created it after Joe reached out to request a song in the same spirit as the Fugees track ‘Nappy Heads.’ Remi understood the brief perfectly well, and, eventually, he came back to Joe with an early version of what became ‘Fu-Gee-La.’
Remi had done what had been asked of him, but, for whatever reason, Joe wasn’t into it. He decided to pass on Remi’s beat, meaning that it was available for someone else to pick up. But it took some time.
The song remained in obscurity, until Remi received a request from the filmmaker Spike Lee. He needed music for his movie Clockers, and he asked Remi for help. Remi, in turn, decided that he would work with the Fugees on the project, so they arranged time together in the studio.
Work began on a song called ‘Project Heads,’ which ultimately didn’t work out, but soon the collaboration really started to take shape, as Remi recalled during a conversation with Pitchfork in 2016. “During the session for ‘Project Heads,’ which I was also trying to get into Clockers,” he said, “there was a beat I had made for Fat Joe that Lauryn heard. She was like, ‘Look, where’s that Fat Joe beat?’”
Remi dug it up for her, and, soon, the Fugees members were laying down their vocals. They ended up creating a great song, and it soon set the tone for work on their second album, The Score, to begin. “That song was done,” Remi said of ‘Fu-Gee-La,’ “and then they went and got the budget for that second album.”
According to Remi, ‘Fu-Gee-La’ helped the band get funding for their second album, while it also informed the record’s overall feel. “Basically, the vibe of The Score was based around ‘Fu-Gee-La,’” he claimed. “If you take away ‘Fu-Gee-La’ it’s there, but ‘Fu-Gee-La’ is The Score, so that’s why it ended up being the first single.”
It all worked out great for the Fugees, with The Score going six times platinum and winning two Grammys. ‘Fu-Gee-La’ transformed them into stars, but it easily could have worked out another way. The track at the heart of their success could have been Fat Joe’s.