The important advice Lil Wayne gave Fat Joe about jail
Fat Joe has brushed shoulders with the best MCs in the industry and, over the years, has become very close to a lot of his peers. One such artist is New Orleans lyricist Lil Wayne who he befriended in the early 2000s.
Although the two didn’t have a lot in common, the two bonded, and during his career, Fat Joe, as an older artist, shared a lot of advice with the Young Money star. However, when the Terror Squad emcee found himself facing jail time, Lil Wayne shared some essential knowledge with Joe to make sure his stint behind bars wouldn’t be too uncomfortable.
In 2013, Fat Joe turned himself into prison after pleading guilty to failing to pay more than $1 million in taxes for the years of 2007 and 2008. The charges were serious, and the ‘Lean Back’ rapper initially faced up to two years behind bars. However, after a plea deal, Joe’s sentence was reduced to four months, a $15,000 fine and one year of parole.
While on bail, as he prepared to spend four months at a Federal Detention Centre in Miami, Fat Joe got some advice from Lil Wayne that stuck with him forever and still remains with him to this day.
During an appearance on the Facebook Watch series Red Table Talk, Fat Joe recalled an emotional moment he shared with Weezy before Joe served jail time. Recalling the conversation, Joe told the hosts, “I was like, ‘Yo Wayne, what’s up?’ And he was like, ‘I’m just telling you right now, be humble.’ And I said, ‘Well, how do you do it?’ and he said, ‘Just be humble, bro. If you’ll be humble, they’ll respect you.’”
During the show, hosted by Jada Pinkett-Smith, Fat Joe declared that he heeded the advice of Lil Wayne and coped well in jail. However, he also admitted that due to their close bond, in 2010, when Weezy was incarcerated he visited him and “one of the saddest things” ever.
Speaking about the conditions they were keeping Wayne in and how they had restricted him, Joe told Smith, “One of the saddest things I ever did was go visit Lil Wayne in jail. Not only that, but they had him chained up. Lil Wayne. They had him in shackles and all that. They had him like he was [a] killer.”
Still, Lil Wayne didn’t spend time in just any prison; in 2010, Tha Carter creator spent eight months on the infamous Rikers Island in New York for gun charges after pleading guilty to unlawful possession of a weapon in connection with a gun discovered on his tour bus back in 2007.