Fat Joe is a legend in New York hip-hop and was one of the first Latino rappers to maintain a successful career in rap. The Bronx artist was previously a member of the Diggin’ In The Crates crew alongside Lord Finesse Big L and others. The lyricist then went on to found the Terror Squad.
However, during the early days of his career, while he was still living in the Bronx, the emcee (real name Jose Cartagena) had some wild experiences. During a speech at the opening day of the Roc Nation School of Music Sports & Entertainment, Cartagena gave a detailed story of his journey into music that included a strange story about him getting high.
Speaking to a fairly large crowd, the ‘Lean Back’ musician explained, “So I’m in my apartment, I’m still in The Bronx, and she convinces me to get high. She goes, ‘Yo let’s smoke this weed; it’s incredible…so I smoke. I got so paranoid I ran out the house butt naked, real talk.”
After a barrage of laughter, he continued, “In the middle of the night. I ran out of there. They call that a bad trip or something, right? I ran out of there, and the girl, she pulls up in my car. I have the white Lexus, and she’s like, ‘Joe, Joe, get in the car.’ I was already Fat Joe, too…I was like, ‘I’m gonna die! I gotta go to the hospital! I’m gonna die!”
Laughing about his teenage experience, Cartagena unveiled that eventually, he did get into the car, divulging, “So she convinced me to get in the car and said she was gonna take me to the hospital, and she takes me around the block, and we go in the crib, and I take like seven showers.”
Although embarrassing stories like these are rarely heard from rappers, last year, Fat Joe released his book, The Book of Jose, which includes tales from the time he spent in prison a decade ago to the time he was kidnapped in Angola.
Although Cartagena can look back at the event now as a silly one-off, one can’t doubt that the ‘What’s Luv?’ rhymer truly thought he was going to die. You can watch Fat Joe speak about the experience in the video below.