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Fat Joe Confesses His Confusion Over Modern Rap: ‘That’s Hip Hop?’

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Fat Joe has opened up about his struggles to grasp a lot of today’s Hip Hop music.

In a chat with Complex, the “Lean Back” icon admitted that some of the newer rap tracks leave him feeling pretty “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.”

He continued, “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 rapper, per HipHopDX, then voiced his concerns about the current rap scene in his city: “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.’

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Joey shares that in the past, a love song would feature LL Cool J expressing, “I need love / Sometimes I stare at the room, I hear my conscience call.” Nowadays, love songs often revolve around the same rhythm but convey messages like, “I’ll kill you! Screw your mother!” Joe expressed it’s the same sound and it leaves him confused.

Fat Joe also made it clear that he has no plans to jump on the “sexy drill” trend — the smoother side of the NYC subgenre made popular by artists like Cash Cobain and Ice Spice.

“That’s definitely not in the works,” he said while holding his head in his hands. “I got a love song with fucking Babyface.”

This comes after Fat Joe dropped his first solo album in 15 years, ‘The World Changed On Me,’ just last month.

The album showcases the seasoned MC taking on the mediocrity he noticed creeping into the music scene for artists of his era. The album draws some inspiration from Killer Mike’s big win last year, where he snagged three Grammys for his 2023 album, Michael. Joe shared with Complex, “When Killer Mike won, I thought, ‘Oh snap, they’re ready to recognize the real, let’s do this.’” That’s when he reached out to the producer duo Cool & Dre to dive back into the studio and create his next project.

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