Fat Joe says he has no intentions of hanging up the mic.
The Terror Squad rapper began hinting at his retirement years ago, saying he wanted to throw in the towel following the release of his 2019 studio album, Family Ties.
“I don’t really wanna stop. I’m stoppin’ because I’m trying to be a regular guy and raise my daughter,” he told Complex News. “I think I’m dead nice right now, if you ask me. I think I’m extremely nice.”
Joe later said he was “100 percent” settled on retiring from rap, but he ultimately chose to continue after receiving some encouraging words from his good friend Eminem.
But will Joe ever have a change of heart? Doesn’t seem likely.
The 51-year-old rapper addressed the question during a recent appearance on the video podcast Maino Presents Kitchen Talk. Toward the end of the sit-down, the host plainly asked Joe if he’ll one day stop rapping.
“I don’t think so. I mean, I’m really good at this shit, man. And I’m on time,” Joe responded (1:23:57). “I know when rappers gotta give it up. A lot of legends that we looked up to was the illest in the world, [but] when they got older, they wasn’t on point with the flow, they weren’t on point with everything. They sounded dated […] Fat Joe knows everything going on. I’m pushin’ P right now.”
Joe said it was passion—not checks—that motivate him to stay in the game.
“Now, at this point, it ain’t about money to me,” he said. “Right now, it’s really about the love of making music.”
Joe went on to highlight the other ways he and his fellow rappers have found other streams of income outside of music.
“We doing TV, we doing series, we doing animated shows, investments …” he said. “We doing so much shit… trying to get to the end result. The end result is the super bag.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Joe is asked about his impact on the culture and whether he feels he gets the credit he deserves.
“I never get the credit that I deserve. You don’t get the credit that you deserve,” he said (46:08). “But that’s the shit that keeps us going […] When I do music, for like the past 10 years, it wasn’t even doing music for people that’s living. I’m doing it for 20 years, 30 years from now, for the kids that got no opinion, that got no bias, that got no crew, ain’t got no team. When they start studying hip hop in 20, 30 years from now, when they do the math, they’re gonna be like, ‘This is one nasty motherfucker out here. He was putting in that work.’ That’s what it’s about for me now.”
He continued: “It ain’t really about this time. Y’all already know I put in the work. You might think I’m crazy. My wife think I’m crazy. But I’m not crazy, I’m confident, and I know what I do.”
You can check out his full interview above.