Fat Joe Recalls Exhausting And Bizarre Studio Session With Kanye West

Fat Joe is the biggest fan of his own music – as any artist should be – but even he had his doubts about how some of his big hits came together. Moreover, he recently spoke to GQ for their Iconic Tracks series, where he gave some insight into his 2012 collab with Kanye West (along with many other MCs), “Pride N Joy.” Specifically, Joey Crack reflected on how Ye made him re-record his verse an exhausting amount of times in order to get his perfect desired cadence for a particular line during Joe’s part. Given all we know about the Chicago artist, this perfectionism, dedication, and eccentricity is no surprise.

“’Pride N Joy’ was a hit,” Fat Joe recalled about his 2012 Kanye West collab. “It was coming right after ‘Another Round.’ Rico Love had the hot pen. It was a hit, and Bink had did the beat. And then Kanye had heard it. He was like, ‘Yo, I want to do something to it, let’s work together.’ At the time, Kanye could not lose. […] He made me do my verses — same verse, but say it over and over — maybe 300 times.

“My guys wanted to beat him up,” Fat Joe continued concerning Kanye West. “They was, like, ‘Yo, come on, man f**k out of here with this.’ He would be, like, ‘cul-der-sac.’ He would leave. […] He’d come back. ‘Cul-der-sac.’ […] I loved the finished product. I love how my verses came out. […] He’s a tough one. But it was an honor to work with him. He’s my favorite rapper of the last half of my whole career. To this day, he’s the only guy I compare my music to. […] Anything Kanye do, I’m with.”

Meanwhile, Fat Joe recently reflected on another one of his biggest 2010s hits, “All The Way Up,” and seemingly threw shade at Chance The Rapper while speaking on the song’s loss to “No Problem” at the 2017 Grammy Awards. So that pride can sometimes turn into a more seemingly negative narrative, but at the same time, it’s this passion, confidence, and satisfaction that also makes him look back at his Kanye West studio session quite fondly.