Fat Joe

Man I got so many regrets. The biggest is that Eminem gave me so many demos — six different times he approached me, and I didn't sign him. Shame on me.

As a little kid, I watched hip hop get created. So it's an honour for me to represent the Bronx, the motherland of hip hop.

I have been Fat Joe since I was a kid. It's always been my name and always will be.

We go after legacies because we just know that, sooner or later, people will understand what we bring to this culture and bring to the game.

My coldest days, my darkest days, ain't no sun out, all I got is my fans. They the only people I ride for. Believe it or not, if you're a real Fat Joe fan, a Terror Squad fan, I do it for ya'll.

If you really analyze my music, there is a lot of violence in my music because the Bronx, at the era and time I was coming up, was almost equivalent to how a 'Braveheart' or 'Gladiator' movie would be.

The hip hop industry is most likely owned by gays. I happen to think there's a gay mafia in hip hop. Not rappers — the editorial presidents of magazines, the PDs at radio stations, the people who give you awards at award shows.

Everything has to evolve. Music has to go somewhere. That's what keeps it fresh.

To have so many years in the rap industry and so many number one songs, and sold so many millions of records, introduced the world to people like Cool & Dre, DJ Khaled, Pitbull, Rick Ross, Trick Daddy, Remy Ma, Big Pun, Rico Love... I could go on and on. Having been able to influence the rap game for so long is very important to me.

Never get involved with a business that you can't really be hands-on — that if your employees quit, you can't run yourself. If I can't cut hair, why open a barbershop?

Before I was rapping, I was always around the rap game, even though I was in the streets. I would be at all the parties and all the events, and I was pretty hard to miss. I was one of the few Spanish cats sitting there with jewelry on, Dapper Dan suits. It was pretty hard to miss me.

I always loved being fat, obviously. I'm Fat Joe.

I started out in the Apollo Theater. That's where I got my start. I won Amateur Night four weeks in a row.

When I first started, I thought I was wack. Lyrically, I thought I was wack. The thing I had over everybody was that I was the realest rapper.

DJ Premier, this guy is like a god, a walking god. Guru, he put it down legendary.

There isn't a country I ain't touch in Africa. I just came back from South of France, I toured China, Japan, wherever you name, 60,000 people come out to see Fat Joe.