Due to remarks he made on a recent Instagram Live about the beginnings of Hip Hop culture, Fat Joe is now the target of backlash on social media.
The Terror Squad leader posted a video on Friday (August 26) honoring the forefathers of Latino Hip Hop, and that was when everything began. “Thank you Thank you Thank you for your contribution to Hip Hop,” he added in the post. The next day, he went live on Instagram to promote DJ Khaled’s new album God Did as well as to respond to some of the unfavorable remarks he had been receiving about the post.
Around the 52-minute mark, he says, “I tell you I never really fuck with Twitter, but I go on there to see they always hating on me and shit.” “Latinos weren’t in rap, they’ve been saying lately. These guys are so completely naive. We hail from New York’s Bronx. Things happen. This is the origin of hip hop. Black and Latino people make up half of it.
But they are attacking me because I’m the only Spanish guy with a loud voice. As in, “Fuck that.” No Latinos were present. You were welcomed. You are an example. I have no idea what the fuck is going on with these folks who are factually illiterate.
A post shared by FAT JOE (@fatjoe)
As Fat Joe’s video circulated online, comments started to flood Twitter.
The statement “DJ Khaled is undoubtedly the largest culture vulture in hip hop & we have Fat Joe (another culture vulture) to ‘thank’ for that’ was made by one person, while the statement “I’m not here to sh*t on Fat Joe or knock down his legacy” was made by another. However, his rhetoric must be addressed and examined. He will be harming his own legacy if he avoids having this talk. I’m more astonished by the guys who aren’t speaking to him around him. Silence implies collaboration.
Some people’s mental aggression was considerably greater. Another Pharaoh Jones claimed that Fat Joe was copying Hip Hop songs and dubbed him a “racist.”
“RACIST WHITE LATINO FAT JOE claims that Hispanics invented hip-hop in an attempt to STEAL IT FROM BLACK AMERICANS! QUIT THIS CULTURE VULTURE NOW!
However, it didn’t end there. A second Twitter user gave Fat Joe a history lesson by posting a black-and-white video from the 1950s that showed the beginnings of breaking. “BLACK AMERICAN DANCING STYLES: This is where breakdancing started from TAP/SWING DANCE,” they stated in the caption. 1800s-1950s. Black American Teenagers performed “Educate Kids” to SOUL and FUNK record breakings from 1967 through 1974.
The birth of Hip Hop has been commemorated every year on August 11, the day Jamaican DJ Kool Herc and his sister Cindy Campbell threw their famous Back To School Jam at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx on August 11, 1973. Hip Hop has always been a melting pot of different cultures and will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2023.
Hip-hop expert Nelson George noted in the book Latina that “[if] you] talk to Grandmaster Flash, Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, or any of the early DJs they all talk about the breakers, who in the ’70s and ’80s were predominantly Latinos, and keeping them happy on the dance floor.” “Latino dancers like Crazy Legs of the Rock Steady Crew made up the majority of the well-known break crews that really made it by the early 1980s. Therefore, if the goal of the Hip Hop DJ is to keep people on the dance floor, the Latino component is essential. Their aesthetic sense, taste, and dancing prowess all had an impact on the music played and how it was played.