Fat Joe has once again discussed owing his career to Eminem, giving Slim Shady his just due in a brand new interview.
In a recent interview with the Rap Radar podcast, which aired on Friday (August 25), the Terror Squad leader credited the “My Name Is” rapper and his team for convincing him to stay in the game.
AD LOADING...
“Paul [Rosenberg, Eminem’s manager] hit me up and said, ‘We really need you on that Nems record,'” he said. “I said, he signed to you? No problem. I’ll be in the studio tonight. How do you want it? Hardcore? Dance?
“Tell Em I came through! You know, I owe Eminem so many favors. Like I have used my relationship with this guy to oblivion. […] You know he tried to talk me out of retirement!?”
AD LOADING...
He continued: “I was in my mother’s house, shirt off, topless. My phone rings, it’s a number I don’t know. Thank God, I picked it up. It’s Eminem. He starts trying to convince me for an hour, ‘Don’t leave.’ He was almost depressed that I was leaving our era.”
“I was honored,” he concluded. “He’s a God. A God.”
This isn’t the first time that Fat Joe has told the story of Eminem trying to talk him out of retirement.
Back in September 2020, Joe told Big Sean on his Instagram Live show that Eminem had called him that very week to talk him out of leaving the game.
“That’s nuts to me, bro,” Joe told Sean. “That’s nuts. You know, Em called me last week — I don’t want to keep throwing his name around [laughs] — but the man was trying to talk me out of retirement last week. This is all I ever wanted my whole life, for one of the rap gods like to call me and tell me, ‘Yo Joe, you nice. You need to get back in there.’”
In December 2019, Joe told CBS This Morning he was toying with the idea of putting the mic down, saying, “I’m almost out of here. I think I’m retiring. I think it’s time to give it up. I’ve got mad at all the other rappers who said that they’re retiring and they came back. I’m a strong advocate against that so I’m really… I’ve been flirting with it. I’m like 85 percent gone.”
AD LOADING...
He added, “I’ve never felt like this in my life. My daughter’s turning 14, I really want to watch my daughter. I really want to take her to school every day.”
