Fat Joe has been around long enough to be able to teach others about past mistakes that have cost him money. He has several and revealed another one recently while speaking to Rap Radar’s B-Dot and Elliot Wilson last week.
According to HipHopDX, Fat Joe relayed that the feuds he had back in 2004 hurt him financially because of who he was beefing with. Coincidentally, the two dynamic figures in hip-hop with whom he was feuding were Brooklyn’s Jay-Z and Queens’ 50 Cent. He is now under the Jay-Z management arm of Roc Nation and 50 Cent just brought him on stage at a recent hip-hop 50th celebration at Yankee Stadium.
There’s no bad blood now between his former foes, but he told B-Dot and Elliot of the misfortune of having a beef that led to him losing a sneaker deal from Reebok.
“I learned the hard way, I never complained and I never said it publicly but you know I had beef with 50 Cent and Jay-Z,” Joe remarked. “The two most f**king powerful dudes in the world. Reebok was gonna give me a sneaker deal and they [were like], ‘Oh you have beef with Jay-Z and 50 Cent,’ Jordan too, ‘We can’t give you the deal.’ You know how much money, sh** was like an embargo.”
Last year, in an excerpt from his book, The Book of Jose, he also revealed his beef with 50 Cent amounted to him losing a Nike deal with his good friend, Michael Jordan.
Joe talked about him gearing up to have his own Jordan Brand collection, Fat Joe Jordan. After a confrontation with 50 Cent and G-Unit at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards, Jordan had a conversation with the Bronx-bred rapper that was not the call Joe wanted to get.
Jordan was reportedly on the phone with Joe and told him that the shoe deal—which Joe stated was worth $20 million—was off the table because of what transpired on live TV.
“YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU, BIG JOE, BUT YOU’RE TOO HOT RIGHT NOW,” JORDAN REPORTEDLY TOLD THE ENTERTAINER.
“I wanted to do it, but I’m not into all that rap beef. With all this controversy, we can’t do the sneaker anymore,” Jordan added.
Two beefs, two reneged deals. Luckily, the ways of Fat Joe have changed and he is doing much better and has great relationships with his peers these days.
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