Videos by According2HipHop
Fat Joe recently got real about how beefs in hip hop cost him more than just a few enemies.
On his latest stop at Complex’s Sneaker Shopping, the Bronx legend revealed that both Jordan Brand and Reebok had huge partnerships lined up for him in the mid-2000s. But thanks to his infamous run-ins with 50 Cent and Jay-Z, those deals never made it past the finish line.
“I was the first rapper with a Jordan sneaker—designed by Michael Jordan himself,” Joe said, remembering how deep he was in talks with the brand. “We had seven meetings, the whole sneaker was done. It was either gonna be a Jordan 3 or 4.”
Then came the 2005 MTV VMAs, where he and 50 Cent exchanged some heated moments on stage. According to Fat Joe, that was enough for Jordan to pull the plug. He even recalled the phone call he got the next day from an exec at the company: “Yo, Big Joe, you know I’m not with controversy. Maybe we look at this in the future.”
Reebok–who already inked deals with 50 and Jay–had also lined up a seven-figure deal for Joe. But once word spread about his beef with Hov, that deal got killed too.
“Reebok hit me like, ‘Yo, we want to do a sneaker with you for millions,’” Joe explained. I caught the squeeze play because Hov was over there and 50 Cent,” he said. “They shut it down. They was just like, ‘Yo, we won’t do business with you if you give this guy a sneaker.’ That’s part of the karma. It’s part of the ins and outs. I’ve done it to other guys. It came back to me.”
As for his rift with Jay? A lot of people trace it back to the legendary Rucker Park tournament. In 2004, Jay’s team famously no-showed the championship game against Joe’s squad, giving Terror Squad the win by default. Joe threw a jab at Hov shortly after on his hit single “Lean Back.”
Both situations eventually cooled off, but not before leaving Fat Joe with a couple of sneaker “what ifs” that could’ve changed the game.
