'Drink Champs': Fat Joe reveals how Daddy Yankee played him & broke their friendship
“I went to one of them Reggaeton concerts and he’s standing right in front of me, acting like he don’t see me.”
Fat Joe and Daddy Yankee have known each other for nearly two decades, so the two Puerto Rican global stars recently teamed up to bring aid efforts to the island in the aftermath of last year’s devastating Hurricane Maria. However, as Joey Crack tells it, the pair’s friendship was broken for quite some time prior to their recent reunion.
“Daddy Yankee, a legend but that nigga ain’t as loyal as we would like him to be,” Joe said with a light laugh while a guest on this week’s Drink Champs. “Love him to death, [but]…’breaking Reggaeton news!’ When I used to be in the Bronx, he used to hustle. He was selling drugs off of Fordham Road. I know it for a fact. I remember who he used to hustle for; he’s locked up for life. But [Yankee] used to come to Jimmy’s [Bronx Cafe] every Friday and he’d be next to me before we knew what Reggaeton was. He’d be like, ‘You are the leader. You are the leader.’ He wouldn’t stop telling me I’m ‘the leader.’ I’d be like, ‘Chill.’”
Joe said this was around the time he was shaking up the culture with Terror Squad’s production on Big Pun’s landmark LP, Capital Punishment.
“Big Pun [went] double platinum, we up in Jimmy’s making movies,” Joe continued. “[Yankee] wouldn’t stop telling me, ‘You are the leader.’ We used to show him love. We didn’t understand Reggaeton, but we’d show him love because we’d see him in Jimmy’s every week. I went to Puerto Rico for the first time, he’s running Puerto Rico with me with the ‘You are the leader.’ Next thing you know, he throw out ‘Gasolina.’ Mind you, ‘Lean Back’ is out too. ‘Lean Back’ is No.1 [for] 47 weeks out of 52 weeks. Be clear. My shit ringing, but ‘Gasolina’ ringing too.”
Joe went on to infer that maybe the success got to Daddy Yankee’s head at the time because the two crossed paths and the newly crowned King of Reggaeton did not acknowledge the Terror Squad Don.
“I went to one of them Reggaeton concerts and he’s standing right in front of me and the nigga acting like [he] don’t see me. He broke my heart so bad,” Joe lamented to Drink Champs hosts N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN. “I was not ‘the leader’ anymore,” he added with his patented chuckle. “This guy been chasing me for eight years calling me ‘the leader.’ [But] he fronted on me. Hard!”
Of course you know Joe retaliated.
“I walk in the store in the hood and the nigga walks in by himself while I was buying some sneakers,” Joe revealed. “The nigga tries to say ‘what’s up’ to me and I was like, ‘Go ahead with that shit!’ He was like, ‘Okay.’ The nigga got outta there quick. For years I didn’t rock with the nigga. He switched up on a real nigga.”
During this week’s episode, Joe also talks about a run-in he and DJ Khaled had with Lyor Cohen, JAY-Z’s Grammy snub, and how Remy Ma had to remind him of proper etiquette at the Roc Nation Brunch.
‘Drink Champs: Happy Hour’ airs on Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on REVOLT TV.