Fat joe (real name : Joseph Cartagena) was born in New York’s South Bronx. He is often called a Puerto Rican, but he describes himself as a ‘New York Rican’. When he was 13 years old, Joe, or Little Joey as he was known, ran errands for the million-dollar drug dealers. Then, between junior and senior high schools, Fat Joe started to do higher levels of crime. "I started robbing girls for their earrings, pulling out and sticking up the whole bus - everybody that’s on the number six bus was getting robbed - taking everybody’s earrings, chains, going in their pockets, walking, stomping, stopping the bus." He even has had a graffiti career, and is well known as Joey Crack, a nickname earned from ill-fitting pants at school, and even writing his name in a Riker’s Island elevator. When quizzed why, he said he had to leave his name since he never expected to return. Around his block, fat joe was well known as a local celebrity. He says that a lot of people saw his first videos on television, without even knowing he was a rapper. But it took a lot of perseverance for Fat Joe to rap. The black-dominated early 80s scene meant it was hard as ‘New York Rican’ to get the mic. But by 1993 he had released his first single, ‘Flow Joe’, shortly followed by his LP "Represent".

Fat Joe now looks down on that album, but it had good tracks and established him as the first sort of Puerto Rican to make it big. Unfortunately, nowadays he won’t be going back to Puerto Rico. "I don’t know if I’ll ever be back in Puerto Rico again - not since I stopped flying." An unspecified ‘terrible, terrible experience’ in a plane has kept him grounded. Known to drive all over the US to get to shows, it’s obvious this is one thing that Fat Joe is serious about.

In 1995 came fat Joe’s second album, and, according to Big Punisher, ‘classic’. It cemented his position in hip hop, and as the first Latino rapper to really blow up the spot. In between this LP and "Don Cartagena", a lot of things have happened with Fat Joe. He founded the aforementioned stores, made his own clothing line, FJ 560 and brought through the Terror Squad. The original Terror Squad was Fat Joe’s crew, who wrote graffiti, hung out and experienced a lot. But eight or nine deaths cut the crew down significantly. Now the Terror Squad is a group of artists, with so far Fat Joe, Big Pun, Cuban Link, Armageddon, Shorty Prospect and a singer called Veronica. The first project from the squad was Big Pun’s Capital Punishment, and more is sure to come soon.
In September of ’98, Fat Joe released his third solo album "Don Cartagena" the album was a success and covered with guest appearances.