Fat Joe's Blog: Keeping It Real Is Taking Care Of Your Family

A lot of rappers live in mansions in the suburbs talking about they on the corner doing this and that, which is not true. Music is a form of entertainment. It’s no different than if Scorsese makes a movie about some serial killer. When you go in the studio, there's no telling what the music will be. It's whatever your mind tells you to make it that day, whatever the music tells you to do.

Sometimes I make happy songs, sometimes I make sad songs, sometimes I make drug dealer anthems. It doesn’t matter. It’s just on the vibe. At the end of the day, keeping it real is taking care of your family and being a real man and taking care of your kids. As far as reality rap, there are a few of us who speak reality in most of our music but I’d be lying to you if I tell you every lyric I ever said was the truth. It would be a lie, because at the end of the day, we’re poets. We’re authors and we should be held to that.

I’m by far one of the realest rappers if you check my history and what I’ve done or wherever I come from. I have a justifiable story. But when you look at it in the bigger perspective, no rapper should have to be held to those standards of if you’re a rapping gangsta then you have to walk around with a gun, you have to shoot somebody or get caught hustling. That’s not the truth. You’re a poet, you’re an author, you’re allowed to make any kind of music you want as long as it’s dope.

If you're reading this blog, you'll understand what Fat Joe is saying. I always tell kids don’t listen to a rap record and want to go rob a bodega. Use it as energy if you want to use it to work out in the gym and box, play football. You hear a DMX song and go play some football and kill them on the football field. No one should be naïve enough to be like, "Jeezy’s selling a bunch of cocaine, I’m going to Columbia." Those guys need to be educated anyway because they’re obviously followers.