Like any good Darwinian tale, Fat Joe’s longevity as a MC is a testament to adaptation. The eight albums he’s released since 1993 are hip hop time capsules—begin with Diamond D in the South Bronx, veer off to embrace the singsong confections of Ja Rule and Nelly, and finally settle down South. Now a cog in the modern Miami sound machine, Joey Crack is apparently working with the right people; he hasn’t sounded this nimble since Big Pun was alive. Spouting a line sure to receive varied interpretation, the Puerto Rican rapper intros The Elephant in the Room by sneering, “Who’s gonna tell me / That I can’t say ‘nigga?’” over a propellant vocal sample and organ hewn together by Streetrunner. That unapologetic attitude extends not only to “Kill All Rats,” a vicious parade of threats against snitches, but also to Joe’s penchant for plopping brazen pop songs alongside unequivocal street shit.
But if Cool & Dre, Scott Storch, and other South Beach regulars ensure Joe’s intergenerational survival, these mating rituals birth an occasional two-headed calf. DJ Khaled’s “Get It for Life” finds the Fat Gangsta haranguing “niggas lying about 10 a ki” over stadium-ready synths, a tired, familiar lament. The nexus of what Fat Joe embodies comes on “That White,” bubbling with DJ Premier’s chopped strings, that mandatory fourth-bar freak, and a scratched-in Young Jeezy exhortation. The song, also a D.I.T.C. reunion, succeeds not because they cling to the aesthetic rigidities of the past, but because they reincorporate them into the now. With a few new tricks, wrinkled creatures with long memories will always have a place in the circus.
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