Fat Joe delivered a lecture at Harvard University about the intersection of culture and policy.
The Bronx native was invited by former U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, who is currently a resident fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
During the talk, Joe opened up about his own rap career, starting as a hardcore street rapper in the '90s and evolving into a hitmaker in the 2000s. He also discussed his work as an entrepreneur, healthcare reform advocate, and media personality. While the meeting was only open to Harvard people and was off the record, some clips have surfaced.
“The pressure never stops. Never. I’ve been doing this 37 years—the pressure don’t stop. Yesterday was more pressure than any other day. I swear to God,” Joe said in one of them.
“Especially if you’re a winner. I don’t think you come to Harvard to be mediocre in life, right? There’s people who just want to be mediocre. … Then you got people like me that are driven to win and don’t stop and keep going. … I don’t know about you guys, but what I’m doing is generational.”
One of Joe’s most recent endeavors is his new podcast with Jadakiss, Joe & Jada. In a recent episode, he confessed that he almost quit rap when he turned 40 years old. He revealed that he underwent a period of "depression" when reaching middle age.
"I've been rapping, I've been in the game since I'm 19. So when I'm about to turn 40, all I know is standing on couches and popping bottles," he explained. "But that 40 hit you like a different, like... I was depressed."
What shook him from that state was when his friend Dre from the production duo Cool & Dre gave him a pep talk.
"I was straight depressed and he was like, 'Yo, Joe, you know Tina Turner ain't have her first [number one] hit till she was 47.' So he start breaking all this down. Made me feel a lot better," Joe recalled. "'Cause I was scared of what the future was for what we're doing."
