HipHopDX: It seems like your last album, critics loved it, but it seemed slept on pretty badly.

Fat Joe: Fat Joe's albums are always slept on. I'm the most slept on MC. And then what happens is, it's sad, because a fucking year later, people who sleep on the album put in the album and figure out the shit was hot. Fuckers start coming up to me a year later, like, “You know what? I just copped the album, and that shit is crazy!” I'm like, “Yeah, all right. Why didn't you cop it the first week?” That happens to me a lot. I just feel like 20 years from now, nobody's biased, nobody's got their favorites, and people just start studying music and bodies of work, they're going to realize that Fat Joe is really, really bringing it.

HipHopDX: On the new album, you have two songs with Lil Wayne. How did you guys initially hook up?

Fat Joe: Lil Wayne is my favorite rapper out right now. DJ Khaled in Miami, he put us together. And the rest is history and magic. It's an honor to work with a young brother at the top of his game, and he lights a fire on me, makes me step up my game.

HipHopDX: You've also got The Game on there.

Fat Joe: It's crazy. (The song with Game) is the second single, we should go to Jamaica to shoot that (video). Game's a good brother. His first album was a classic. We share the same goals, same views on the state of hip-hop, paying respects, unifying hip-hop. ... I feel him, I feel his vibe.

HipHopDX: You switch up your flow a whole lot these days. Is that a conscious effort, or is that just to fit the production you work with at the time?

Fat Joe: That's that new shit. Back in the day, if you picked up the first or second Fat Joe album, it was just one flow, it was a lot of screaming. This is what I've worked on. I've crafted the art to where I could hit different flows, hit different concepts, different shit on my albums. So where you could be like, “Damn, he's really stepping his game up.” That's where I'm at with it. Just trying to learn to take it to different places.

HipHopDX: Do you have any plans to work with people you used to work with? Buckwild, Showbiz, Lord Finesse, etc.?

Fat Joe: I would love to, I'm trying to get a Diggin In The Crates reunion album going. But we aren't little kids in the same project no more, just loving hip-hop. They go and do their own thing. I'm dying to, because truthfully, when I was coming up, everybody was better than me. Now, I'm definitely on their level, so I'm trying to show my ass on this album. This is my come-up album. You can call me Phife from Tribe Called Quest! I'm coming up! Continued on page 3 »