With reporting by Renaud Jean-Baptiste
Tons of hip-hop hits are built on samples of older songs, and Fat Joe’s latest single, “Another Day,” is one of the latest examples.
For his Rick Ross, French Montana and Tiara Thomas-assisted single, Joey sampled Queen Latifah’s 1993 cut “Just Another Day.” And though she ultimately gave him the go ahead, the rap legend was a little hesitant at first.
“Latifah’s my girl; she love it, she cleared it,” Fat Joe told MTV News. “We all get funny when people redo our songs. You get slightly offended but then you be like, ‘That’s Joey, that’s my brother.’ So Latifah, she cleared it, I got on the phone with her.”
Joe absolutely beamed when Latifah’s name came up in our interview; even with all that he’s accomplished in his own career, it’s hard for the Bronx, New York MC to hide his admiration. “Queen Latifah one of the dopest female MCs that ever lived, and where she took her career, a whole ‘nother level what she’s done for hip-hop music, so it was an honor to even touch her sample,” he gushed.
Like the original song, the Terror Squad honcho’s musical tale tracks the downside of living in the hood. The video, which dropped over the weekend, captures that stress visually.
“Growing up in the Bronx, and seeing things haven’t been changing, people still going through struggles,” he said. “It’s just an ordinary day in the hood.”
At the end of the video, which premiered on MTV Jams on Sunday, a statistic flashes across the screen.
“I talk about a little girl went missing, ain’t nobody asking, at the end of the video, I put, ’2,000 kids get kidnapped everyday, in the United States; 46% [are] African-American, 28% [are] Latino,’” he explained. “But we never hear about that. The record is about real life things that’s happening.”
This is just the start of the veteran MC’s comeback following his release from prison late last year. He’s got another single on the way, too.
“We got an album coming,” he revealed. “The new single in probably about a month I’m gonna drop is me and J. Lo. We gonna be all through the Bronx shooting the video. That’s gonna be really, really, really crazy.”
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