Fat Joe
A Latin American performer Fat Joe is quite a notable person in the world of rap music. And the matter is not in his dimensions that are, undoubtedly, hardly not to pay attention to. The matter is in his contribution to development and popularization of the chosen musical direction that Fat Joe put much time as well as physical strength and his whole soul into.
But prior to become a famous musician, he tried on a mantle of the "king of the streets", participating actively in "decoration" of southern Bronx streets with colourful graffiti as well as trying his strength in rap reading and performing before narrow circle of his fans and admirers. Nevertheless, such an unobtrusive start turned out rather productive. And when Fat Joe finally decided on his life's work he went up the ladder by leaps and bounds.
In 1993 under label Relativity he managed to record and release his solo debut album entitled laconically «Represent». Notwithstanding that the technical realization of the project was under fulfilled, nevertheless the album, due to its sharpness and expressivity, attracted public's attention to Fat Joe. Moreover, the single «Flow Joe», though not for long, peaked at number one on the Billboard chart and many people admitted it as rather a deserving beginning of a full musical career.
Next successful step on his way to the fame was a recording of his second studio album which was carried out with participation of both beginners in the world of rap music and music gurus, such as DJ Premier, KRS-One and others. Acquaintance and collaboration with them allowed Fat Joe came a little bit nearer to those who set the tone on the musical arena that afterwards yielded good results.
At the end of the 1990s Fat Joe showed himself not only as a talented and enterprising musician but also as an executive producer of a Big Pun project «Capital Punishment». This album was fated to become the first album of a Latin American performer that was certified multiplatinum and, of course, it had a very favourable impact on the reputation of Big Pun himself as well as on a career of his "comrade-in-arms" Fat Joe. Thanks to growing authority, he became a head of Mystic Entertaiment, set up his own clothing line and a fashion store. Jointly with Big Pun he also formed his own group «Terror Squad» that consisted of several more Latin American musicians besides them. In a word, he managed to combine harmoniously a career of a musician, producer and businessman with a perfect business grip.
But in 2000 «Terror Squad» was endangered because of a sudden death by heart attack of one of its founders. A closest companion-in-arms of Fat Joe - Big Pun died not having reached the age of 30. After his death there began conflicts between the members of the group and «Terror Squad» ceased to exist.
For Fat Joe it was a serious shock that almost destroyed his assurance that he had chosen the right path. However, summoning his strength and not going to give up what he had started, he, nevertheless, began working hard on his next the fourth in succession studio album. It took almost a year to make it that was a personal record of a musician. However, efforts and time spent on creation of «Jealous Ones Still Envy (J. O. S. E.)» were not in vain – this album became the most successful in the musician's career and the only one for today that was certified platinum. «Jealous Ones Still Envy (J. O. S. E.)» turned out number-two on the Hot 100 Billboard and it also was nominated for Grammy. It would seem that an hour of triumph of the Latin American star came but... A year later a rollback happened – the fifth album «Loyalty» turned out absolutely undistinguished and, as a matter of fact, a failure.
However, Fat Joe has already proven that he can cope with problems and this time he didn't give up as well. Having restored «Terror Squad» in renewed lineup, he started in a new century with a megahit composition «Lean Back» that was number-one on the Hot 100 Billboard and an acknowledged absolute hit of 2004. The follow-up album «True Story» didn't cause a disruptive reaction among the public but, nevertheless, it was sold well.
All further works of the performer became quite tolerable, despite several super-hits owing to which he won the audience of all continents. Nevertheless, such an unusual regularity didn't affect on performer's popularity. He is still famous and called-for and even his failures sometimes play into his hands arousing interest of the public in his early works, personality of the performer himself and, possibly, his future success.
