Fat Joe received a strong response from rapper Parlae after Joey Crack claimed that T.I., Dem Franchize Boyz and rap trio Travis Porter “jacked” his music.
The 53-year-old shared a video on Instagram on Nov. 20, where he discussed the online commentary about Boosie Badazz threatening to sue “Heart on Ice” artist Rod Wave for sampling his music without his authorization. Wave allegedly used portions of Boosie’s 2010 song “Long Journey” for his new song of the same title.
Rod Wave has since also been accused of stealing lyrics from Drake, Tupac Shakur and even Jay-Z, and Fat Joe decided to share his thoughts on the matter.
“Your man Rod Wave sampled Boosie, you should have known,” he said. “You can’t sample nobody and not clear it. You just can’t…. If you use somebody’s music, and you sample it and you don’t clear it, and you don’t give ’em no money, they can sue you.”
“Me personally, I have never sued nobody for that,” Fat Joe continued. “My s—t’s been jacked, legendary.”
The New York native went on to sing bars from several hits including Young Dro’s “Shoulder Lean,” “Make It Rain” by Travis Porter, and “Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It” by Dem Franchize Boyz.
Fat Joe noted that the songs were all similar to his 2004 track, “Lean Back” and his collaboration with Lil Wayne, “Make It Rain,” claiming that he could have sued many times.
“Trust me, they done had ‘Make it rain, make it, make it, make it rain.’ Or ‘Lean wit it, rock wit it. Lean.’ My s—t’s been jacked legendary. ‘Shoooulder leeean.’ My s—t been jacked! If I went to court I’d be like, ‘Exhibit A. That s—t don’t look like ‘Lean Back’ to you?’ … I could’ve sued people for sampling my s—t 10, 20 times.”
After Parlae became aware of Fat Joe’s comments, he went in on the rapper in a video shared on Instagram on Nov. 22.
“Get your motherf—kin’ suit on, n—a,” he said. “I ain’t took s—t from you, n—a! I’m from the South, n—a. We don’t bite New York n—as!”
He went on to compliment the song “Lean Back” but said he did not sample it.
“We didn’t hear ‘Lean Back’ n—a and say ‘We finna make song like that,’ n—a!… We said ‘Lean’ n—a, not ‘Lean Back’, n—a!… If you feel like that, get your suit on, n—a!”
T.I. has been rapping since the late 1990s, but didn’t see much success until the early 2000s. In 2005, Jermaine Dupri signed fellow Atlanta natives Dem Franchize Boyz, and years later rap trio Travis Porter began their rise in the industry with a slew of mixtapes boasting strip club music.
Fans reacted in the comment section, with some agreeing with Fat Joe and others thinking he was reaching with his claim.
“I’m Houston born and raised. Nobody was playing Fat Joe,” noted one X user. “The only lean we heard about came in a bottle. By Fat Joe’s logic, Houston rappers should sue his ass for using the word lean!” “Fat Joe reaching he need to lean back frfr,” wrote another.
A handful began to criticize the “What’s Luv?” rapper, who is of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent, for jacking another culture’s slang and his repeated use of the word n—a.
One said, “He jacked a whole culture,” and another replied, “He said n—a more times in this video than I’ve heard all year.”
As for Rod Wave, the recording artist responded to Boosie and said he would be willing to pay him and legal action was unnecessary.
