Countless stars have seen once-flourishing careers fade into oblivion, leaving them with little but memories and money to show for their time in the spotlight.
Fat Joe isn’t even the latest star it happened to, but his fate is once again sparking conversations after a disastrous appearance at Yankee Stadium for Game 3 of the World Series in late October. The ’90s rapper returned to the limelight for what should have been a thrilling appearance, but left the stadium feeling anything but loved.
Fans reacted to Fat Joe’s performance, which included a lineup of fan-favorite tracks from his heyday, with something less than enthusiasm. Sheer hatred might be a better way to describe the reaction, at least from some fans, who wasted no energy on being kind to the once-popular rapper. Responses to his overly-shouty showing were not positive, and blasted the 54-year-old for “single handedly kill[ing] Yankee Stadium’s aura.”
The abysmal performance quickly prompted fans to ponder Fat Joe’s other recent appearances, of which there haven’t been many. Its not that he’s completely disappeared from fame, necessarily, but the name Fat Joe simply doesn’t pull the same weight it once did. Its been years since his last collaborative album and a more than a decade since his last studio album, so just what has Fat Joe been up to all this time?
What happened to Fat Joe?
Fat Joe is alive and well, don’t worry. Questions about the rapper have nothing to do with a health scare or serious medical issue, and instead revolve around an embarrassing attempt to reclaim relevance in 2024. It didn’t go precisely as planned, but all publicity is good publicity, right?
The man behind the Fat Joe moniker, Joseph Antonio Cartagena, may not agree with the sentiment at the moment, but his performance certainly did spur conversations about the ’90s rapper. His name hasn’t cropped up in conversations for years, so maybe it really was a victory for the 54-year-old when he walked out of Yankee Stadium to a thoroughly unenthused crowd.
Part of the culprit behind that icy reception had to do with Fat Joe’s performance, of course, but some of it also had to do with the tenuous state of his fame. The rapper was a major player in the ’90s and 2000s, but he hasn’t been nearly so active in the years since. His last studio album, The Darkside Vol. 1, was released in 2010, and even his last collaboration is a few years old.
The years since his prime have seen Fat Joe branch out, appearing in a nice bulky selection of films and television releases, and a few of them are even recent. Though I’m not sure what category J-Lo’s vanity project This Is Me… Now: A Love Story falls into. Either way, he’s still got one foot in fame’s doorway, but at this point it seems like he’s inching in where he’s no longer welcome.
The biggest claim to fame currently boasted by the rapper is his podcast, Coca Vision, and the release of his 2022 memoir, The Book of Jose: A Memoir. His podcast, which sees Fat Joe welcome a slew of celebrity guests to chat, covers a range of topics with each fresh episode, and is surprisingly popular among listeners. Its not a fresh album or a blockbuster film, but the popularity of Coco Vision proves that, even a few decades out from his peak, Fat Joe’s still got plenty of fans.