Hip-hop legends N.O.R.E. (who rose to fame with duo Capone-N-Noreaga) and Fat Joe teamed up for a riveting conversation about the intersection of Latin and hip-hop during the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Week.
The chat, moderated by Jesús Triviño, senior director of industry relations and global Latin culture and content, TIDAL, centered on the similarities between reggaetón and hip-hop and their role in taking the genre to mainstream in the United States.
Below, some of the best quotes from The Intersection of Latin and Hip-Hop panel:
N.O.R.E.: On when he first heard reggaetón. “I was in Puerto Rico and I had a party that I thought I sold out but it was Tego Calderon’s show and he didn’t show up. I heard reggaetón and was like what is that it? It sounded like ‘boom boom mami mami.’ I was like is that Spanish reggae? Everywhere in Puerto Rico they were playing it. Radios in New York weren’t playing it so I was like how do I change this? So I kept asking DJs to play it [on the radio]. I thought the was best way to help this music was to sacrifice myself.”
FAT JOE: His interaction with El General. “Vico C he wasn’t reggaetón, he was hip-hop and because of him I heard El General from Panama. I tried to charge El General once for [something] and he cursed me out. It was through him that I first heard reggaetón, then Puerto Rico had its explosion and the guys who paved the way were Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, Tego, Ivy Queen, Wisin y Yandel.”
FAT JOE: On similarities between reggaetón and hip-hop. “Hip-hop is the birth of everything. If you want to learn something here is that hip-hop started everything. A lot of the things that you see in reggaetón and Latin hip-hop we’ve seen it already, from fashion to flows, right now it’s latin trap and trap comes from Atlanta, hip-hop and reggaetón they’re side by side.”
N.O.R.E.: On the impact of “Oye Mi Canto.” “Never in a million years people would get behind that. When you listen to that track, you become Latino for three minutes. Label records didn’t want to get behind that record but they did when it got 500 spins. I can say that the first reggaetón on MTV was mine. First reggaetón track on BET was mine. Daddy Yankee left ‘Oye Mi Canto’ out of a documentary he just released and I don’t know why. I sacrificed my own community for it.”
Fat Joe: On recording to reggaetón. “They used to offer me millions of dollars to do reggaetón but I was hip-hop, I couldn’t do that because it would seem like I was a wannabe. But I’ll do whatever for him (N.O.R.E.). I was like, ‘You sure you wanna do reggaetón?’ And he was like, ‘I love the way they feel, it makes me feel more of my Latino side.’ I was like alright I’m with you. And he was legendary. I always worked with reggaetón artists. I was behind this mixtape called Boricua Guerrero but some people say, ‘Oh Fat Joe didn’t embrace reggaetón’ when I put the reggaetón guys on that mixtape. We’ve been embracing reggaetón since day one.”
N.O.R.E: On his place in history when it comes to reggaetón. “When I started doing reggaetón, I had to fly out to these artists and it was a great experience. Back then R. Kelly was doing a gospel album and I thought, maybe it’s my turn to test my creativity. I claim it was my doing when reggaetón came to America.”
The 2024 Billboard Latin Music Week coincides with the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Awards set to air at 9 p.m. ET on Sunday, Oct. 20, on Telemundo. It will simultaneously be available on Universo, Peacock and the Telemundo app, and in Latin America and the Caribbean through Telemundo Internacional.
