Meet Me @ MarketSite: Fat Joe

Fat Joe joins us at MarketSite to share about how he got into music, how the industry has evolved, his entrepreneurial endeavors and his advocacy work.

Transcript:

Aye, what's up Nasdaq! It’s Fat Joe. Rapper, actor, philanthropist, entrepreneur.

The Bronx is the birthplace of hip-hop music. So I've been infatuated, been in love with hip-hop since day one. I started rapping when maybe I was ten. I had a good friend, Diamond D, who already had a record out, who talked me into rapping and told me to change my life. We made a demo that later went on to be number one in America, and so I've been rapping ever since,

I’d say ‘92 to now. hip-hop music has evolved to a digital age to where it's all about social media. I'm hoping the substance, the content goes back into the music in the future. For years, they've had a stigma to painting your beard or painting your hair, but now we created a product. Once I hit 27 years old and I caught my first white hair, I said, “Oh no.”

So I started using other products that wasn't good. And so I wanted to create my own product. You know, we call it the Rolls Royce of hair grooming, Rewind It 10. Why fight the time when you can rewind the time? I have a friend named Kevin Moore. He's a founder of an organization called PowertothePatients.org.

So they're fighting for the American people and the transparency in healthcare bills. When you go to a hospital, it’s the only place in the world that you don't get told the price. Over 100 million Americans are in health debt. So this is not something that you can sweep under the rug because, you know, people who are going through it right now.

You know, for me, it's the journey in life. So just like Nasdaq, every day is filled with excitement, and I don't believe that people should live a mediocre life. I think you should go after all your dreams, all your goals. So every time people say, “Fat Joe, you've been around 30 years, how you keep inventing yourself?” I got to be in the now. I gotta be in whatever's happening right now. I got to be a part of it.