I was a diabetic for 16 years, since I was 14. Being that I lost weight, no more diabetes. You don't have to lose your eyesight, cut off your toes, have a stroke, get kidney failure. You just have to lose weight - you know - for most of the diabetes.

When I introduce you to somebody, his name is Big Pun. When I introduce you to somebody, his name is DJ Khaled. When I introduce you to an artist, her name is Remy Ma. If I introduce you to somebody, it's Cool and Dre or Scott Storch - people who change the face of the game.

I started out in the Apollo Theater. That's where I got my start. I won Amateur Night four weeks in a row.

I come from nothing, and growing up, I really didn't have many people to inspire me, at least no good people to inspire me.

What I do like about Donald Trump is that he's not bought by the lobbyists. He put up his own money, funded his own campaign. That means he's nobody's puppet.

DJ Premier, this guy is like a god, a walking god. Guru, he put it down legendary.

What I can tell you is that for Puerto Rico being such a small island, it has culturally impacted the entire world.

I grew up pretty much with nothing.

There isn't a country I ain't touch in Africa. I just came back from South of France, I toured China, Japan, wherever you name, 60,000 people come out to see Fat Joe.

There's nothing I really believe about 50 Cent.

Every ghetto you go to, Latinos and blacks are the two people that are together. We don't look at each other in any different way, like 'He's black; I'm Latino.' I look at us as one.

Never get involved with a business that you can't really be hands-on - that if your employees quit, you can't run yourself. If I can't cut hair, why open a barbershop?

If you gay, you gay. Like, that's your preference, you know?

I love Lil Wayne; that's like my little brother. He's just the coolest dude on Earth.

All rappers exaggerate.

To have so many years in the rap industry and so many number one songs, and sold so many millions of records, introduced the world to people like Cool & Dre, DJ Khaled, Pitbull, Rick Ross, Trick Daddy, Remy Ma, Big Pun, Rico Love... I could go on and on. Having been able to influence the rap game for so long is very important to me.

Talking to people from the heart matters, and it's unfortunately something brands have forgotten about. Celebrity endorsement deals try to gain recognition for brands, but at their core, what matters is if the celebrity truly backs the brand.

It's hard to have a boom-bap hip hop record that goes No. 1 in the country.

I think I'll die underrated, but it's alright, man.

We took Big Pun, a 700-lb Spanish guy, one of the greatest rappers ever, and made him a sex symbol. Women would wait on line to kiss him.

I'm not just a rapper. I'm a child educator.

Nobody in my family before me ever had anything.

As U.S. citizens, Puerto Rico has paid their part.

As a little kid, I watched hip hop get created. So it's an honour for me to represent the Bronx, the motherland of hip hop.

Man I got so many regrets. The biggest is that Eminem gave me so many demos - six different times he approached me, and I didn't sign him. Shame on me.

Puerto Rico is a powerful island.

Before I was rapping, I was always around the rap game, even though I was in the streets. I would be at all the parties and all the events, and I was pretty hard to miss. I was one of the few Spanish cats sitting there with jewelry on, Dapper Dan suits. It was pretty hard to miss me.

Everything has to evolve. Music has to go somewhere. That's what keeps it fresh.

I collaborate with Tidal because they're for the artists - the up and coming artists and the O.G.s in the game. It's like a home, the only place we have for the artists to find support.

I have been Fat Joe since I was a kid. It's always been my name and always will be.

I would bump A Tribe Called Quest in my car all day.

Food is like a legal drug. You can take 50 cents and walk into the store and buy a Twinkie and get high. And it's killing people.

The hip hop industry is most likely owned by gays. I happen to think there's a gay mafia in hip hop. Not rappers - the editorial presidents of magazines, the PDs at radio stations, the people who give you awards at award shows.

I'm known to be hands on 100%. I don't know any other way to be than a leader by example.

When I first started, I thought I was wack. Lyrically, I thought I was wack. The thing I had over everybody was that I was the realest rapper.

Allen Iverson was the Tupac of basketball; he was a true revolutionary.

There are 3.5 million Americans in Puerto Rico. So, just like we're quick to go everywhere else and help, we expect that same of America for Puerto Rico. These are U.S. citizens!

I used to watch Oprah Winfrey, and whenever she used to lose weight, I used to be like, 'How's she losing it? What is she doing?' But it's all about education and knowledge, feeding yourself and knowing that too much carbs is what gets us fat.

KRS One and LL Cool J are the biggest influences in my rap career, along with Heavy D.

When I came up in hip hop, there was no such thing as a Puerto Rican rapper doing hip hop for many mainstream people, so I was the ship, the captain, and the crew.

We're in the same ghettos, same inner cities, and we're suffering from the same problems. Every problem the blacks have, the Latinos have.

I could battle rap forever, but it's a joke to me.

The biggest killer of people is food.

Fat Joe ain't out here trying to battle-rap everybody in the world. That's not what I'm about.

Pun was just a natural-born genius with music, and he basically taught me so many tricks on how to make better music, even though I was the one that discovered him. He was so far advanced than me; he taught me a lot.

I beefed with 50 Cent for seven years.

Fat Joe is signed to Fat Joe. I have a distribution deal for my label. I'm independent. I'm very happy with that.

If you really analyze my music, there is a lot of violence in my music because the Bronx, at the era and time I was coming up, was almost equivalent to how a 'Braveheart' or 'Gladiator' movie would be.

If you look at history, at the first time hip-hop was invented, there was a Latino right there. How they got erased, I don't know how that all came about.

We're just trying to make 'The Darkside' its own brand. It's Fat Joe, but it's 'The Darkside.' We come with 'Vol. 2,' make it crazier than 'Vol. 1.' By the time 'Vol. 3' come, we got a problem on our hands.