“I didn’t know I like you this much,” Fat Joe said toward the end of his almost hour-long conversation with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The NY-14 district representative was on The Fat Joe Show, a series of IG live conversations he has with a mixed bag of folks from the comfort of home on both ends of the line due to the global predicament we’re all in.
The conversation was candid, informative real talk. It included unsolicited advice (I’ll let you guess from who), lots of mention of the Bronx (I can hear my BX friends scream “BEE EX” every time I write that) and a good share of playfulness to cushion the talk of the many ways our nation is a wreck (to put it kindly).
“You’re either with it or you’re not,” Fat Joe says after the chat, processing her persona. Though he doesn’t seem all for AOC’s take on everything, “I agree with [some] things you say… you’re not crazy,” he utters at one point, you know… in case anyone thought she was.
“I’m a capitalist and I’m trying to make the most money I can in the universe,” Fat Joe said. “But at the same time, I care about my people… If not for capitalism how can we have someone like JLo who’s a boricua from the Bronx and Arod who’s a Dominican from Washington Heights… they just said they wanna buy the New York Mets,” he processes out loud.
AOC beautifully tackled that one-dimensional perspective and more. Read about the wide range of subjects the two touched on—from her favorite rappers to who she’s voting for and more, below.
On 2020
“I’m voting for Biden,” she confirms decidedly for perhaps the first time, reminding Joe & viewers that she agreed to support whoever the Democratic candidate is.
“You asked a straight question, I’ma give you a straight answer.”
Capitalism:
“There is a limit to greed. It’s not to say that we shouldn’t live prosperous lives… what it is to say is that there’s gotta be a point where we gotta say, hold on—we need to address climate change, we need to make sure we aren’t charging $4,000 [for] Insulin. There are some things that should not be for sale. Our lives should not be for sale. Our ability to go to a hospital should not be for sale. Our ability to leave a planet for our kids to live on should not be for sale, Black and Brown bodies should not be for sale… There are some things that should not be for-profit [too; e.g., college education, prison].”
Democratic Socialists:
She lists Martin Luther King, Albert Einstein and James Baldwin, specifically.
“They don’t teach us our history… we’ve had over 1,000 socialists elected in all different seats.”
On Inequity:
“We should be making sure that we have a seat at the table… while at the same time asking why were we born into these conditions and inequities in the first place… It’s beautiful what you’ve been able to accomplish in your life and JLo… and Arod… but if it’s just a handful of us, we need to start asking structural questions—it’s not about how can a couple of us get out of the hood, it’s about how do we make societies work for all of us?”
On Her “Strong” Views:
“I’m very much going through this process where you’re self-taught… you learn as you work. There’s gonna be a bunch of people in the cheap seats [judging you] and you have no choice but to.. get your bruises, piss people off, but also have people cheering you on… You’re going to evolve in life, but I think it’s all about the way you communicate… It’s all about authenticit. Ultimately I think that when I think about mistakes that I made, they tend to be tactical, but I always do what I believe… If I, for whatever reason, don’t get re-elected, at least I kept it real.”
On a Woman Vice President:
“It’s not just about ‘is it a woman,’ it needs to be who is that woman, what does that woman believe, and will that woman push him [Biden] to be better? Will that woman push our country to be better? It’s about what policies she’d commit to.”
On Immigration Ban:
“Not only is he closing off immigration, [but] he also wants to suspend green cards and clamp down our abilities to be America… [Meanwhile], he is filling planes with COVID-positive immigrants and sending them to other countries [e.g. Guatemala]. So the thing is… if you’re gonna do this for public health reasons do it for public health reasons… but if you’re gonna take this opportunity to smash and grab and hurt our communities, we cannot allow that to happen.”
Her Top 5 Rappers:
In no particular order, are:
Nas
Big Pun
Biggie
Tupac
KRS-One