Fat Joe wasn’t the only rapper willing to admit to telling tall tales in his music. 21 Savage followed Fat Joe’s lead and acknowledged his raps are “fiction as hell” in an interview with Rolling Stone.
“I just think of it in my head,” 21 Savage said. “Some of it be based off of real life, but a lot of it be creative stories.”
21 Savage made it clear he wasn’t confessing to anything in his music at a time when Georgia prosecutors were using lyrics as evidence in Young Thug’s RICO trial. The prosecution’s efforts prompted Fat Joe to speak out during an appearance on CNN.
“I’ve been rapping professionally for 30 years, I’ve lied in almost 95 percent of my songs,” Joe told Gayle King. “I’m being honest—lied. I write like I feel that day. I’m just being creative.”
He continued, “You couldn’t build a jail high enough for the lyrics I’ve said on songs, which are all untrue. What I am is a family man. The person who gives back to my community all the time [and] opens businesses in my community. So, the music would never amount to the actual person Joseph Cartagena.”
Fat Joe condemned prosecutors for trying to present lyrics as fact-based evidence. He believed the prosecution disregarded poetic license in a self-serving way.
“What’s even more horrible is that the district attorneys, they know those lyrics ain’t real,” he said. “They know that’s creativity. But if it helps their case, they’ll use it to put these guys in jail.”
Young Thug is one of six defendants on trial in the YSL RICO case. Prosecutors accuse him of leading a violent street gang responsible for murder and other crimes.
The trial is in recess for the holidays. It is scheduled to resume on January 2, 2024.
