Happy 30th Anniversary to Fat Joe’s second studio album Jealous One’s Envy, originally released October 24, 1995.
At the end of every NBA season, they give out an award for “Most Improved Player.” The award usually goes to a player that had previously shown skill and potential but really took things to the next level during the season. Under these criteria, Joseph “Fat Joe” Cartagena would have won hip-hop’s Most Improved Player in 1995, after the release of Jealous One’s Envy.
These days, Fat Joe is a hip-hop institution. The rapper, born and raised in the Bronx, is more than three decades deep into his career. He has released close to a dozen solo albums as well as numerous collaborative projects. He’s nurtured and mentored new talent since the mid-1990s and has even established a bit of acting career. Jealous One’s Envy functioned as the crucial transitional step for Joe, setting him up for the superstardom he’d find in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Thirty years later, and it still holds up as his best album and an underappreciated great sophomore album.
Fat Joe started out closely affiliated with the D.I.T.C. (Diggin’ In The Crates) crew in the early 1990s. During his earliest appearances, Joe, then credited as Fat Joe Da Gangsta, proved to be a little rough around the edges. Represent (1993) was a solidly entertaining debut, featuring nearly wall-to-wall production from members of the D.I.T.C. crew (mostly Diamond D, but also Showbiz and Lord Finesse) and a few others. It benefited from some strong singles and a few rugged posse cuts. Joe wasn’t the sharpest lyricist, but he was an imposing presence on the mic, bringing gravitas and conviction through his gravelly bray.
The first entrée of things to come was the “Shit Is Real” remix, released in the spring of 1994, a good year-and-a-half before Jealous One’s Envy came out. The original track was a solidly enjoyable track produced by The Beatnuts. But DJ Premier further elevated it with his remix. It’s a straight remix (Joe doesn’t re-record his vocals) where Preemo uses his production expertise to shift the song’s entire mood. Premier transforms the mid-tempo track into a mournful contemplation of doing what it takes to survive on the streets of the Bronx, mostly by sampling Ahmad Jamal’s version of “The World Is A Ghetto.” The track sets the tone for the overall sound of the then forthcoming album.
Famously, Joe titled the album Jealous One’s Envy out of appreciation for his rhyming idols LL Cool J and KRS-One, both of whose names are acronyms. He uses both emcees as inspiration, but delivers a different sort of album, creating one of the great “street-oriented” East Coast albums of its era. Joe is more focused on his lyrical approach, zeroing in on attaining monetary wealth in order to escape the crime-ridden environment where he was raised.
For the album’s production, D.I.T.C. considerably scaled down its presence. Diamond D produced some of the project’s best tracks, but other beat-makers including Domingo, L.E.S., and Joe Fatal all contribute as well. The production overall is even darker this time, making Jealous One’s Envy an ideal late fall/winter release.
Listen to the Album:
If the “Shit Is Real” remix informs the overall tone of Jealous One’s Envy, “Success,” the album’s first proper single, is the next logical step. It concerns Joe’s pursuit of the means to escape the street life. It’s one of the great mid-1990s dedications to hustling, as Joe boasts that “while you sip the juice, I’m taking swallows.” DJ Premier provides a remix, which also appears on the album. He again takes an already dope track to the next level with his production, this time manipulating a sample of Grover Washington’s “Hydra” by chopping it into something nearly unrecognizable.
Joe continues to mine this subject matter throughout the album. “Envy,” the album’s second single, is his version of The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy,” as he recounts going from slanging crack to supporting his family and living well through his music. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to effectively flip a sample of Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” and make it sound dope, but producer L.E.S. pulls it off. Though the production is much glossier than the rest of the tracks on the album, it serves as an early respite from the nearly production gloom.
Joe does occasionally engage in some pure verbal jousting on Jealous One’s Envy. The Domingo-produced “Part Deux” is a solid sequel to “Flow Joe,” Joe’s first single from Represent. “Rappers wonder where I been since ‘The Real’?” he raps. “I been planning my strategy for the next kill.”
Joe flexes to L.E.S.’s production again on “Fat Joe’s In Town,” one of the album’s best recordings. L.E.S. incorporates a live bassline to subtly complement muted strings and stabs from the famed “Dance To The Drummer’s Beat” break. Joe holds court over the track like a reincarnated Cyrus from The Warriors, bellowing, “Fat Joe, army fatigue and black chuckers / Hardcore lyrics to all my real motherfuckers.”
Joe enlists several prominent collaborators throughout the project, some legends at the time, while others were soon to be. KRS-One joins him on the album-opening duet “Bronx Tale,” where the pair go verse for verse atop the laid-back and jazzy Diamond D-produced groove. KRS continues to hold court as a Bronx-born elder statesman, proclaiming that rival emcees “can't hang with my vocals; better you fuck with Sonny Bono.” Joe complements KRS’s calm and measured demeanor with a focused ferocity, rapping that “ain’t no army that could harm me or bomb me / C’mon G, you clowns ain’t got a fucking thing on me.”
Joe enlists Raekwon to provide the hook for the foreboding “Respect Mine.” Joe again envisions himself as a dominant Don ruling over his Bronx neighborhood. He celebrates his position as “the rap wizard / Brainstorms come in swarms, get lost in the blizzard.”
Joe forgoes rapping on the posse cut “Watch Out,” instead assuming the responsibilities Raekwon played earlier, providing the hook and the intro and outro ad-libs. Diamond D creates his grimmest production, using the strings from Herbie Hancock’s soundtrack to Death Wish and pairing it with a vibraphone sample and neck-snapping drum track. It perfectly creates a vibe that captures the feel of “the heroin-infested streets of the Bronx.”
The track is most notable for introducing a wider audience to Christopher Rios a.k.a. Big Pun. Hip-Hop’s most mammoth icon then went by the name Big Dog Punisher, who at the time rolled with the Full-A-Clips crew. Here he makes an appropriately massive impression as he drops a sinister verse. “I doom the world like I was God and throw my gun away,” he snarls in his complex rhyme flow. “Then snatch the moon out the sky and blow the sun away.” The song also hosts an oft-forgotten debut verse from fellow future Terror Squad member Armageddon, who raps, “For any touch, there's a feeling, touch and y'all felt / We can exchange shots until our chambers melt.”
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Jealous One’s Envy ends with “Bronx Keeps Creating It,” Fat Joe’s final victory lap. He reflects upon the good and the bad that go along with living your dream to a track produced by Joe Fatal, who also hooked up the aforementioned “Respect Mine.” The sample of David Alexrod’s “Holy Thursday” gives the song a triumphant feel, as Joe boasts that he’s “known for transforming on rappers like I'm Jesus,” while warning the audience about the frailty of life and the impermanence of power on the streets.
With his next two albums, Don Cartagena (1998) and Jealous One’s Still Envy (2001), Joe would progress to the next phase of his career. The two follow-ups are certified Gold and Platinum respectively, and, along with the successful launch of the Terror Squad, placed Joe on the fast track to superstar status. Jealous One’s Envy was a crucial intermediary step, demonstrating that Joe had stepped up his lyrical game and could thrive when the spotlight was on him. It’s an uncompromised portrait of an artist ready for greatness, poised to enjoy the success that he earned.
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