Fat Joe is clapping back after Marc Lamont Hill slammed his use of the N-word, and he did it with one sentence about his family.
“My dad is Afro Cuban i love this guy,” the rapper wrote beneath an Instagram post about Hill’s comments.
The response came after Hill questioned Joe’s racial identity and his defense of using the slur.
Joe had recently appeared on The Joe Budden Podcast, where he connected his language and identity to growing up in the Bronx alongside Black and Latino communities.
“Guys, I don’t know if you can fathom that I’m from the block that invented hip-hop,” he said, citing figures including Melle Mel and Grandmaster Flash.
The Joe Budden Podcast just had a non-Black guest explain why he’s allowed to say the N-word:
— Caleb (@CalebFromX) September 4, 2026
“I am black. Fat Joe is the blackest N*gga you have ever seen in your life.”
Important to note: Marc Lamont Hill was not present for this conversation pic.twitter.com/Z7Fbd1nQyt
Joe then declared, “Fat Joe is the Blackest n—a you ever seen in your life.”
Hill later addressed the discussion on his YouTube show Just My Thoughts.
“If you use the N-word, you should be Black,” said Hill. “If you’re going to use the N-word, you should be somebody who could actually be called a n—a.” He added that he was not trying to “police anybody’s ethnicity,” but said he did not see evidence that Joe is Black based on his family background and ancestry.
Fat Joe, who is Puerto Rican and Cuban, was raised in the Forest Houses in the Morrisania section of the Bronx.
His father, Ernesto, died in February 2025.