Mase clapped back after Jennifer Lopez said only people born in New York City’s five boroughs can truly claim the city.
The rapper and It Is What It Is co-host addressed Lopez’s comments Tuesday after the Bronx-born entertainer appeared on Subway Takes With Kareem Rahma and said being “born and bred” in the city is what makes someone a real New Yorker. Mase, whose birth name is Mason Betha, was born in Jacksonville, Fla., but moved to Harlem as a young child and spent his school years there.
“According to J.Lo, Harlem World is a fake,” Mase joked during the podcast. “I don’t know how to feel about that. I think if you didn’t go to kindergarten there, if you didn’t go to elementary there… But if you’ve been there since kindergarten all the way through high school, at what point do you say a person is not from there?”
Mase became one of the most popular voices in New York hip-hop in the late 1990s through Bad Boy Records, and he has always repped Harlem.
Cam’ron, who co-hosts the show and is also from Harlem, joined the discussion, comparing birthplace with upbringing. He brought up Michael Jordan, who was born in New York but is famously associated with North Carolina, and Carmelo Anthony, who was born in New York but spent part of his youth in Baltimore.
