Marc Lamont Hill responded to Fat Joe's recent appearance on The Joe Budden Podcast, disagreeing with the Bronx rapper's claim that his strong connection to hip-hop culture gives him the right to use the N-word. He said:“Fat Joe is not Black.”Hill addressed Fat Joe's appearance and answer Sunday night, saying he wasn't there for the podcast recording and therefore wouldn't criticize how his co-hosts, whom he called his "brothers," approached their questions or follow-ups when Fat Joe responded.However, Hill clarified his own position, stating:“Fat Joe is not Black. I disagree with him using the word due to his relation to the culture, I don’t think that’s enough.”Hill stated that the podcast would be released Monday morning.What did Fat Joe say on the Joe Budden Podcast?Fat Joe, of Puerto Rican and Cuban origin, was asked by co-host Emanny whether he ever felt he was wrong to claim hip-hop as part of his culture. The rapper immediately denied it, citing his upbringing in the Bronx. He said:"Are you crazy? This is a no-brainer. I grew up in hip-hop, where they invented hip-hop."He went on to recount growing up near Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel, two figures who were instrumental in the early creation of hip-hop.Fat Joe stated he grew up in the same neighborhood and remembered seeing Melle Mel play hoops outside his window. He also claimed that the women who babysat him were related to Grandmaster Flash:"Guys, I don't know if you can fathom that I'm from the block that invented hip-hop. Melle Mel, Grandmaster Flash... The girls who used to babysit me, they invented, 'Let me hear you say, oooo!' That's Grandmaster Flash. I grew up with Melle Mel right outside the window playing basketball."He added that his late brother used to carry crates of vinyl for the DJ:"My brother used to carry the crates of vinyl from Grandmaster Flash."The rapper claimed that Melle Mel, in an interview, had established his connection to the culture, stating:"Yo, Joey's from here. I don't know what y'all talking about."Fat Joe then addressed his own racial identity more directly. He stated:"Fat Joe is the Blackest n***a you ever seen in your life. Go look it up."Fat Joe has defended his use of the N-word beforeThe latest controversy stems from a long-running discussion over the rapper's use of the N-word. During a 2022 guest appearance on The Breakfast Club, the rapper revealed that he grew up in a predominantly Black housing complex and was exposed to the word from an early age. He went on to say:"First of all, my projects is 90 percent, I'll give you 80 percent, Black still. My grandmother's projects is 99.9 percent Black to be clear. So I'm Spanish. I knew I was Latino, but the whole time I thought I was Black anyway."Fat Joe went on to explain that his mother was born and lived there for 40 years before he was born, explaining how he became part of that culture even before joining elementary school:"I'm born blond hair, green eyes. This sh*t crazy, right? She brings me there, the first thing is they go, 'Oh, look at this little n*gga Joey. He got green eyes.' The minute I'm walking, the guys in the building is like, 'Yo, look at that little n*gga Joe, little Fat Joe.' That's all I knew my whole life before even elementary."Joe acknowledged the word's dark history and said he wished it had never been used."It's a lot of 'woke society' or something going on these days and Twitter and all that I guess they don't understand where I come from, where I was born or how I was raised or how I lived my whole entire life. Now we know, we use it as love. We know that the record states that this is a negative word and I wish we never used it, you know?"However, he claimed that it became part of his vocabulary as a result of the environment in which he was raised:"And I try my best … I been saying this thing … in my DNA. It's hard. Really, seriously I been trying to stop, but I been saying this since I was born. I tried the greatest level I can to try to understand if I'm offending anybody and that's cool."He also defended his usage of the word in a 2023 interview on Talib Kweli's People's Party podcast, calling the criticism "mind-boggling" and arguing that his lifelong relationships with Black people and involvement in hip-hop should be acknowledged:"Explaining it to people at this point is like, mind-boggling to me, 'cause it's been like, 'What’s up, Fat Joe? You my n***a!' since I was 2 years old. You taking it offensive, then what do I look like, a slave owner to you? Or do I look like the cop who killed George Floyd?The rapper concluded that he was considered an important part of hip-hop and that he fought for Black people and Latinos every day of his life.Joe has already received support from members of the Black hip-hop community. One of them was Remy Ma, a longstanding Terror Squad collaborator.Remy defended the rapper in a 2019 broadcast of State of the Culture when Joe Budden brought up the issue of non-Black people using the N-word.Remy argued that the rapper's use of the word did not stem from his career as a rapper. Instead, she emphasized his roots in the South Bronx and lifelong ties to Black people.Despite the criticism, the rapper has already stated that he will not let people define how he identifies or communicates. During his 2022 visit on The Breakfast Club, he stated:"No one's going to pressure Fat Joe into [not] feeling or saying anything that he loves or believes in. No one's ever going to do that. You get one life and nobody gonna try to tell me what to say, tell me do, tell me what to think."Stay tuned to Soap Central for more information.