Fat Joe has joined several other rappers—Killer Mike, T.I., N.O.R.E, Young Thug, and Travis Scott—in a petition to halt the execution of a Texas rapper named James Broadnax. In 2009, Broadnax was sentenced to death for two murders that happened a year prior. The crux of the case rested on 40 pages of the defendant’s handwritten rap lyrics. However, according to Broadnax’s fellow rap peers, his sentence is “unconstitutional.” Fat Joe recently chatted with CBS News about why he decided to be part of the fight.
“I just happen to know that hip-hop music comes from a place of creativity and imagination,” Joe tells the outlet. “…There’s nowhere on earth that the stuff that we write is actually real.” In his opinion, rap lyrics are no different from books or movies. “So to see someone go to trial with the lyrics they used on songs that came from their imagination to be used against them is a crime in itself.”
