Lean Back was made for the Jamaicans — Fat Joe
Hip Hop star Fat Joe has once again credited Jamaicans for inspiring his popular hit Lean Back.
He was speaking on the Jennifer Hudson Show with host Jennifer Hudson.
The song, which was a track on the True Story album, was a Terror Squad collaboration featuring American rapper Remy Ma.
Praising Fat Joe for the track, Hudson said “Lean back…That song is everything. It’s like…I don’t care when you hit it we all just lean back. How did that track come about?”
Fat Joe shared that he wanted to create a track that the Jamaicans “could rock with”.
“At the time, the Jamaicans was winning and they was like signal the plane, rock away, running man. Then I was like yo, when I came up with the hook, I was like ‘yo, we need something the Jamaicans could rock with’. So we came up with ‘My people don’t dance, we just pull up our pants and do the rockaway so lean back, lean back, lean back, lean back,” the New York rapper explained to Hudson.
“You know what’s so crazy about Lean Back is it was my solo record on the Terror Squad album and I had three verses. I went to McDonald’s with Khaled and by the time we came back everybody was looking so scared in the studio and I was like ‘what’s up?’ They was like ‘yo, Remy came here, erased the second verse and she spit’. I was like ‘what?’ and when I pressed play she was like ‘R to the E-zy, M to the wizz-Y’. I was like ‘oh we leaving it, we need it, we need it’. And so I’m glad she did that,” he continued.
Upon its release, Lean Back topped both the US Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks charts. It also received a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance by Duo or Group at the 47th annual Grammy Awards.
Fat Joe grew up in the Jamaican stronghold of Bronx, New York. He has collaborated with Jamaican artistes such as Bounty Killer, Buju Banton, and Barrington Levy.
