Fat Joe Speak On The Jamaican Connection To His “Lean Back” Dance

It’s obvious that Fat Joe’s “Lean Back” dance relocation was greatly affected by Jamaican dancehall culture.

Fat Joe shed some light on among his most significant hit tune and the popular dance at the 2022 BET Hip Hop Awards recently. The NY rap artist discussed that when he was making the track, Jamaican music was on the ascendancy in New York. It was the ambiance of this music, which probably would have been dancehall, that got him believing that he required a track “to rockaway, lean back,” to.

While developing the track, he chose that he needs to make a dance for it, and it was then that he understood he had a track that would go the range. “We understood off rip, that thing was outta here. Every from time to time you make a tune that’s like, ‘Oh no, this is gone. This is outta here.’ Yeah that was it,” Fat Joe informed Hiphopdx.

The track, which includes Fat Joe with Remy Ma on the 2nd verse, went on to top the United States Billboard Hot 100 for 3 weeks, beginning on August 21, 2004. It likewise topped the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart for 7 weeks.

Globally the tune was really effective for the Terror Squad leader arriving 20 in numerous markets, consisting of peaking at No. 5 in Denmark. It stays among Fat Joe’s most effective tracks to date, as it was licensed gold in the United States and silver in the UK. It likewise assisted to take the Bronx belonging to locations that he didn’t formerly imagine also.

Fat Joe discussed something that happened because of the pop music, which he thinks provided comical rockstar Kevin Hart among his huge breaks. Fat Joe exposes that while on set for his cameo in 2003’s Scary Movie 3, he fulfilled Kevin Hart and discovered him humorous. Hart was more of an additional at the time, however his jokes stuck out, Fat Joe remembers. That’s why he picked to cast him in the “Lean Back” video.

“Then like 2 weeks later on, I shot ‘Lean Back’ and I called him up. I stated, ‘Remember the little amusing man? Let’s get him in the video.’ So he was available in ‘Lean Back’ which was his very first huge minute. Scary Movie made that all take place,” he included.

The origin of the dance has actually been contested however. While Fat Joe stated the motivation pertained to him through motivation, according to author, radio host, and speaker Bee Quammie it was she who provided him the direct motivation for the dance back in December 2019.

She declared that she snuck into a Club Bed in Miami when she was minor, and as she was dancing throughout the reggae set, Fat Joe asked her to teach him the dance. Using Twitter, she stated that the dance was called the “Rockaway” which Joe taped “Lean Back” the following week.

A user asked her if she believed that the “All the Way Up” rap artist owed her some money for the motivation, to which she responded: “He owes Jamaica cash! I remember this ’cause I was a kid and Jamaicans raged and I believe a couple of artists made tunes about it too.”

A year later on, in 2020, Elephant Man also said that he was the creator of the Rockaway dance and that Fat Joe stole his moves for the Lean Back. He made that claim on Magnum’s Spice It Up talk program.

“Fat Joe come and take rockaway, him no understand weh it originate from,” he stated.

The guidelines for the Rockaway dance relocation included plainly on Elephant Man’s 2003 release “Blase.”