Joseph Antonio Cartagena was born on August 19, 1970 in The Bronx, New York, USA, better known by his stage name Fat Joe, is a Latino-American rapper.

In late 2002, Joe released the album Loyalty and had a couple of small hits with "Crush Tonite" (featuring Ginuwine) and "All I Need". The rapper also has appeared in several films, including the 2002 film Empire with John Leguizamo and Peter Sarsgaard.

In late 2004, Fat Joe scored another radio hit with his verse on Ja Rule's "New York", also featuring Jadakiss and a chorus taken from KRS-One's "100 Guns". In his verse, Ja Rule takes thinly-veiled potshots at 50 Cent, adding another chapter to their well-publicized feud.

However, this led to further controversy as 50 Cent assumed that by collaborating with Ja Rule, his enemy, Joe and Jada were now aligning themselves against him and included them both in his new diss track, "Piggy Bank".

In 2005, Fat Joe released his album, All or Nothing. The first single was "So Much More". The music video features an appearance by DJ Kay Slay, who has also called himself the "black Fat Joe". The second single, the Scott Storch-produced "Get It Poppin", features Nelly. It was used as the theme song for WWE's 2005 SummerSlam.

In November 2006 Fat Joe released a new solo album, "Me, Myself & I". The lead single is "Make It Rain" featuring Lil' Wayne.