Fat Joe is looking back on one of the scariest moments of his international touring days, claiming he was once invited to shoot rockets with members of the Taliban while performing in Lebanon.
The Bronx rapper told the wild story on the December 2 episode of the Joe and Jada podcast, where he, Jadakiss, and guest Bill Bellamy talked about the unpredictable situations artists can run into overseas. According to Joe, what started as a normal night onstage in Lebanon quickly turned into something that made him and his team fear for their lives.
“I was in Lebanon,” Joe began, saying he had just wrapped his show and headed back to his hotel. “I do a show in Lebanon, it’s so incredible. I come back to this hotel, and when I come back, three guys stand up like synchronized swimming.”
The men approached him and said “the guys” wanted to see him. When he asked who they meant, their reply instantly sent up red flags.
“‘The guys, they wanna shoot rockets with you,’” Joe recalled them saying. “‘The Taliban, they love you.’”
Joe admitted he was immediately terrified: “My asshole got this tight, okay,” he joked, making it clear he had zero plans to take them up on the offer.
Joe said the entire moment felt dangerously real.
“I met the Taliban, it’s no fucking bullshit,” he insisted. “The real Taliban came through and was like, ‘Yo, shoot rockets?’”
He said he immediately rushed upstairs, grabbed his bags, and got out of the hotel as fast as possible, heading straight to the airport in the middle of the night. But even escaping to the airport didn’t calm his nerves.
“I went to the airport like 1 in the morning. This shit ain’t take off until 10 in the fucking morning,” Joe said. “We stood in the airport overnight just shook to death.”
He didn’t specify what year the incident took place, but Fat Joe has performed in Lebanon several times, including back-to-back shows at Pier 7 nightclub in Beirut in 2011 and 2012.
