On August 23, just ten days after the release of Fat Joe’s Album, What Would Big Do 2021? fans were still scratching their heads. Sources note the album vanished into thin air only a few days into its release. And despite any scouring of the streaming platforms, What Would Big Do 2021? did not exist. Undoubtedly this left fans in a state of confusion; it is atypical for an album to be released and a week and a half later totally vanish into thin air.
Fat Joe and the album
Fat Joe’s highly anticipated What Would Big Do 2021? was released to streaming platforms on August 13. And the album was so hot that fans could not help but vibe with the artists. In fact, One Worth Listening contributor had this to say about the Fat Joe release, “’What Would Big Do 2021?’ is arguably one of Fat Joe’s most cohesive projects to date. The project includes replay-worthy tracks….”
And so it was unsurprising that fans were shocked when the project had gone missing. Inarguably, few would disagree that the disappearance of the album was a disappointment. The album had some of the greatest names in hip-hop attached to it to include, but not limited to, Remy Ma, CeeLo Green, and French Montana.
What happened?
The word is the release was a type of test project. And unfortunately, some of the tracks included samples that weren’t exactly cleared. So, the album had to be taken down. And It was Skates Beats that laid it out for those who were wondering. According to Skate:
“Out of the other seven songs, we [The Mercenaries] did four of the seven songs, and we knew what we were sampling was not going to get cleared–like we were sampling Prince and Michael.”
So to avoid issues, the album disappeared from streaming platforms.
Listeners agree that the album was a great demonstration of Fat Joe’s skill. But, for now, only two of the tracks of the album are available on Youtube. But with hopes, fans will see more of Fat Joe’s work in the future.
To find about some other Hip Hop samples that had a major impact, check out our retrospective article.
Renae Richardson
Twitter: @ebonybella8