As a devout KRS-One supporter, Fat Joe's been inspired by the Boogie Down Productions affiliate's verses time and again. Namely the lyrics off of 'I'm Still #1,' a track that appeared on the KRS-One's sophomore 1988 album, 'By All Means Necessary.'

"[Years ago,] I hopped the train," Joe says, going back in time with The BoomBox. "For ya'll that don't know, it's when you don't have money, you jump over the turnstile to get on the train. I had a Walkman on. My intellect, I wasn't even thinking like this, [KRS-One] said, 'Airplanes flyin', overseas people dyin'/ Politician's lyin', I'm tryin'/ Not to escape but hit the problem head-on/ By bringing out the truth in a song/ So B.D.P. short for Boogie Down Productions.'"

"It just opened my mind," Joe says of being inspired by the song. "I would never think like that. I was robbing people, selling drugs. I was doing the craziest things. And here, KRS-One was on the cover of an album with an oozie, peeking out the curtain and he gassed me to think it was gangsta rap. And when I got it, he gave me consciousness. I was like 'Airplanes flyin', overseas people dyin'/ Politician's lyin', I'm tryin' ... ' Twenty years later it's so relevant, it's the same shit going on."

All in all, Joe hopes to reach his fans on his new album, 'The Darkside Vol. 1,' just as KRS struck a chord with him. "That's who I do it for," Joe says. "My coldest days, my darkest days, ain't no sun out, all I got is my fans. They the only people I ride for. Believe it or not, if you're a real Fat Joe fan, a Terror Squad fan, I do it for ya'll."

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