Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fat Joe Talks’ on Starz, Where The Rapper Chops It Up Weekly With Celebrity Guests

Fat Joe Talks , now streaming on Starz as the network’s first-ever talk show, also marks the host’s latest foray into multimedia. The Bronx-born rapper and Terror Squad founder has hosted both the BET Hip-Hop Awards and his own talk show on Instagram, he’s written a memoir, The Book of Jose , and he even appeared as a therapist in J-Lo’s misguided mini-movie This Is Me…Now: A Love Story . Executive produced in part by LeBron James, the first season of Talks will feature Fat Joe in conversation with guests like Babyface, Remy Ma, Mary J. Blige, Hakeem Jeffries, and T.I.; for the first installment, he meets up with rapper and actor Method Man, and later, Jamaican dancehall star Buju Banton.

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Opening Shot: All aboard the ferry to Staten Island, and watch your step. Fat Joe is heading out to interview Method Man on the Wu-Tang Clan legend’s home turf, at Snug Harbor Music Hall in New Brighton.

The Gist: Fat Joe Talks combines on-site interview segments with cutaways that allow Joe to elaborate on the personalities he’s interviewing and further explore the themes of their conversation. The run-time is short, just 30 minutes, and once you figure in graphics and titles and more than one guest per episode, time is of the essence. But once he meets Method Man in Staten Island, and they repair to a set of stools on stage in the empty theater, Fat Joe Talks makes a connection by combining its guest’s ease with its host’s natural gregariousness. “Just to be a fly on the wall with some of this shit,” Meth says to the camera in the first episode of Talks . “This why he doin’ this show, man. He puttin’ y’all in some of these rooms right now.”

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Come for the conversation, stay for Method Man’s spot-on impersonation of the Notorious B.I.G. Or reminiscences about the time Joe did a gig with Wu-Tang, and each act got $500, but Fat Joe is just one guy and the Wu was rolling 13 members deep. Joe and Meth also get into the evolving legacy Wu-Tang across three decades, Meth’s acting career – shout-out to the 2001 stoner jawn How High – and when a stroll around Staten Island brings them to a beautiful mural dedicated to him, Joe has to ask his guest for a ruling. “How many blunts has Method Man smoke in the history of mankind?”

Not as formal as a talk show, but not quite just a hangout, either, Fat Joe Talks also finds space for real depth. “Depression? Yeah, it never really goes away.” Meth and Joe find common ground discussing the era in which they came up, when rappers weren’t even allowed to show basic emotion, let alone speak openly about their mental health, and how much they benefited from seeking clinical and therapeutic help.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Method Man has been acting for years – The Wire ; Method & Red – but lately he’s been great as Davis MacLean in Power Book II: Ghost . And rapper-actor Dave East played Method Man in the Hulu series Wu-Tang: An American Saga , which recently concluded its third and final season.

Our Take: Joe and Method Man have been friends and collaborators for over 30 years, so the debut episode of Fat Joe Talks offers the host a bit of low-hanging fruit. But it’s not like he’s there to just shoot the shit, and Meth isn’t appearing on Talks in some promotional capacity. From the get-go there’s a real connection here, whether they are speaking pointedly about the presidential election, getting into a bit of the drama surrounding Meth’s comments on the 2024 Summer Jam, or speaking openly about their respective bouts with depression. We’re really interested in seeing how Joe changes his approach and interview style as Fat Joe Talks moves through its first season, where the guest slate continues to favor recording artists, but not exclusively, and not only people he knows.

And for that matter, Fat Joe Talks is also refreshing in how it blows up the format, retaining the core of a celebrity interview but letting it spool out in different ways, and in different locations. In short, it keeps things fresh and unpredictable. And this is a great space for the show to exist in, because while it plays to Joe’s strengths as a thoughtful conversationalist and allows the usual return on a viewing audience’s investment, it’s also not afraid to bring the flavor. Who else is out here on a talk show riffing with Buju Banton about how delicious red snapper is?

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: His Method Man interview concluded, Fat Joe heads back into Brooklyn for a rendezvous with dancehall and ragga icon Buju Banton, who Joe refers to as “My bredren, my Bruv, the Don Gargamel of all Gargamels.”

Sleeper Star: When Joe and Meth have a moment, poking fun at Staten Island for being “the only New York City borough that’s pro-Trump,” Method Man makes clear his intentions at the ballot box in November. “My vote is with the lady.”

Most Pilot-y Line: For Fat Joe, his talk show isn’t going to be all about old stories and anecdotes. “In my discussion with Meth, I wanted to hit that mental health. Society has grown to where men gotta accept responsibility, seek help, and get help. Nowadays it’s very important to be transparent.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Fat Joe Talks is an entertaining half-hour of conversation. With its host’s natural affinity for blowing up the format – and gift of gab – things move along briskly. But the series is also intent on platforming deeper issues like mental health and even our current political landscape.

Johnny Loftus ( @glennganges ) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.

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