Fat Joe believes that ego and lack of unity destroyed New York City Hip-Hop's commercial and cultural momentum in the early 2000s. Hip-Hop's homebase famously fell out of fashion near the end of the decade, as the South took over the charts and NYC seemed to sit on the back burner of the genre it had given birth to.

Speaking on IG Live, Joe says that Atlanta learned from New York City's early 2000s mistakes.

“New York Hip Hop was destroyed single-handedly by ego,” Joe declared. “The South saw how we fucked it up, meaning Atlanta, and they cliqued up and said, ‘We not gonna make that mistake.’ We got Roc-A-Fella, we got Ruff Ryders, we got Terror Squad, we got G-Unit, we got Dipset.”

Joe declared that the "King of NY" obsession became a problem.

“As soon as muthafuckas started getting hot and started getting a different type of money,” he continued. “They started feeling like they that person, they that guy. It’s so many Kings of New York. Even me — every week someone said they the king.

“That’s all ego. It fucks up your ability to work with each other, to get money with each other, to embrace each other, to come up.”