Punch was confused at Fat Joe‘s assumption that Kendrick Lamar and SZA want to take on Ja Rule and Ashanti‘s early 2000s run.
The Top Dawg Entertainment president reacted to a clip from the Joe and Jada podcast on Tuesday (May 20), where Joey Crack theorized about Kendrick and SZA’s chart-topping reign. Their “Luther” collaboration is currently in its thirteenth week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“Are Kendrick and SZA positioned to take that number one spot on the duo tip?” Jadakiss asked his co-host.
“What you got to understand is we don’t know if they’re going to still be best friends and all that forever, you know what I’m saying?” Joe replied.
“Right now they got about six, seven songs–they are number one. Yes, they could take the slot,” he continued, calling Kendrick and SZA collaborations “phenomenal.”
Joe added that the two are “fire together” but shared concerns that their professional relationship could get “rocky” as time goes on.
“It’s not gonna get rocky, man,” Jada interjected. “Well, then they’re gonna take the slot,” Joe said.
Elsewhere, Joe said that Ja Rule and Ashanti are considered the “greatest” rap and R&B duo.
“I’m telling you that SZA is a solo artist, Kendrick…They’re probably like, ‘Alright, they have fifteen number ones. We already got eight. Let’s bust this down to two years and we have eighteen.”
But Jada doubted the theory, guessing that Kendrick and SZA “aren’t looking at the numbers” and are just “making good music.” Joe’s explanation also confused Punch, who wrote, “… what??” as a reaction on X, formerly Twitter.
Ja and Ashanti share a single number one hit, their 2001 collab “Always On Time.”
