Mase responded Tuesday to Jennifer Lopez’s recent assertion that only those born within the five boroughs can claim to be “real” New York City natives. Addressing the controversy on his podcast “It Is What It Is,” the Harlem-raised artist questioned the strict criteria set by the “Office Romance” star.
The debate began after Lopez appeared on a recent episode of “Subway Takes With Kareem Rahma,” where she argued that being “born and bred” in the city is a prerequisite for calling it home. “According to J.Lo, Harlem World is a fake,” Mase joked during the broadcast. “I don’t know how to feel about that. I think if you didn’t go to kindergarten there, if you didn’t go to elementary there… But if you’ve been there since kindergarten all the way through high school, at what point do you say a person is not from there?”
Mase was born in Jacksonville, Florida:
Mase, whose birth name is Mason Betha, was born in Jacksonville, Florida, but moved to Harlem as a small child. He rose to fame in the late 1990s as a pillar of the New York hip-hop scene under Bad Boy Records. While he admitted his Social Security card confirms his Florida birth, he maintained that his cultural identity is rooted firmly in New York soil. The rapper’s co-host and fellow Harlem native Cam’ron joined the discussion, using professional basketball as a point of comparison.
He noted that Michael Jordan was born in New York but is closely associated with North Carolina, while Carmelo Anthony is a New York native who spent much of his youth in Baltimore. Lopez, who was born in the Bronx, insisted during her subway interview that true New York status is reserved for those born in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx or Staten Island.
The comments have sparked a wider conversation on social media regarding whether residency and upbringing or birth certificates define a person’s connection to a city. Despite the disagreement, Mase kept the tone light, noting that Lopez previously appeared in his 1997 music video for “Been Around the World.”
He concluded the segment by jokingly suggesting that the singer has “bigger stuff to worry about” than his municipal credentials.
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