Fat Joe Celebrates His ‘Uncle Joe’ Status for Ashanti’s Newborn: ‘He’s Treated Like Royalty’

“She is the best mom in the world,” the rapper tells PEOPLE of his longtime friend and collaborator’s first child

Fat Joe has officially taken on the title of “Uncle Joe” for Nelly and Ashanti’s baby boy!

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE ahead of him hosting the BET Hip Hop Awards 2024, the Terror Squad rapper, 54, calls his collaborator and friend “the best mom.”

“I am Uncle Joe, and she is the best mom in the world,” Fat Joe says of the “Baby” singer.

“And that baby is beyond beautiful,” Fat Joe tells PEOPLE. “When they let you see that baby — like Muhammad Ali, that baby.”

Ashanti welcomed her first child, a baby boy named Kareem Kenkaide Haynes, on July 18, 2024. “The proud and happy parents are so in love with KK!” a rep for the couple told PEOPLE in August.

Fat Joe and Ashanti have put out songs like 2002’s “What’s Luv?” and remained close friends throughout the years.

“I just kept bragging for like, a week to every random person I met. I was like, ‘Her baby’s crazy.’ Yo, he’s so beautiful,” Fat Joe tells PEOPLE. “God bless this baby. I’m just done. Nelly and Ashanti — you know, they are beautiful. I’m telling you, this baby is different, he’s like royalty, and he sits there like — I don’t know how to explain it to you.”

Fat Joe, who himself is a father of 3, tells PEOPLE that there’s no advice he would give the new parents, as they have everything under control.

“Ashanti has a real tight family, though. I think one of the reasons why she never got destroyed by this business is because she’s always had her mother, her sisters, around her father,” the “Lean Back” rapper says.

However, Fat Joe jokes that the closeness may have made it hard for some to get to know the “Happy” singer in the past.

“I used to tell her when she was single, I’d be like, ‘Yo sis. You know why you single?’ She’d be like, ‘Why?’ and I’d say, ‘It’s because you go on a date with your mother, your father, your sister. Like how you want a guy to even talk sweet talk to you in front of them?’ ” the Bronx-born rapper says.

“But that? I’m not worried about any parenting issues over there, because that family, they with each other through thick and thin. No matter what. It’s just a beautiful family,” Fat Joe tells PEOPLE.

BET Hip Hop Awards 2024 will be simulcast on Tuesday, Oct. 15, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on BET, BET HER, VH1 and MTV2.