Fat Joe and Remy Ma Bring ‘Lean Back’ to Life at Historic Knicks Victory Parade
Fat Joe and Remy Ma brought 'Lean Back' back to the streets of Manhattan, and this time, the whole city was watching.
Published June 19 2026, 10:01 a.m. ET
Fat Joe and Remy Ma brought Lean Back back to the streets of Manhattan, and this time, the whole city was watching.
The duo performed at the New York Knicks' NBA championship parade June 18, joining a float stacked with New York rap royalty as fans lined Broadway for the Canyon of Heroes ticker-tape parade.
The Knicks defeated the San Antonio Spurs in five games to claim their first NBA title since 1973, ending a 53-year drought.
'Lean Back' Performance at Knicks Parade
Fat Joe revealed in a SportsCenter interview that Knicks leadership personally tapped him to oversee the hip-hop division for the parade, giving him broad creative control over the float's lineup.
The result was a roster that included Wu-Tang Clan, The Lox, Q-Tip, Mary J. Blige, Fabolous, Ja Rule, M.O.P., Remy Ma and Yung Miami.
According to Variety, Wu-Tang opened with Triumph, Mary J. Blige followed with Real Love, and Fat Joe and Remy Ma closed with Lean Back before segueing into All the Way Up.
Lean Back topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks starting Aug. 21, 2004. The song was released June 1, 2004, as a single from Terror Squad's album True Story, featuring vocal performances from Fat Joe and Remy Ma. It has since become a New York anthem.
Remy Ma captured the mood of the day simply. "I've never seen this level of unity," she told AllHipHop.
The performance also drew online attention for a different reason: Fat Joe's distinctive walk, which stems from an old leg injury he has spoken about publicly.
Around August 2025, Joe recalled the incident where his leg was twisted while he was trying to escape a shooter.
"They start shooting out the car at us. I jump over the gate. Twisted my s--t up," he said. "When I was a teenager, I never went to fix it." He said the injury occurred when he landed wrong while sitting in front of his building and was never surgically corrected.
One moment that cut through online was New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Knicks star Karl-Anthony Towns doing the Lean Back dance together on a nearby float. Celebrities including Kylie Jenner, Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Swift were also spotted in the crowd for the title-clinching game.