“What’s Luv” was the second single from Fat Joe’s fourth album Jealous Ones Still Envy (J.O.S.E.) and featured Murder Inc. hitmakers Ja Rule and Ashanti on vocals and Irv Gotti on production. The single peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Hot Rap Songs chart in the US, and achieved gold status in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Fat Joe provided some background information on the creation of the track in an interview with Complex:

Chris Lighty introduced me to Irv Gotti. And Irv Gotti and I started talking from 11 at night to 7 in the morning. We were so much alike. So we start joking, and going back and forth.

Right after I met him, like a week later, Pun died. And I’ll never forget this. I was crying in the chair at the funeral, and I looked up, and it was Chris [Lighty], Gotti, and Ja Rule. And this is when Ja Rule was the biggest nigga on earth. And they were like, ‘Yo, sorry about your man.’ It was an ill moment in my life. And I was like, ‘Thanks for coming.’ There was a lot of respect.

A week later, I’m in my house, and my phone rings at like four in the morning, and it’s Irv Gotti. And he was like, ‘Yo, yo, come now!’ And I’m like, ‘Who the fuck is this?!’ And he’s like, ‘It’s Irv. I’m at The Hit Factory, come now.’

So when I get there, he plays me, [sings] ‘Always there when you call, always on time.’ He played me that, and I was like, ‘Oh shit, that’s a hit!’ And he was like, that’s Ja Rule’s record. But guess what? Me and Ja made a record for you. And he plays ‘What’s Luv.’ And I was like, ‘Oh shit!!!!!!’ That was it.

The hook was there. Ja Rule wrote hook and sung the hook. And they were like, ‘Yo, get J. Lo on the hook.’ And I was like, ‘Aiight. Have a girl reference it.’ And Ashanti did it, and I was like, ‘You know what Irv? She sounds amazing on it. We don’t even need J. Lo.’ He was like, ‘You sure? You’re cool with J. Lo. She just sold six million records.’ I was like, ‘We don’t need her for this. Let’s [keep] Ashanti.’ It was her and Ja, and it was a movie.