Tony Testa, who advertises himself as the first authentic “mob-related” rapper, has zero patience for those who trade on unearned mob associations, both because he is the nephew of Gambino family member Joseph Carmine Testa and because he is a huge fan of irony. So when former Sopranos star Vincent “Big Pussy” Pastore gave him grief over doing a cameo alongside Joe “Vito Spatafore” Gannascoli in Testa’s new video, “Paper Chasers”—with Pastore complaining about his contract terms, saying he wanted a limo to come and pick him up because it was raining, and griping that the shoot wasn’t a union job—Testa responded with some mobster-appropriate “choice words”:
"I said to him, 'Listen to me, you fat motherfucker: If you don't turn up to my video shoot, I'll stomp on your head.' He then sent a text to Joe saying he was just threatened by me… This isn't The Sopranos. My uncle is doing life in jail. I am doing rap because it is my passion. These guys think they are celebrities. He thinks he is Kim Kardashian."
Yes, didn’t Pastore realize he was dealing with Tony Testa, passionate rapper, nephew of a notorious Mafia guy, and (as AllHipHop points out), owner of three Long Island tanning salons? The idea that Pastore would behave as though he were Kim Kardashian, like some sort of ungrateful opportunist using tangential fame as a launching pad for a scattershot entrepreneurial career involving both music and tanning products—well, you could see why that would be an insult to someone like Tony Testa. (Pastore's rep has since responded, "This is the first I've heard of this.") Reportedly things then got even worse when Gannascoli and Oz star Chuck Zito disrupted filming by “fighting over which HBO show was better.” Hey Testa, perhaps “Paper Chasers” should have starred Timothy Bottoms instead. That guy’s nothing if not a professional.
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