#AOTW: Cam'ron

I’ve written before about how sometimes I completely whiff on an artist. They’ll be around for years and despite my best efforts to be on the pulse of music, I’ll hear nary a note from them. It’s happening more regularly now that I’m older. I’m just outta touch on pop-culture stuff. I don’t listen to the radio, I don’t have cable; it’s my own fault. Cam’ron is an extreme example of this though. He’s been rapping for well over decade and I know maybe 3 of his songs. I’ve taken an interest in the man lately. I wanted to know more about the man in the pink mink furs. Rather than doing a bunch of research, I decided to talk with my friend Jordan Vandina. Jordan is a writer living out in LA. He is also a man who celebrates everything that is Cam’ron, despite Cam threatening to block him on twitter.

KM: How old were you when you first heard Cam’Ron.

JVD: When I first heard Cam’ron or Killa Cam as his friends call him, I was the impressionable age of 14. I came to a fork in the road of life; do I continue listening to the pop punk bands and wear Blink 182 shirts all through high school, or do I become a man, get some purple mink, and start reppin’Dipset?

KM: How did you first hear Cam’Ron?

JVD: I first heard Cam’ron at Eric Jones’s house probably around 2004. He told me I was about to have my life changed, then I remember turning the dial, blasting the woofer, and hearing “Happy scrappy/ I got Pataki at me/ bitches say I’m tacky daddy/ Range look like laffy taffy”. That’s when I realized we weren’t dealing with a rapper; we were dealing with a poet.

KM: What was the first Cam’Ron CD you purchased?

JVD: Purple Haze.

KM: Did you have to have your mom drive you to get it?

JVD: Yes, she drove me to Record Stop on Portion Rd. The owner of the place, an overweight lummox with a grey beard, used to hit on my mother, so he’d give me discounted CDs and often times let me buy them a week before their actual release dates. I know that doesn’t seem exciting for you kids that are used to Napster and Torrents or whatever you’re up to, but that was a BIG score back in the 2000s. So fuck off.

KM: If someone had given me Limp Bizkit’s Chocolate Starfish and The Hot Dog Flavored Water a week early back in 2000, I would have shit my bed. Did you guys listen to Cam on the way home? I had a weird experience like that with my Mom and Powerman 5000.

JVD: I don’t think so but side-story, I was always allowed to listen to parental advisory CDs from the time I was a child. But when I first went to buy the Slim Shady LP (at the WALL which offered life time guarantees on all albums, but they all went out of business) the clerk told my mother “YOU CANT BUY THIS FOR YOUR SON ITS TOO DIRTY!!” He proceeded to open the CD, take the booklet out, and read the lyrics. So then I had to make a cassette of the CD to play for my mother which I edited myself stopping the song when he would say “cunt”. She listened and said, “Oh this isn’t that bad.” GOT HER!!!

KM: What’s your go to track on there?

JVD: KILLA CAM. Gets that bass boomin’.

KM: Was Cam’Ron big in your group of friends or were you an outlier for these types of tunes?

JVD: On Long Island, especially in my group, he was huge. All the cars bumped Killa Season. If I start the sentence, “Wanna hit it from the back she agreed that I’m looney,” and you can’t finish my thought with “but proceeded to moon me,” then you are an outcast that doesn’t have any business hanging out with me.

KM: My friends and I had the same relationship with Royce Da 5’9’s M.I.C. Mixtape Vol. 2. You’re weren’t blastingBuzzin, you had to get the fuck out.

How would you say Cam’ron and Dipset have influenced you?

JVD: I’ll answer that question with another question. How did the sky influence Monet? How did the Eiffel Tower influence France? How did God influence all life? You can’t quantify such an important influence with simple words. Cam’ron is more of an idea than an artist. He is everything.

KM: Wow. What about like clothing-wise?

JVD: “my closet pet cemetery” Cam’ron stresses the heavy furs/pinks/canary diamonds “piss color”/ Escalada Marmalade

KM: Ok. Musical taste?

JVD: DIPSET DIPSET DIPSET.

KM: Alright…how about your basic lifestyle choices?

JVD: A few years back Cam took some time off rapping to sell weed in West Palm Beach Florida for $40 a week. He said he didn’t need the money but needed the hustle. What more can be said about lifestyle choices than that?

KM: Damn that’s nuts, but I get it. You live one way, and then it’s another way. You wanna go back to what you know. Of all of his Albums/ Mixtapes, what stands out as the hands down favorite? Why? Can you rank your top 5 Cam’ron songs? What makes them great?

JVD: I know it’s cliché but it’s like asking which child is your favorite?

KM: People say that all the time. Every parent has a kid they don’t like as much. I’m one of three and my Mom regularly says I’m her favorite.

JVD: Look every album brings something so fresh to my speakers. It’s like hearing music for the first time, every time. Picking a top 5 would not only be doing a disservice to myself but also a disservice to every man, woman, and child that will read this article and study Cam’ron’s body of work.

KM: Come on man…give me something.

JVD: Here are some hits.

1. Down and Out – Commercially a huge hit not only for Cam’Ron but Kanye as well. Personally I think it’s Kanye’s best song. Best Cam’Ron style lyric that makes little to no sense: “Now the dashboard is wooden from a hard-tangled grammar/ Interior/ Inferior /star-spangled banner”

2. Touch it or Not – Let it never be said that Cam doesn’t talk about the issues in life. Whether he’s discussing his IBS (“I.B.S”) or having a penis so big it hits the end of a vagina (Bottom of the Pussy) It is clear he needs to bring light to certain issues. In this particular song he discusses the age old question, “Is this chicken head going to give me a blowjob or is she NOT going to give me a blowjob?” Best lyric: “Would you like a tissue?/ You gon’ need it for the cum in your nose baby girl/ ‘Cause you sucking my cock”

3. Get Down – This beat has Killa Cam written all over. Sounds like a 1960’s Broadway opus, light hearted, fun, and a groove that’s going to let you run stop signs in your 2003 white Mitsubishi Galant all night long. Best lyric: “Slit some wrist/ that’s when they said oh shit/ he’s not a singer/ Fuck the rap/ Fuck the movies/ fuck Siskel and Ebert”

4. Rap City Freestyle – I mean what else is there to say besides WOW. “Duct tape/ butt rape the Michelin man” Right off the top of the head, you’re coming out with that? Jesus, this guy has a way with words.

KM: What do you think about the recent Jay Z/ Cam’Ron beef?

JVD: This has been an ongoing beef, after Cam left the ROC there has been heavy animosity, Cam released a diss track on his album Killa Season in which he mocks Jay Z for wearing sandals. He questions “Hows the king of NY rocking sandals with jeans? Open toe sandals with chancletas with jeans on? Hows the King of NY rocking sandals with jeans and he’s 42?” He then refers to him as a camel.

KM: A camel?

JVD: Yeah.

KM: I take it you were with Cam on that one?

JVD: That’s like asking me if I sided with the Americans or the terrorists on 9/11.

KM: Fair enough. Cam’Ron also had beef with 50 Cent. Aren’t you a huge G-Unit fan? Didn’t you write a paper in college comparing G-Unit to the Holy Trinity? What do you make of their disagreements?

JVD: Yes that paper was written and it should be considered scripture because it is very important. 50 Cent being the God figure, Lloyd banks as the Son because of his age and backwards cap, and Tony Yayo as the Holy Ghost because he was in jail and therefore just there in spirit. Although they had their beef, they’ve since squashed it. 50 has been quoted as saying “hip hop needed that beef”. Although it may be argued nobody knew about the beef since both rappers were virtually irrelevant at the time. I agree with him, hip-hop needed that.

KM: I wrote about beef and diss tracks a few weeks ago after Kendrick released Control. I remember when we were growing up hip-hop was in the news when people got murdered. Now it makes headlines when Kanye has a twitter war with Jimmy Kimmel over leather jogging shorts. What did you think of Cam’Ron’s crime epic Killah Season? Is there a scene that stands out for you? Why do you think he made this movie?

JVD: The movie itself is a testament to the fact that you don’t need millions of dollars, a good script, real equipment, any knowledge of the film industry, actors, or motivation, to make an Oscar worthy movie. I think he made this movie to tell his story, which we all needed to see. A particular stand out scene is after his niece is killed he comes into contact with her murderer’s daughter. He has options. Get revenge and kill the little girl or spit on her face while she screams and call her a bitch? I’ll let this clip speak for itself.

KM: I really love that one. I don’t think it had occurred to anyone in Hollywood that you could have your main character hock a loogie on a five-year-old girl’s face. Can you explain for those not familiar, the genius that is Cam’ron album skits?

JVD: Are there people not familiar? Cam’ron usually records most of his phone calls, and as fate may have it, most of his phone calls involve old flings or “tricks”. Gals you wouldn’t take home to mom on Thanksgiving, lol! And in these recordings he usually tells them “they suck dick like they from the 90’s” or a gal will come out with something like “you treat me like a chicken, IMA act like a chicken…quack, quack, quack” to which Cam will explain kindly “that’s a duck” not a chicken.

KM: Is there one rapper you’d like Cam’Ron to do a diss track for?

JVD: I’d like him to do a diss track of himself, cause Just like Eminem in 8 Mile he is the only one worthy of taking on himself. All these other rappers are lyrically weak and small minded fools.

KM: Jordan I can’t thank you enough for your time. This was quite enlightening.

FOLLOW JORDAN ON TWITTER @shrimptooth

Big hugs,

Kelly