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Coming to Terms With Cam'ron
But first, who are these big friends that we're talking about. Coming from New York, you'd expect Cam'ron to be buds with some of the top talent coming out of that hip hop Mecca. Actually, Cam'ron went to high school even with some of them. He met legendary rapper Mase and hip hop star Jim Jones at his high school.
In the middle of the 1990s, these cats, along with Big L and Bloodshed, formed a group called Children of the Corn. After both Bloodshed and Big L met untimely deaths, the group fell apart, but Mase and Cam'ron never lost touch. It was Mase who would then later get Cam'ron in touch with the Notorious BIG. The Biggie Smalls? Yes. And Biggie dug Cam'ron so much that he hooked Cam'ron up with his manager.
Big on His Own
But like we said, Cam'ron has talents, and though help from friends is nice, Cam'ron probably would like to think that he'd have gotten big without Biggie or Mase. How do I know? I don't. You'd have to ask Cam'ron, but you can't deny that Cam'ron has made the most of his opportunities.
For starters, the first Cam'ron record came out in 1998, called "Confessions of Fire." That was followed up in 2000 with the Cam'ron record "SDE." But it wasn't until Cam'ron got with Rock-A-Fella Records that he caught fire. The first Cam'ron record with them was "Come Home With Me," and it and Cam'ron songs like "Hey Ma" and "Oh Boy" really put Cam'ron on the hip hop map.
Around this time, Cam'ron also joined up with old buddy Jim Jones as well as Juelz Santana to form the Diplomats, who then in 2003 released "Diplomatic Immunity." This went platinum. The following year, they released their second album, which went gold.
Cam'ron and Controversy
Other Cam'ron albums would come out, like "Purple Haze" and "Killa Season," but at this point in the mid-2000s, Cam'ron started getting better known for his controversies than his music. Like what? For instance, there was the time in 2006 that he got carjacked and shot in Washington DC. Or the time that he was on television defending how he would never snitch on anybody and how he supported the "Stop Snitchin" campaign, which stops law enforcement from catching criminals in bad neighborhoods.
Is that it? Or how about the beef he had with 50 Cent in 2007, when 50 said basically that if you listen to Cam'ron, you know he should no longer be leading the Diplomats. Then Cam'ron responded with saying 50 Cent looked like a gorilla and had rabbit teeth. What did he mean. Ask Cam'ron.
Then there was the beef with old Diplomat colleague Jim Jones, who Cam'ron no longer speaks with. With the 2008 Cam'ron record "Crime Pays," let's hope Cam'ron gets back to what he's good at: making music.
