Cam'ron

Why he matters

Cameron Giles was born and raised in East Harlem. At the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics he met Mase and Jim Jones, and he was a serious basketball player before rap took over. In 1993, as Killa Cam, he co-founded Children of the Corn with Big L, Mase, his cousin Bloodshed and others, and he shows up on L’s 1995 debut. Mase introduced him to the Notorious B.I.G., who introduced him to Lance “Un” Rivera, and Rivera signed him to Untertainment through Epic.

Confessions of Fire (1998) went gold, mostly produced by Darrell “Digga” Branch, and S.D.E. followed in 2000. Then he moved to Roc-A-Fella at the end of 2001, and Come Home with Me (2002), with Just Blaze, Kanye West and the Heatmakerz, went platinum. “Oh Boy” and “Hey Ma” both reached the top five of the Hot 100, and both featured Juelz Santana, a member of the Diplomats, the crew Cam had started in 1997 with Jim Jones and Freekey Zekey. Dipset’s own debut, Diplomatic Immunity, went gold the next year.

Purple Haze (2004) is the record critics still argue for. Pitchfork put it on its list of the best albums of the decade, and reviewers kept describing the same thing: surreal lyrics, bombastic beats, and a delivery that never cracks a smile. In 2006 he released Killa Season as an album and a film he wrote, directed and starred in.

What a working rapper can take from it

Pick a vocal persona and commit. Cam’ron doesn’t oversell. He says the strangest line on the record in the same flat tone as the plainest one, and that’s why it’s funny. Try reading a verse three ways, hyped, conversational and deadpan, and keep the take where the words do the work. The vocal recording guide covers comping takes.

Build the crew into the brand. Dipset was on Cam’s biggest singles before it had its own album. Putting your people on your hits is how a crew becomes a label instead of an entourage.

Protect the rollout. Purple Haze came out the same day Roc-A-Fella was sold to Def Jam, and its promotion suffered for it. You can’t control a label’s politics, but you can keep your own release plan, your own audience list and your own masters straight.