When Harlem hip-hop star Cam'ron speaks, he sounds less like a boasting rapper and more like a financial adviser on the make.
"It's all about doing your homework and finding out what things really cost," the rapper explains. "When you do, you can take control of your life."
Cam'ron's cost analysis made him realize several things about his own financial life:
First: For what he laid out for a decent promotional video, which yields no direct profit, he could make his own feature film and hawk it on DVD.
Second: For what he paid for three ads in a major urban magazine to advertise his album, he could finance an entire issue of his own magazine.
"There is always money to be made," he believes.
Cam'ron seems to have proven that - at least to some degree.
Though he's hardly in the league of such self-made moguls as Russell Simmons or Sean (Diddy) Combs, Cam'ron has certainly managed to become a sort of mogul lite.
Several months ago, he began publishing that magazine, Platinum Entrepreneur, however thin the result may be. And he did manage to produce, write and direct that movie, "Killa Season," which just came out on DVD, though it never made it to theaters. (The soundtrack hits stores this week.)
"I'm just a kid from Harlem," he says. "And I still did it."
No one will mistake "Killa Season" for "Citizen Kane," but there is a certain crude honesty and refreshing candor to its low-budget presentation. For fans of shock value, "Killa" doesn't flinch from over-the-top splatter or scatology. One early scene features Cam urinating on a rival. "You got to get the audience's attention," the rapper reasons.
Getting people's attention has never been a problem for this 30-year-old, born Cameron Giles. From the get-go, Cam'ron had the ability to generate both hits and controversy. His basketball skills in high school got him media attention and gave him the opportunity for college scholarships. But he wound up dropping out of school and dealing drugs in Harlem (a plot repeated in the new movie). Early on, Cam hooked up with Combs' Bad Boy Entertainment, but he wound up going with a different manager, which yielded him a contract with Epic Records and his first hit, 1998's memorable "Horse & Carriage."
After his second album, the rapper moved over to Jay-Z's label, Roc-A-Fella. But, he says, the relationship with Jay never took off. "In the years I was on his label, he never once said hello to me," Cam complains.
Their tensions became increasingly public, especially after Cam'ron released the cut "You Got It," in which he rapped that Jay looks like one of the puppets on the 1980s Jim Henson kiddie show "Fraggle Rock." The record included taunts like: "You talk about you a '80s baby/you 37 years old/you was born in 1968." (In fact, Jay was born in 1969.)
Earlier this year, Cam held a press conference to heat up his beef - but Jay never hit back, which turned the beef to gristle. Cam says the reason he called the press conference was because "Jay was supposed to have an 'I Declare War' concert to get at all the people he didn't like. Who else would he be talking about but me? We got ready for war and he pulled out. He never had the concert." (Jay-Z declined to comment.)
Cam'ron didn't make the beef all by himself. Backing him has been his trusty posse, the Diplomats, which includes the hit rapper Juelz Santana, Jim Jones and the currently imprisoned Freaky Zeeky. The entire group has had an ongoing beef with their former good friend Mase, and "Killa" includes a put-down of that rapper. While such tussles have given the Diplomats a prickly reputation, Cam'ron claims they never go looking for trouble.
"We don't wake up and say, 'Who's on our hit list?' They do it first."
Despite the headline-making controversies, Cam'ron and his friends remain cult sellers rather than superstars. He blames it on tepid promotion by their labels. "You have to pay extra for big hits, and they never put the money in," he says.
Cam says he and the Diplomats also have been hampered by an alleged ban by BET cable channel, stemming from an incident five years ago in which the group messed up a hotel room in Dayton, Ohio, while there for a BET promotional appearance. "They banned us for a pillow fight," Cam'ron says. (BET spokeswoman Marcy Polanco says no such ban exists.)
But Cam'ron enjoys the cult status. "It gives us our street credibility," he says. "We're underdogs."
His new label backers, however, seem more like top dogs: The soundtrack to "Killa Season" appears on Asylum Records, home of Houston's mighty rap team, Mike Jones and Paul Wall.
Meanwhile, the busy rapper continues to think big. He says his movie will have no fewer than 10 sequels, and he hopes to soon bulk up his magazine, fashioned after his longtime favorite publication, Black Enterprise. Cam'ron started the mag, he explains, to encourage others from the 'hood to invest their money in business rather than blowing it on bling.
"People in my 'hood are always talk, talk, talking, and never doing," he says. "I'm the last of the doers."
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertain...p-352417c.html
LMAO@These *****s havin pillow fights.
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According To Cam,Dip Set Videos Are Allegedly Banned From BET
