Cam’ron – Harlem Streets 

With the passing of Steven Boscho earlier this week I kept hearing the ‘Hill Street Blues’ theme song on the news radio that I listen to for traffic info etc. in the car and I kept thinking to myself damn this song is so smooth, where have I heard it before? It’s sampled in one of the all-time great (and dare I say underrated?) Killa Cam songs, ‘Harlem Streets’. I love when the saxophone (or trumpet?) kicks in. We need more rap songs over these type of samples like Cam sampling Hill Street Blues or Peezy (and others) sampling Herb Alpert’s ‘Making Love in the Rain’. I loved the classic Heatmakers sound/beats that the Dips usually rapped over but they sounded so dope over these more jazz/soul-infused samples too. So many Cam quotables here…

“And I get it cheaper, I cop bricks like sneakers, and if the cops come I just hit amnesia, but i give them an earful, it’s tearful, told my mom I hustle and she said be careful.”

Including perhaps, gun to my head, my favorite Cam sequence of all time…

“And when I rap it ain’t no punchlines. I be on the highway, dirty, crunch time. No timeouts homeboy, just one time, if they find that stash box just one time? Shit, they put the dogs in the trunk, side of the road, holding you up, cold as a fuck, they want that button, lunge it and push it, as soon as they lunge it and push it, I run in the bushes. That’s how I play mine, jump over the grapevine, take my chances one on one with the canines, steel and a clip for anyone squealing their lips, fuck y’all if y’all ain’t feeling the Dips.”

Got me feeling all nostalgic right now. KILLA!