After your humble blogger here met Cam’ron at a Zumiez in midtown Manhattan last week, I decided to act like a middle-aged classic rock snob and go down a wormhole of sifting through nonstop Cam’ron ‘deep cuts,’ so to speak, for all my listening last week. ‘Lala’ from one of his ‘First of the Month’ projects from a few years ago, was the crown jewel of the songs I’d never heard before and actually may rank up there with even my longtime favorites. I feel like this bouncy, piano-infused jawn by Killa Cam is a spiritual ancestor of Kodak Black’s ‘Patty Cake’. Does anybody rap over these types of beats better than Cam? Whether it’s rapping “weighed 220, with 2 honeys I moved money’ over the beat from Journey’s ‘Any Way You Want It’ or ‘The animals I grew up with? They extinct nigga’ over that ‘in the jungle’/’the lion sleeps tonight’ song, no one else obliterates these types of beats like Cam. A lot of other rappers would sound silly over them but he makes them into classics. (And let’s not forget some of the others like his songs over Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believing, the Four Seasons’ ‘Oh What a Night’ or even songs over… the Golden Girls theme song and Facts of Life theme song?!)
A lot of good lines in this one but my favorite has to go “Cocaine, we ain’t even in the ballpark, tell the white boys to sniff it up like an aardvark”. I have a weirdly disturbing mental image of ‘Arthur’ partaking in the illicit pleasures of the white girl now but hey that’s a small price to pay to add ‘Lala’ into my playlist of Cam classics.
With recent production including some of the biggest songs on the current rap landscape \like Drake’s ‘Free Smoke’ and Playboy Carti’s ‘Magnolia’ (as well as the lion’s share of the rest of the production on Carti’s self-titled debut mixtape and a lot of work with Young Nudy one of the really underrated artists right now), I decided it was time to find out more and delve into his extensive ‘back catalogue’ on Soundcloud. I found out that not only does this Queens native have a ridiculous amount of material, but that in addition to producing he also raps and is actually pretty good at it.
Driving back across the I95 towards the GW Bridge after a short trip to Philly last night and getting eager to get home, I switched from my own playlist over to Funk Flex’s radio show on Hot 97 just to hear Flex going absolutely bezerk (in typical Funkmaster Flex fashion) over this new cut ‘Up in Harlem’ by Miss Hustle featuring Vado and Neek Bucks. “This what my city sound like!” “This what Harlem sound like!” screamed Flex over and over again. I started getting equally hyped and driving faster, becuase playing Flex at max volume after you’ve been driving for a few hours, as he starts going wild, tends to do that to you. At first I thought he was just playing the ‘Up in Harlem’ sound bite from XYZ or I was hoping Jim Jones’ and Max B’s ‘Up in Harlem’ from Jim Jones’ ‘American Gangster’ mixtape from about 10 years ago but I thought this would be unlikely just given how old and obscure the track was. Awesome, but unlikely. To my pleasant surprise, it was a brand new song using the same sample, by a female artist I had never heard before called Ms. Hustle, featuring Vado and Neek Bucks, and they actually killed it.
The sample is from a 1977 hit called ‘Native New Yorker’ by the soul/disco/dance band Oddyssey. Jim Jones and Max B first used it for their own ‘Up in Harlem’ about ten years ago on a track that is one of my favorite Jim Jones songs of all time (if not THE favorite) and may get its own post in the next couple of days, with shimmering production and a great verse by Max B (obviously before their falling out).
But the three artists on this track definitely make it their own and make it a memorable and welcome addition to the Harlem iconography in its own right. Vado pays homage to Harlem and NYC legends like Big L, McGruff, Ma$e and of course Killa Cam in his verse and I love his line ‘Ski rack on the Range, the inside champagne”, and raps the chorus “Where A and Rich got rich at, blocks and strip packs to get crack, grams sold we did that, parades we went strapped… the known mecca forever proud, where you won’t see Kevin Liles but Kevin Chiles, where you was blessed to meet Big L, party with Hud 6, Von Zip”. The ‘parades we went strapped’ line goes perfectly with the sample for the chorus and perfectly captures the rags to riches, 90s-nostalgic uptown vibe of the song. The chorus is rich with references and tributes, to deceased Harlem rappers Big L and Huddy 6 who tragically died before their time, to larger than life neighborhood legend Eric Von Zip, and implying that you’re more likely to see former drug lord Kevin Chiles around than record executive Kevin Liles.
Ms. Hustle keeps it real with a gritty and hard-nosed verse that also captures the vibe of the neighborhood rapping ‘Right up the block from the A Train, outside the Chinese store, go f*ck with Mai Ling, we sell that China White I call it Beijing,’ and ‘Can’t forget the homies up in Polo… all my niggas real they still say ‘no homo’, we shop uptown and get garments from Soho’.
Neek Bucks comes out swinging for his verse rapping ‘All these diamonds can’t see the time tick, laces off the Louie’s ’cause Harlem niggas don’t tie sh*t, ‘jects baby I was born broke Ima die rich, Cuban off of the Coogi I feel like Biggie in nine six.’ Later in the verse, I can’t quite tell what he’s rhyming it with but I also like when he says ‘Get a deal, bail out all my niggas when the advance comes, every time they said I was broke I put a band up, I’m just trying to make a million off a Samsung’.
All in all, this collaboration was a great way to bring new life to a classic beat/sample, pay homage to a ton of colorful and larger than life figures in Harlem and NYC history, and showcased the skills of three newer artists from the area. It was a really fun song that gets you hyped up feel good to be in NYC, especially with Funk Flex playing the best parts over and over again and yelling about them in typical Flex fashion, and I hope that it stays in the rotation on New York radio like it deserves to!
I was somewhat neutral towards Future’s Mask Off the first time I heard it but it steadily grew on me after a few listens. You can already see Metro Boomin’s flute-infused beat beginning to cast its influence over other rap production, i.e. Drake’s ‘Portland’ with Quavo and Travis Scott from his new More Life album. I can’t pinpoint why but it also has a vaguely similar vibe to Tunnel Vision on Kodak’s new album, which was also produced by Metro Boomin (this guy is on quite the winning streak right now). It’s just another one of many beats by Metro Boomin that will go down as a touchstone of its era. I was surprised to see that this was actually Future’s highest-charting single of all time, just for the fact that he has had so many huge songs over the years.
Since the song has taken off like a rocket, it’s inevitable that other rappers will be doing their own freestyles/remakes over the unique beat, and one welcome addition is Harlem’s own Dave East, who did his take on it as part of his ‘East Mix’ series. East is a very proficient rapper with a lot of dexterity and he puts it on full display over the Mask Off beat, with a number of impressive lines, for example my two favorites from it below…
“Dirty project kids in A-list parties we be wildin in it, steak medium well, mashed potatoes and some salmon with it, a true father won’t cop unless his child can get it… walking up Lennox just ‘cause Malcom did it”
“Back and forth over whose the hottest got the whole city riffin, I ain’t never laced foamposites I wore my Penny’s different, they gave my cousin life so f*ck it I’ll take a million visits.”
So far Dave East has the best take on Mask Off in my humble opinion and it will be a tall order for anyone to displace him at the top, will be interesting to see what song he remakes as his next ‘EastMix’
Who else besides Cameron Giles would have not only the boldness and audacity to not only rap over a sample from Vanessa Carlton’s ‘10,000 Miles,’ but also the skill and imagination to actually make it sound incredible? This just came out last night but I think I’ve already played it about 100 times after my boy BG thankfully alerted me about it; it’s just that infectious.
Cam takes on a different perspective here, narrating what is basically a story of a breakup and regretting not appreciating what you had until it’s too late, wishing things could have been different. It’s interesting perspective to hear because while Cam’ron has lived such a colorful lifestyle, this is a theme that pretty much every single person out there can relate to and has experienced to some extent. You can really feel what Cam is saying in the beginning, often the people that have loved us the most become the ones that can’t even stand to look at us after we wrong them. Unfortunately we all know what he means when he says he knows he was wrong but has too much pride to apologize. You get that classic Cam flow right after that, ‘iPhones and cameras, nights in Atlanta, tried to bring her gifts she said you ain’t Santa’ before he reflects that it’s ‘Hard to believe I messed trust up.’ That is a terrible feeling when you try to fix things by buying gifts etc. but the ship has already sailed and no effort on your part can fix things and you finally realize it’s too late. Since Cam is in his early 40s now, it’s cool to hear him rapping about a more ‘everyday’ type theme like this with a wise perspective .
Cam’ron absolutely slays this beat by casually rattling off quick and deft punch line after punch line in a way that works perfectly “Day to day life dealing with reality/lawyer got me off on a technicality/all I think about, we was Mickey and Mallory/nothing left but increase my salary/now money is the focus/hustling president POTUS/anything else right now is bogus/real estate opened up I gave notice/murder was the case Calvin Broadus/blue magic though hocus pocus/they forgot that my dope’s the dopest’.” “Made a mil in one week yeah it’s poppin’/retail therapy I’m shopping/pulled off the lot, top dropping/no legs on the car but it’s bopping/speakers in the door so it’s knocking/I got all the keys so I’m locked in/felt above the law, Johnny Cochrane/and I’m off the rebound, Rodman.’ The way Cam just adeptly layers on reference after reference and paints such a picture with literally every single line/word is approaching a level of skill and mastery that you rarely ever hear. You could almost take any verse from this song (or almost any other Cam songs) and teach a class or write a textbook with it, from the pop culture references to how to set a scene and tell a story.
I don’t think there was a song that was more summer in uptown NYC Bronx/Harlem in the mid-to late 2000s than Purple City Byrd Gang, whether it was blasting from car speakers or being one of the main elements that started a fist fight at a house party I remember. The song is unmistakable from the moment the ominous and captivating beat hits in the beginning. Sheist Bubz’s opening verse is absolutely savage and an all-time classic that perfectly capture of the gritty uptown imagery and swagger of the time; every line from it is a hard hitter from him saying to go ahead and let the fiends into the traphouse, to being a 10th grader going from varsity letterman to getting involved in interstate trafficking and hopping on a bus to Maryland (presumably either Peter Pan or Grehyound). “Nah I ain’t worrying, send shots and they scurrying, transactions we hurried them, bastards we buried ’em, in the belly of the beast there’s Sheist the Barbarian,” he triumphantly declares at the end. Perhaps the only thing that can overshadow the sheer brutality and bravado of his verse is the 3XL purple Dickies work shirt that he’s sporting with purple Dickies workpants and a purple Yankees hat.
This little minute and thirty second overlooked masterpiece that Jim Jones threw together is from after Dipset’s glory years were in the rear-view mirror and from about 7 years ago but it’s such a fun, real, captivating 1:30 song that I wanted to pay some quick homage to it this morning. For some reason sunbconsciously this song always reminds me of spring time and with the snow finally melting in NYC this weekend and me breaking out my Jordan slides for the first time in quite a while, it felt like the perfect time to take it out for a spin, and it still holds up really well 7 years later.
Since a conversation with a good friend, lifelong Harlem native and fellow long-time Dipset fan at a bar during March Madness about the epic nature of this freestyle is where I got the inspiration for this site and where it got its name from, I feel like it’s only right to start Pink Chardonnay with a brief homage to Cam himself and the verse/video of his that first caught my eye. Can you get any more evocative of the early/mid 2000’s NYC golden era than this? Even before we get into how next level Killa’s verse was, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the sheer audacity and awesomeness of Cam’s imagery, from calmly and confidently showing up for the Rap City freestyle in an off pink Coogi t-shirt and bucket hat to the way he’s casually counting a seemingly endless stack of big bills. It’s such a quintessential example of the cool, effortless, and over the top arrogant swagger that the stars of that era perfected. To me, it just perfectly captures a moment in time in my mind’s eye.
Then there’s the sheer genius of the verse with some of the most brilliant lines I had ever heard at the time (and still have ever heard to this day!) offhandedly rattled off as almost a throwaway. I had a hard time picking out a title for the post about this because so many of the lines would have been worthy choices; “I’m Anfernee I do things the hard way, pardon me, escalade marmalade mama stay… might cop a car today, color pink chardonnay.” Rappers had of course already been bragging about their luxury vehicles for years, but I don’t think I had ever heard anyone describe them as specifically and creatively as Cam here; not just a pink car, but pink chardonnay. Not just an orange Escalade, an Escalade the same color as marmelade. To me this is what separates Cam’ron (and to an extent Dipset as a whole) from many of his peers and really made him ahead of his time in terms of both rapping and even fashion.
Whether it was the way he seemingly overnight transformed people that were laughing at him for wearing pink furs and pink sneakers to people that were copying him and going out dressed head to toe in pink after he made it okay, or the way Dipset in general utilized sped up samples of 80s pop and rock songs as just another playground for them to dominate (while in some cases, the end result was incredible, and in some, it didn’t really stand the test of time, just think about how audacious/ambitious it was constructing a rap song around ‘Oh What a Night’, ‘Don’t Stop Believing,’ ‘Any Way You Want it’ or even ‘We Built this City’), I feel like they don’t get the credit for being pioneers that truly presaged what was to come later.
I honestly often wonder why Cam’ron isn’t viewed as having the same ‘legend’ status as someone like a Jay-Z or some of the other biggest names. In my humble opinion he is an infinitely more interesting and unique artist, but that’s a discussion for another day and another article. I think a big part of it is that he was not only ahead of his time but also that a lot of his lines and double entendres went over a lot of people’s heads. Also, of course he had some silly or forgettable lines/songs that fell flat on their face and I think some people hold that against him instead of assessing his entire body of work as a whole. Additionally, casual fans probably just remember him more as a ‘character’ than a legend for his bold fashion choices and for things like his movie ‘Killa Season’, or his colorful interviews on 60 Minutes and the O’Reilly Factor, amongst others, then for what he actually did lyrically, but I’m pretty confident that if any skeptics were to go through his entire portfolio and really give each project a thorough listen with an open mind, they would have to acknowledge that his portfolio and level of skill compares pretty well to any of the legends on rap’s ‘Mount Rushmore’ and should at least put him in the ballpark.
Other highlights of this time capsule include Jim Jones rocking a Kansas City Chiefs Priest Holmes jersey (who in some ways much like could be said of some of Dipset itself, burned really bright for a few years and then unfortunately faded from the limelight all too soon), and showing some rare vulnerability while utilizing an interesting flow (“Uncle Ricky got a month and some change, and it feels like a garbage truck just dumping the pain, all on my shoulders, I’m mourning my soliders, the nights they get chilly the mornings much colder”). Then of course you just have Juelz being Juelz. And then Cam’ron’s aforementioned legendary verse. “Look dog I bought villas/stayed in resorts, scrilla/how you extort Killa? I extort killas.” “I don’t care I put the flame in the fire, Christian, aetheist, you pray to Elijah, don’t pray? Okay. Just pray I don’t snipe ya.” I also love the rags to riches image and perspective of seeing both sides of life that he shows when he says ‘I seen all islands, Cayman’s to Rikers’. Or how about at the end when he just openly mocks his former record label boasting ’10 mil from Def Jam and I ain’t sell a record for them,’ which he somehow delivers with a straight face before he and the rest of the guys in the studio crack up, effectively ending the session. I’m not sure if this was from 2004 or 2005, but either way, I cannot believe that now it’s been well over ten years ago! Time flies and it’s nice to have a moment in time captured like this as a touchstone of a memorable time period to fondly look back on and listen to as we look for a parking spot for our pink Range Rover ;).
