Reader Review: Cam'ron - S.D.E. (September 19, 2000)

(Today's Reader Review finds Taylor discovering an album that I honestly would never have bothered with, Cam'ron's second effort S.D.E.  At least somebody got around to it, I guess. Leave some comments for Taylor below.)

In 2000, Cameron Giles released his sophomore effort, S.D.E. (which stands for Sports, Drugs, & Entertainment), to the masses, selling enough copies to instantly go quadruple aluminum. After his original label home, Undeas Entertainment, went under (apparently taking Charli Baltimore's career along with it), Cam'ron was shifted to parent company Epic, where he managed to release this lone project before cutting ties with the corporate offices in favor of Damon Dash's Roc-A-Fella crew (which is when the whole fucking Diplomat (or DipSet, if you prefer) movement started up officially).

S.D.E. is supposed to be Cam'ron's so-called “hard” album, a response to the critics who felt that his debut, Confessions of Fire, made too many concessions to the mainstream as a way of guaranteeing higher sales figures (see: “Horse & Carriage”). In fact, the only reason I even took notice of it in the bargain bin of my local Best Buy is because of his menacing look on the album cover: Cam'ron made me believe that, whether I bought S.D.E. or not, he would kick me in the balls and have sex with my girlfriend. And yet I bought this album anyway.

S.D.E. is the last Cam'ron album on which he actually tried to come across as an emcee; his subsequent efforts (on Roc-A-Fella Records and elsewhere) would see him adopting a newer, odd flow that is simultaneously slow, deep, and in double-time, and it seems as though he hasn't been able to evolve any further. Not that his fans really minded: according to Wikipedia, S.D.E. reached as high as number fourteen on the Billboard 200 (hitting number two on the R&B/ Hip Hop Albums chart upon its release) and had three relatively popular singles. However, I hadn't ever heard anything from S.D.E., and I never gave it another thought, at least until I saw it in the bargain bin.

So anyway, I bought this S.D.E., brought it home, and popped it in the CD player. Let's see if it sounds decent nearly eleven years after its initial release date.

1. FUCK YOU

This rap album intro uses the exact same beat from a similarly-named track from Confessions of Fire. Cam'ron appears to be fucking everything on his block, at least until the track devolves into a bunch of girls having an argument with our host. Like all other rap album intros, this is useless as shit.

2. THAT'S ME (FEAT. KEISHA “HONEY” CARGILL)

The instrumental (produced by Self, whoever he is) is suspenseful with its use of horns and drums, but it is ultimately wasted on Cam'ron, who simply brags about how his life is so horrible. Some of the jokes he cracks are humorous, though. This track claims to house a guest appearance from some artist I've never heard of, but all I could hear her do was moan, which makes her cameo the most ridiculous guest contribution since Jamie Foxx on Kanye West's “Gold Digger”.

3. WHATEVER

Darrell “Digga” Branch crafted most of the beats on S.D.E., including this one. His piano over the instrumental sounds oddly familiar, but it grows annoying fairly quickly. I didn't pay much attention to Cameron's lyrics, but I am able to make one observation: he sure does love to rap about how he's living the rich, fast life, and in a generic fashion, too. “Whatever” does seem to include one of the first occurences of the phrase “DipSet” in his overall catalog, so...whatever.

4. DO IT AGAIN (FEAT. JIM JONES & DESTINY'S CHILD) (chk)

I'm surprised that this pop trifle was never released as a single: since it featured Destiny's Child (but really just Beyonce) singing on the chorus about crime and shit, it would have been a number one hit back in 2000. Cameron's lyrics are decent, but not so much that he deserves anything but a pass. The song also claims to feature pseudo weed carrier Jim Jones, but I swear I couldn't hear him anywhere on here.

5. COME KILL ME

The instrumental is as suspenseful as a horror movie, but maybe it was too successful, since it ultimately distracts you from Cameron's lyrics, which I ultimately didn't understand but can tell you that they don't seem to have anything to do with his death or dying.

6. WHAT I GOTTA LIVE FOR

This Middle Eastern-styled Digga beat is energetic, though it also distracts a bit from the lyrics. (This may be a running theme throughout S.D.E.) After a dramatic intro, Cam'ron drops some lines about what goes on in his hood and even something about his life and what he has to live for, so that was nice.

7. VIOLENCE (FEAT. OL' DIRTY BASTARD)

Cam'ron was one of the few non-Wu rappers to record a song with Ol' Dirty Bastard before he turned into a recluse and ultimately passed away. (Strangely enough, they both ended up signed with Damon Dash's vision of Roc-A-Fella Records, but Osirus died before anything could ever come of it, and the Jay-Z decided that his own personal concept of Roc-A-Fella was better, which is why Cameron remains loyal to Dame to this day.) This Digga instrumental manages to invoke the feeling of a living nightmare, so that was interesting. Ol' Dirty Bastard and Cam'ron actually sound mad as hell (as though they won't take it anymore), but Cam'ron only sounds like he's yelling just because the mood calls for it. ODB obviously feels more at home here, delivering an interesting verse, but Cam'ron quickly reappears to hijack his own song back, so the good moments are few and far between.

8. SKIT

...

9. FREAK

The other radio friendly song on S.D.E. This Trackmasters-produced excursion sounds out of place on an album with its persistent violent tone: this beat sounds like something Will Smith would have rhymed over. Skip this song and forget that this bullshit even exists.

10. DOUBLE UP (FEAT. JUELZ SANTANA)

The beat is ominously dark, but also ominously boring. The track didn't grab my attention like it should have, especially since it apparently introduced fellow Diplomat Juelz Santana to the hip hop game (as if anybody cares at this point). Luckily, I was able to wake up before the next song started.

11. LOSIN' WEIGHT (FEAT. PRODIGY)

Possibly the best song on S.D.E. Cam'ron sounds fully comfortable with this Digga beat, which will hook you instantly with its melancholy piano keys. Prodigy (from Mobb Deep, although I feel that I shouldn't have to remind you two anymore) sounds alright, but he definitely could have taken his verse to a whole another level: instead, he just brags about himself. (So he sounds just as disappointing as he does today? Got it.) Cam'ron spits some pretty good verses, though, so this is a song that you might want to listen to again.

12. SPORTS, DRUGS & ENTERTAINMENT

On this title track (which finally attempts to justify the album's goofy name), Cam'ron spins a tale from his real life that is fairly compelling but the (otherwise decent) Ron G beat feels occasionally too peppy at times, which kind of ruins the mood. Otherwise, this was a really good song, and not because it uses vocal samples from both Jay-Z and The Notorious B.I.G. (the former of which is ultimately wasted).

13. WHAT MEANS THE WORLD TO YOU (FEAT. KEEMA)

The third single from S.D.E. samples The Police's “Roxanne”, proving that it isn't just fifty-year-old men who podcast out of their cottages who are fans of Sting's early work: a twenty-year-old (at the time) drug dealer-slash-rapper can also be into it. The beat (as chopped by Armando Colon) is okay, but it can become repetitive and dull at times. Cam'ron and his weed carrier Keema speed rap for your listening pleasure, but since they both seem to be co-opting that particular style for style as opposed to substance, they don't rap about anything remotely interesting. This is one of those songs that you'll want to listen to once and then never again: I'm surprised at how its fans are able to tolerate it. (And there's a remix of this track, too, featuring, of all people, Ludacris, Trina, UGK, and Juelz Santana. Maybe Cam'ron figured that getting a mixture of different voices would distract hip hop heads from the grating instrumental. And this criticism is coming from a guy who unabashedly loves 1980s music, mind you.)

14. ALL THE CHICKENS (FEAT. JUELZ SANTANA)

The sample at the beginning of the song suggests awesomeness, but then the track turns into some outright boring shit. I believe that Cam'ron and his weed carrier Juelz Santana spit some verses, but I dozed off for most of the song's running time, so I can't really comment on that.

15. FUCK YOU AT (FEAT. NOREAGA)

This song ultimately does not invoke feelings of fear. The beat is fairly minimalistic in scope, consisting of drums, chicks and occasional piano keys used to mix things up a bit. However, both artists don't give it their all: Cam'ron resorts to coasting while Noreaga comes across as how I imagine a headache sounds. Reach for the skip button, folks.

16. WHY NO (FEAT. FREEKEY ZEKEY & JIM JONES)

The list of features on this track suggests that two of the original DipSet weed carriers make appearances on here, but Freekey Zekey only spouts random shit while Jim Jones is once again M.I.A. While Cameron provides some decent verses, the beat itself has no personality, so there is no reason for anybody to ever recommend this song. It seems like these three treated this recording session as a regular lazy day at work, performing the absolute bare minimum in order to get paid (and receive future royalties, if S.D.E. was a hit).

17. WHERE I'M FROM (FEAT. DUTCH & SPADE)

This collaboration was actually pretty good. The instrumental was dark and moody, allowing Cameron and his invited guests (and Undeas labelmates) Dutch and Spade to spit out verses that keep you hooked, even though their bars aren't as great as they could have been. Still, I liked this track.

18. LET ME KNOW

This first single from S.D.E. samples the theme from Monday Night Football (and may also be the inspiration for the “sports” portion of the album title, for all I know), which sounds okay at first, but becomes annoying pretty quickly. I don't understand why only the last section of the theme song was used, while the rest was untouched: anybody with a synthesizer could recreate that sound, so there was no need to sample anything. Cam'ron sounds both angry and re-energized, but the instrumental is the track's downfall.

19. MY HOOD (FEAT. JIM JONES)

Strangely enough, the second single released from S.D.E. is also the final song on the album. Dame Grease, who handled most of the better tracks from DMX's debut It's Dark and Hell Is Hot, brings us a poppy beat that sounds custom-built for radio consumption, which seems out of character for him. Cam'ron drops some verses about his hood, which is appropriate, and his weed carrier only performs the chorus (but at least he actually shows up this time). For some reason, “My Hood” only appears as a censored version on S.D.E.; even future pressings have not bothered to fix this error, which makes this a very disappointing way to end the album.

THE LAST WORD: Though Cam'ron has managed to throw away much of the trappings from the Confessions of Fire era, he still comes up short on S.D.E. Although a good number of these songs are enjoyable enough, the album as a whole fails to live up to the expectations that I had after looking at the threatening cover art. Cam'ron's pre-Come Home With Me flow makes him sound as though he was coasting, and Digga's beats (along with the other handful of producers who contributed) range from amazing to flat-out boring. I have to give credit to guest stars Ol' Dirty Bastard (R.I.P.), Prodigy, and Dutch & Spade for at least trying on S.D.E. I'm sure that most Diplomat stans hold S.D.E. in high regard as a classic album, but for everybody else out there, this was just decent. Not good, and not horrible, but decent. S.D.E. has a few good songs, but as a whole it just isn't worth your hard-earned money.

-Taylor

(Questions? Comments? Concerns? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.)

Cam'Ron - Confessions Of Fire (July 21, 1998)

How exactly that album cover was supposed to pull in anything but a loyal female audience I'll never understand.

The story goes that Harlem rapper Cameron Giles, known as Killa Cam, was a part of a crew called the Children Of The Corn, alongside Murda Mase, Big L, and his cousin Bloodshed. After Bloodshed passed away from injuries sustained in a car accident, the group disbanded, and the three remaining rappers went on to find solo success. Two of those three hit the jackpot first, though: Big L, thriving from his outside affiliation with the Diggin' In The Crates crew, released a couple of albums and became a lyrical monster prior to his own passing in 1999. (Cameron made a cameo appearance on Big L's first album, but Murda Mase, curiously, did not, although Cam's future boss Jay-Z somehow found the time to show up to the studio.) Mason Betha, of course, won the lottery, signing with Puff Daddy's Bad Boy Records and selling the fuck out, rechristening himself Ma$e and rhyming about the joys in the excesses of life, all before finding God and becoming a pastor.

Cameron took a little bit longer to find his outlet: it wasn't until Ma$e convinced his labelmate, The Notorious B.I.G., to give him a listen that his career moved at all. Biggie introduced Cameron to his manager, Lance "Un" Rivera, and the newly-named Cam'Ron soon found himself signed to Un's label, Undeas Entertainment, alongside Biggie's mistress Charli Baltimore, who, to be fair, was also a part of Biggie supergroup The Commission (alongside himself and Hova) that never got a chance to record a single song due to Biggie's untimely passing.

Cam'Ron's debut album, Confessions Of Fire, was released in 1998 with a mild buzz created by its first three singles: "357", a violent street tale, "Horse & Carriage", the radio-friendly piffle, and "Pull It", a tunnel banger featuring DMX that failed to make the final cut of Confessions Of Fire due to sample clearance issues, but can easily be found on the Interweb if you're interested. Its production was primarily handled by Un and Darrell "Digga" Branch, with the likes of Swizz Beats and the Trackmasters also holding court. Although he garnered nary a play on MTV (I think they may have shown the "Horse & Carriage" video once or twice, but never during the day), Cam'Ron managed to sell over five hundred thousand records in his first time up to bat: Charli Baltimore, in contrast, never got to see her debut album on a record store shelf, but I'll get to that story soon enough.

Undeas Entertainment soon folded, due to financial concerns (and the fact that Jay-Z allegedly stabbed Un for bootlegging his album Vol. 3...The Life & Times Of S. Carter). I'm not entirely sure what Un has been up to since, but Cam'Ron has successfully moved on, releasing albums of increasing popularity and boosting the stock of his weed carriers, who used to refer to themselves as the Diplomats (or DipSet) until they all decided that they liked money more than Killa Cam.

But we'll get to all that shit later.

1. INTRO
This shit was super long with no real payoff. All sorts of ridiculous.

2. GLORY (FEAT NOREAGA)
Swizz Beats was, inexplicably, the shit during the latter part of the 1990s, so getting him to provide a beat or two for Cam's debut was a gimme. On here, the man spits a couple of lengthy verses in a cadence better suited for a conversation, which is entertaining, and a couple of the jokes he cracks made me laugh. However, Noreaga's presence on the hook was unnecessary, and there's hardly any substance to to dull instrumental.

3. 357
The first single and video. This song samples, of all things, the theme song from fucking Magnum P.I.: you would have thought Ma$e and Cam would have been wearing fake Tom Selleck mustaches while they were running from the feds in the corny video. (At least, I would have thought that to be funny.) Some of this rapid-fire threat set to music is spoken for mere shock value (especially when he says that he'll force your brother to eat your mother out), but at least most of this is delivered with confidence.

4. ROCKIN' AND ROLLIN'
This shit is weak, reaching out for a radio audience that didn't yet exist, thanks to Jermaine Dupri's co-production work. Cam's gibberish rapping also becomes annoying for the first time in the man's career on this song. Bleh.

5. WRONG ONES
Killa Cam tried his damnedest to appeal to the female half of the audience with this love rap, which shakes up the status quo of Confessions Of Fire so abruptly that you'll be tempted to double check the disc just to make sure that your evil twin, who is a railroad tycoon prone to tying his opponents to train tracks while twirling his mustache, hasn't switched albums on you. Moving on...

6. DEATH
DMX has his song-length conversations with the devil, but Cam'ron goes the more existential route, playing chess with Death himself. Some of this is interesting, especially when Cam reveals that he's still kind of dealing with the loss of Bloodshed and does not want to die himself, kind of like Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, but the beat is much too peppy for the subject matter: "Suicidal Thoughts" this is not, although Digga and Un try to trick you into thinking that "Death" is on that brilliant song's level by utilizing a Biggie vocal sample throughout.

7. HORSE & CARRIAGE (FEAT MA$E)
Killa Cam's first foray into the radio-friendly mainstream features his old running buddy Murda Mase riding shotgun on the chorus to this Trackmasters-produced song. This shit is admittedly ridiculous, especially Ma$e's crooning on the hook, but I'd be lying if I didn't cop to liking this crappy song back in the day (you can thank Bad Boy's influence on the genre at the time, as this falls into the same category: if the women like it, then...). It doesn't work so well for me now, though. Side note: I always thought it was hilarious that the video for "357" leads directly into this piffle, since this is essentially the polar opposite of that track.

8. ME, MY MOMS, & JIMMY (FEAT KENNY GREENE, JIMMY JONES, & FREDERICKA)
Sampling the Tom Tom Club's "Genius Of Love"? Who are you, Mariah Carey? This shit is just weird, especially when Fredericka (I'm still not sure if this was supposed to be Cam's actual mother) spits some bars. As far as I care to research, this is the first recorded appearance of Jimmy Jones, better known now as Jim Jones, a hip hop jackass who has nevertheless managed to carve out a niche of the genre for himself, and is now technically much more popular that Cam. Sad, that.

9. PROPHECY (FEAT KELLY PRICE)
Kelly Price's chorus doesn't fit in with Cam'Ron's overall theme on this track. Not that it truly matters, as this shit is so boring that you'll probably cut it off midway through anyway.

10. WE GOT IT (FEAT MA$E)
Cam and Murda rhyme over the same sample Nas rocked for his "Dr. Knockboots". This sounds like the type of shit that would have been the first single, had Cam signed with Puffy instead of Un. And this would be Puffy's idea of a "street" single.

11. D RUGS (FEAT BROTHA)
Cam starts things off promisingly, dedicating the song to those whose parents chose their boyfriend or girlfriend over them, and then switches shit into a metaphor (a blatant one, by the way) for a parent addicted to drugs. The hook, sung by Brotha in a manner as to remind listeners of Curtis Mayfield's "Pusherman", is stupid, but Killa Cam's lyrics are actually not bad.

12. FEELS GOOD (FEAT USHER)
Wikipedia claims that this was a hit single, but I don't remember it ever getting any burn on the radio or on BET. I'm not the biggest fan of Usher (I have it on good authority that the guy is a douchebag in real life), but the man has some good performances under his belt ("You Make Me Wanna..." is still my shit); this is not one of them. This shit was poor.

13. PHONE INTERLUDE
...

14. A PIMP'S A PIMP (FEAT JERMAINE DUPRI)
What the fuck is this shit?

15. CONFESSIONS (FEAT JACOB YORK)
This is just goofy. Cam'Ron gets his Slim Shady on and spits some of the most fucked up shit that came to his mind at the time. Ultimately, his brain goes completely "banoodles", and we listeners receive a track that could have been an audio tour of a mental breakdown, but instead turns into a track that exists simply for shock value, much like Marilyn Manson's more recent releases. Some of the imagery conjured up is fairly disturbing, though, so I have to give the man some credit.

16. FUCK YOU (FEAT MA$E)
More of an interlude passing as a song. Murda Mase kicks things off with an angry tirade, and then Killa Cam calls out the folks who refused to support him while he was coming up: one could look at this as an anti-dedication. The singing at the end is pretty fucking hilarious, I have to say.

17. ME & MY BOO (FEAT CHARLI BALTIMORE)
This C&C music factory created an entire song exploring the concept of having platonic friends, all while claiming that they have never hooked up with each other. Which is probably true, but I've found that if one is overly zealous in denying something, then there's probably more truth to the story. I found it curious that Charli disappears entirely during Cam's final verse, in which he appears to lose the theme of the track like a set of keys.

18. SHANGHAI
This Swizz beat is offensive to Asians, and Cam'ron may as well be rhyming about mystical thousand-year-old dragons in Tienanmen Square, as the instrumental is so fucking distracting that you won't care anyway.

19. WHO'S NICE
After a long-ass intro, Cam'Ron finally spits a verse, some of which is curiously censored. He sounded okay, and the Digga/Un instrumental is alright, but this is too little, too late.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Confessions Of Fire is a fucking mess. Cameron Giles does have an interesting way with his words, and his flow is entertaining at times, but the beats that he is matched up with all seem to be aiming for the wrong audience: while Cam is clearly trying to appeal to the streets the majority of the time, his producers are steering him toward radio stations, which makes the project sound schizophrenic. There isn't anything appealing on Confessions Of FIre at all: I wouldn't recommend a single track on here.

BUY OR BURN? I don't find a need to do either, but fans of the DipSet movement may be curious to hear how Cam'Ron's mainstream career started. This was so annoying that I plan on never listening to it again, though.

BEST TRACKS: None.

-Max