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Life & Arts

Jay-Z may assist in Cam's rap suicide

Hip-hop Update

Eli Jabbe

Cam'ron Disses Hip-hop Legend

Harlem Rapper Cam'ron of The Diplomats, released an 8-minute diss track aimed at Jay-Z on Wednesday. The diss track has had people surfing the Internet like crazy, because it takes a lot of guts from Cam to challenge arguably the best rapper ever. 

Cam and Jay have had a quiet rivalry for some time now, but this song came out of left field. On the track Cam made fun of Jay's age, saying, "I know he's 40 years old / I don't respect my olders." 

If anything, this diss track was long overdue, because the two have had problems for several years. Cam was once signed to Jay's label Roc-A-Fella by Executive Dame Dash, but Jay wasn't supportive of that decision. 

It is no coincidence that Cam'ron dropped the track months before his movie and album are released. Cam also repeated many of the insults that Nas lobbed at Jay on the classic Jay-Z diss track "Ether" from 2001. 

It will be interesting to see how this will affect other artists. Kanye West, who collaborated with Cam'ron on hits like "Down and Out" and "Gone," is signed on Jay-Z's label, so it is safe to say he will not be collaborating with Cam anytime soon. 

Cam's fellow Diplomat, Jim Jones, has been taking shots at Kanye in interviews for several months now. And to top it off, Diplomat rapper Juelz Santana is signed to Jay-Z's label. It's safe to say that this diss track was a career suicide for Cam'ron -- anything Jay retaliates with is going to lyrically destroy Cam. 

Many have speculated that Cam waited until Santana's album and singles were released and promoted before dissing Jay; had he dissed Jay earlier it would have put Santana's album in big jeopardy.

Little Brother Bounces Back

Little Brother's The Minstrel Show was one of the top albums of 2005. Unfortunately, BET refused to play the group's music video because it was supposedly too "intelligent" for their audience, and the album had poor record sales. 

The group has good news now. They will release a "Gangsta Grillz" mixtape with one of 2005's most prominent DJs, DJ Drama. Drama has released several great mix tapes in the past few years, such as T.I.'s Down with the King and last year's stellar Lil' Wayne mix tape Dedication. This Little Brother and DJ Drama mix tape will be titled Separate But Equal and will be released in February. 

Having DJ Drama co-sign a Little Brother release is huge -- it'll make the group more popular in the South, an area they haven't saturated, even though the group hails from North Carolina. Little Brother is also touring with Fort Minor, whose album was executively produced by Jay-Z, and will re-release its album. 

For those who missed out on Little Brother's The Minstrel Show the first time around (which is a lot of people), you have another chance to check it out when it is released with a bonus DVD sometime in March -- trust me, it's definitely worth the money.

Send comments to dcshobiz@mail.uh.edu