From the outside, it’s nothing. Beige. A generic split-level at the corner of two anonymous streets in Lodi, a nondescript town, near the northeast tip of New Jersey. A couple of security cameras poke out from the frame, but otherwise it looks like every other house on the block—and the next one, and the one after that. Maybe a little worse.
Inside, though, the house’s provenance is very clear. There’s the garage, retrofitted into a makeshift nightclub. There’s the kitchen done up in red and white marble. And in the living room, across from the slightly worn couch and the miniature animal statues covered in mirrored glass, flies an oversize red-white-and-blue winged eagle, rising above the word DIPSET, printed in black with glittery trim.
It suits Cam’Ron just fine, this collision of modesty and comfort—those who make it past the door understand, and everybody else doesn’t have to. On a Friday in early February, down in the basement, past the vintage arcade game and the flat-screen TV, Cam’Ron sits in the studio listening to songs from his sixth album, Crime Pays (Asylum). It is an unassuming place from which to launch a comeback.
Two years ago, it seemed that Cam’Ron, whose career had been running hot and cold for almost a decade, was finally becoming a hip hop fixture. His crew, the Diplomats, made up of Jim Jones, Juelz Santana, Freekey Zekey, Duke Da God, JR Writer, Hell Rell, 40. Cal, and Jha Jha, had become a mixtape powerhouse. He’d emerged as a style force, leading hip hop down a pink path that proved unfortunate for most rappers who weren’t him (Sorry, Fat Joe). A low-grade beef with 50 Cent hypertrophied online, the first hefty battle of the online era, and Cam more than held his own, his persistent taunting turning 50’s given name into a cruel catchphrase: “Cuuuurrrrttttiiiisssss.”
But in the middle of 2007, he all but disappeared, unspooling the rules of celebrity and triggering a series of events that—with the Diplomats in shambles—have left him, in essence, starting from scratch. He’s been working with producer Skitzo, responsible for 2004’s “Get ’Em Girls,” one of Cam’s essential songs. The two of them hole up in this basement studio, cracking jokes, and making songs through the small hours.
So here Cam is—alert and focused, long-sleeve white tee, black ski cap, jeans, a series of self-rolled blunts—building his career back one song at a time.
All this, because when it came to family versus business, Cam’Ron chose the former. He bought this house in 2005 for his mother, Fredericka, who loved her life in Harlem, N.Y., far too much to ever move in. “My mom is so street it’s crazy,” he says, laughing. “She’s more street than me.”
But in spring 2007, she suffered three strokes in one day, leaving her partly immobilized and radically altering the shape of her relationship with her son. Soon, the two were sharing a home in Fort Lauderdale, near a hospital and rehabilitation facility. “My mom couldn’t walk or nothing,” he says. “It was like, putting her in the car, get her out the car, in the wheelchair, out the wheelchair.” For more than a year, Cam’Ron, rap star, had to become Cameron Giles, family guy: “You only get one mother,” he says. For much of the time he was looking after her, he was on probation stemming from a 2002 arrest on weapons charges. “I’d fly back every month and just hope they wouldn’t check no plane records.”
Fredricka has almost completely recovered: She can walk now without assistance, though she still has a limp, and she can drive herself. Still, Cam’Ron checks in with her often, a practice that’s not new to him. “I check on her ’cause she runs around the streets in Harlem all the time. There’s threats, people gonna kidnap her. I check in with her two, three times a day anyway on that level.”
home