15-Year Retrospective: Cam’ron’s “Come Home With Me”
Looking back at the series of events that led to Killa Cam’s breakout album; And its overlooked impact on pop-culture.
Cam’ron released his third studio album on May 14, 2002, and fifteen years later, he’s still riding the wave that was Come Home With Me. The overwhelming success of its accompanying singles, “Oh Boy” & “Hey Ma,” helped the project go platinum and push Cam into the upper echelon of Hip-hop. Looking back, even though the most-discussed aspect of the album is the long-lasting legacy of its two hit-songs, Come Home With Me’s success was a by-product of a perfect storm of events coinciding with its release.
Although Cam’s third album introduced him to mainstream rap fans, the rapper had spent the previous decade perfecting his craft alongside Big L, Ma$e, and his cousin, Bloodshed, in the Harlem-based group, Children of the Corn. As Big L and Ma$e’ understudy, Cam was introduced to Biggie, which led to a deal with Epic Records. After releasing his debut album in 1998, Cam dropped his follow-up, S.D.E., in 2000. Although relatively successful, both albums were unable to generate commercial and critical acclaim.
In 2001, Cam left Epic to sign with his childhood friend Damon Dash and Roc-A-Fella Records. At the time, Roc-A-Fella had usurped Bad Boy and Death Row as Hip-hop’s most prominent label, by way of its co-founder, Jay-Z’s success, along with the talent of up-and-coming rappers — Memphis Bleek, Beanie Sigel, and Freeway.
At the turn of the century, Hip-hop’s Mecca was in the thick of a recent resurgence, with four of New York City’s five boroughs boasting a home-bred superstar — Brooklyn’s Jay-Z was the undisputed “Best Rapper Alive”, while Fabolous was coming off his platinum-selling debut; Queens’ Ja Rule had sold 10 million albums in the previous two years; The Bronx’ Fat Joe recently went platinum; And the Manhattan enclave of Harlem possessed the chart-topping heir to Biggie — Ma$e.
By the spring of 2002, the “King of New York” belt was up for grabs for the first time in a decade. After the torch was passed from Rakim to Nas to Biggie, Jay-Z served as the sole occupant of the throne following Biggie’s death. With rumors surrounding Jay-Z’s impending retirement, Nas’ comeback attempt failing to resonate, Ma$e retiring at the peak of his powers, and up-and-comer 50 Cent duking it out with Ja Rule, Cam was in position to take command of the streets.
Capitalizing on Roc-A-Fella’s unrivaled reputation, Cam released the project’s first single, “Oh Boy”, in April. By incorporating the sped-up soul samples that made Just Blaze a household name with his production on The Blueprint, “Oh Boy” peaked at number-four on Billboard’s Hot 100, helping Come Home With Me debut at number-two on the Billboard 200. That summer, Cam doubled-down on his pop-crossover potential with the album’s second single, “Hey Ma.” The track would reach the number-three spot on Billboard’s Hot 100, solidifying Cam’ron as Hip-hop’s hottest MC.
At the time, Hip-hop was at the peak of the bubble-gum sound kick-started by P. Diddy and Ma$e, as Ja Rule, Fabolous, and Nelly dominated radio by riding this wave. While their mainstream appeal was rooted in love-soaked lyrics, Cam turned the formula on its head — juxtaposing the beats’ merry, soulful exuberance with streetwise vocals. For the first time, the competing genres of Hip-hop and pop mixed to form a consensus signature sound, with a hardened, Harlem-bred rapper leading the way.
Over the last fifteen years, the two songs have held up exceptionally well in terms of replayability and popularity. As recent as this year, I’ve heard both songs played on the radio, at the bar, and by way of a friend grabbing hold of the aux-cord at a pre-game. Even so, it seems like their legacies are often overlooked compared to other songs from that era. Maybe I’m just thinking in terms of any “best-of” ranking compiling comparable Hip-hop classics of that era. Still, the majority of these lists include other mainstream hits like “In Da Club,” “Country Grammer,” and “Ignition Remix,”, despite the fact that “Oh Boy” and “Hey Ma” were just as good, if not better in terms of influence and commercial success.
The lack of appreciation for the songs may be owed to the era they inhabited as much as the artist at the helm. When assessing past eras we tend to reference either the best rappers alive and/or the ones who experienced memorable hot-streaks. For example, the casual fan might look back at the first half of the ‘00s as the period serving as the end of Jay-Z and Eminem’s peak, and the beginning of Lil’ Wayne and Kanye’s ascent. At most, they might reference 50 Cent and Nelly due to their commercial dominance. In terms of sales, Cam’ron didn’t match 50 or Nelly’s mainstream success, but it’s reasonable to believe he was just as important to that time.
Aside from influencing the genre’s shifting sound, Come Home With Me’s lasting legacy is attributed to the introduction of Cam’ron’s Rap collective, Dipset, officially known as — The Diplomats. Alongside Cam’ron, the quartet was comprised of Juelz Santana, Jim Jones, and Freekey Zeekey — with the three rappers combining for eleven features on the album.
Capitalizing on their leader’s newfound popularity, Dipset released their debut album in March 2003 — Diplomatic Immunity. Sampling the Commodores, Jerry Butler, Marvin Gaye, the Delfonics, and three different O’Jays songs, it’s truly like nothing that came before it. In essence, it took the soulful sound popularized by Just Blaze and Kanye West and injected it with steroids at the hands of The Heatmakerz. Dipset wasn’t music, rather a movement — defined by Pink Range Rovers, outrageous appearances on The O’Reilly Factor, refashioned Ramones logos, and the greatest attire in Grammy history.
Along with establishing Hip-hop’s fashion trends for a good two-year period, the Diplomats popularized phrases and slang in their lyrics. For as quotable as “gully,” “pause,” and “bout it bout it” were, they are responsible for pioneering “no homo” a good five years before it became a trend throughout Hip-hop. To put things into perspective, for better or, really, worse, Dipset vulgarized the world’s most concise way to reassert your heterosexuality, after incidentally saying something that might be misinterpreted as having a homosexual subtext.
In any event I say all that to say this — On its 15-year anniversary, Come Home With Me, along with its star MC, likely won’t get many retrospective pieces, in that casual rap fans don’t view either as influential to their time as say, 50 Cent and “Get Rich or Die Tryin” or Nelly and “Country Grammar.” But sometimes, the albums and rappers who are too “of a time” to equate across eras, a la Cam’ron, are the ones you look back on most fondly, since they represent a moment that seems too archaic to express in words. For Cam, Dipset, and Come Home With Me, it’s better to quantify their impact through their outrageous outfits, timeless songs, and ability to make music that sounded like a bunch of friends free-styling for fun in a basement. I’ll always remember that they owned 2002 and 2003; And that’s good enough.
