Harlem In The Building

“Two more for Cam for taking over The Roc”

In 2000, Cam was signed to Untertainment/Epic, which was owned by Lance Un Rivera (of Jay-Z stabbing fame).

However, Untertainment folded, so Epic/Sony had no intention of letting him go, leaving him in contractual limbo for a good year or so.  Sony wanted Cam’ron to be their DMX.

Dame Dash had managed to deceive an exec at Epic/Sony (who will remain anonymous) to drop Cam’ron because he was wack. Cam’ron begged Dame for help.

But John Meneilly (Jay-Z’s current business manager) had a much more important role in getting Cam’ron out of his Sony contract.

Once the paperwork was done, Cam’ron signed to Roc-a-fella for a fee rumored to be around $4 million.

I left Sony around the same time and managed to get a job with Diplomat Records/Roc-a-fella in Communications.

Oh Boy was burning up the streets for a good 4 or 5 months before it hit radio. At the time, it was the most played record in Hot 97 history. Roc-a-fella’s Communications department was more than on point, especially considering they had Angie Martinez hosting official Roc parties.

So the albums complete, advance copies start being passed around the office. Oh Boy is already the lead single but the follow up was between Hey Ma or Daydreaming. They went to DC the next week and filmed Hey Ma.

But there is one big problem:

“Yo, the way I been treated in this industry, not nicely…. Little faggot motherfucker like Mike Lighty”

“What the fuck is Cam doing?!” was the response from one Roc exec after hearing the verse.

Mike Lighty is the “controversial” brother of Chris Lighty. Mobb Deep claim that he was bootlegging their records and stealing money from them during their tenure with him. 50 Cent signed Mobb Deep and changed their manager to someone else.

Chris Lighty is without a doubt, of the biggest players in the game.  He is the head of Violator Management, who manage 50 Cent, Diddy, LL Cool J, Missy Elliott et al.

This was a shit storm waiting to happen if it were to get out on the album, so our department rushed back and called his manager to contact the studio and edit out Mike Lighty’s name.

Another problem with Come Home With Me was the title track – Come Home With Me. Heatmakerz & Ty Fyffe were both claiming they produced it and this had to be solved for publishing and artwork purposes. I had dealt with Rsonist from Heatmakerz during my time at Sony and he received publishing for the same beat on Bulletproof Wallets.

Heatmakerz got the credit and ever since that incident, Ty Fyffe doesn’t deal with Cam’ron or Dipset any more.

I don’t know if there was animosity between Jay and Dame. Jay was hardly ever in the buiding when I worked there so I can’t answer that.

Kenny Burns was a vice president (now manages Wale)

John Meneilly was a vice president (now Jay-Z’s business manager)

Beanie Sigel was a vice president (now ???)

But when Cam’ron got made Vice President, he was barking on some staff about promoting his records, so some staff told Shawn Carter himself what the fuck had been going on.

On Purple Haze, Cam’ron claimed that he didn’t recieve the promotion he should have received.

Well when he signed that big deal, everything comes out of the budget. So even though he got 4 million to sign, it’s for more than one album. If it got spent on whatever, you can’t say I need some more money to promote this or that if it’s already been spent.

Nobody knows where the money went because Come Home With Me recouped. Almost went double Platinum. But guess what….Diplomatic Immunity is released in 2003 as a double album, so it counts as 2 albums. Because it says CAMRON PRESENTS, it comes out of his budget.

Also, the people working at Communications wern’t the same as on Come Home With Me. Girls sounded like an attempt to get even more pop fans..I mean the track sampled Cyndi Lauper – Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!