“This lady interviewer in here is flissin’,” Cam’ron yells into the phone in Roc-A-Fella CEO Damon Dash’s office in midtown Manhattan. There’s no answer from the receiver. No more than five seconds later, Jimmie Jones, Cam’s partner for their label Diplomats Records bursts through the door with a mischievous grin spread across his face. Cam is smiling too. After quickly realizing his friend’s fooling, Jones walks out. “Flissin’ means stinkin’,” Cam explains. “What’s poppyseed? What’s the swiss swayer? Some of this stuff I got from Harlem. Some I originated. I got my own language called fliddidis.” Cam’s got jokes. He spends most of the time he’s not smacking down McDonald’s fries and soda keeping his conversation light. He’s dressed in red, white and blue from head to toe. “We built this city!” he proclaims when asked about his choice of colors.
Maybe not the whole city, but Cam has contributed significantly (along with one-time friend and group mate Mase) to putting Harlem on the hip-hop map. His mainstream hits “Horse And Carriage” and “What Means The World To You” made people take notice of Uptown, baby. But, in Cam’s opinion his label Epic hindered his success. “My albums were always done on time. Handed in on time,” assures Cam. “The lyrics were right. Beats were perfect. But I had a bunch of bad people backing me.” So he took matters into his own hands
