The legendary rappers Cam’Ron and Ma$e have been friends since childhood, and, growing up in Harlem, they both knew they wanted to be a part of New York’s burgeoning hip-hop scene. As members of Big L’s short-lived Children of the Corn crew, the pair rose to prominence in their area and shortly after were known around the city.
That said, by the late 1990s, they had both found their respective musical homes. As part of The Diplomats, Cam’Ron signed with Jay-Z’s Roc-a-Fella Records, and just before the death of Biggie Smalls, Ma$e joined Diddy’s Bad Boy Entertainment.
The two went on very separate journies but were always bound by their love for music. However, in an interview on Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson’s All the Smoke podcast, Cam’Ron (real name Cameron Giles) revealed that their friendship became tenuous when Ma$e decided to park his musical ambitions and turn to religion.
Speaking about the beginning of their feud, Giles admitted that he didn’t understand why Ma$e took such an interest in Christianity and was annoyed that he had chosen to join a community that was so outspoken in its rejection of hip-hop.
Opening up about this, the Purple Haze emcee recalled, “He went to church. I kinda didn’t understand it at the time because that’s my man all day, and I’m like, where church come from? So I started bugging out on him because of that. So to be honest with you, the whole sh*t was my fault and just not understanding the kind of path he was on at the time.”
Cam’Ron decided to put some of the anger he had in his music and called out Ma$e by name. However, he did not expect the response he got from his friend. Remembering the origins of the feud, he recounted, “So I kinda was going at him on records and sh*t, and he was ignoring me and sh*t, then one day he made ‘The Oracle’ and kinda flushed me one day. I was like, ‘That was pretty tough.'”
Ma$e was only with Bad Boy for a couple of years, and in 1999, Ma$e became a pastor in Atlanta. In an interview with Funkmaster Flex, speaking about his own lyrics, the Harlem artist said that he had been leading people, friends, kids and others down a path to hell.”
The pair only reunited last year, but they both agreed to put their differences aside, and the two now have their own podcast, the It Is What It Is show. You can listen to Giles peaking about their 15-year fall out in the video below.
