Jay-Z and Cam’Ron are two rappers who were very much front and centre of New York’s rap scene in the early 2000s. The two emcees and labelmates were once cordial. However, before long, a rift began to appear between the labelmates and grew ever wider.
The two first met in the 1990s, and having just formed his Roc-A-Fella record label, Jay-Z and Cam’Ron quickly began doing business together. Although their partnership seemed splendid initially, Jay-Z shortly began hearing subliminal disses toward him in Cam’Ron’s music.
In 2000, Dame Dash announced Cam’Ron (real name Cameron Giles) would take on the role of vice president for Roc-A-Fella. However, Dash made this decision while Jay-Z was on holiday. Carter (understandably) disapproved of the arrangement. The contract never got drafted.
In 2001, Jay-Z would become the epicentre of an epic rap beef involving Mobb Deep and Nas, culminating with the legendary Nas track ‘Ether’. Nas also addressed Cam’Ron on the song, prompting the Harlem rapper to join the war. Giles replied with ‘Show You How,’ a freestyle over Jay-Z’s song of the same name.
In 2006, upon realising that Jay-Z had refused him the vice president (VP) role, Giles released ‘You Got To Love It,’ a diss track directed at Jay-Z. In the song, he suggested Hov nefariously blocked him from becoming the VP of Roc-A-Fella. However, with no response from Hov, things began to subside. In a 2022 interview with the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast, Giles shockingly and openly revealed that as a result of Jay-Z’s VP move, he retaliated by tweaking his music to smear and exclude Hov.
Speaking on his decisions, Giles revealed, “Hov did a remix for ‘Oh Boy,’ and I erased it! Looking back on it, I should have saved it because… SH*T, I could’ve got some money.” However, he justified it, unveiling how Jay-Z wiped all of Giles’ contributions from the Paid in Full soundtrack. “I was just so caught up,” he admitted. “I’m very, very petty, man. But looking back on that, you made a great point, we should have kept it, and whether we used it or not, we should’ve had it.”
In 2019 Jay-Z, Nas and Cam’Ron all quashed their past issues publicly and, as a trio, performed at New York City’s Terminal five to put on an unforgettable show for fans. Recalling how the billionaire rapper invited him to perform, Giles stated, “Jay called, he’s like, ‘Yo, first of all, I want to tell you I got respect for you,’ and I’m like, ‘Same here, bro,'” he said. “Shit ain’t no big thing, man. We are talking about some shit, fucking 12-13 years old. I’m straight.”
“We just showed our love for each other, and we kept it under wraps,” Cam’Ron explained, and said he loved seeing the audience’s shock when he came on stage. “Nobody would’ve thought that in a million years.” You can see the Terminal five Jay-Z show in the video below.
