With raps that merely repeat the same 20 monosyllabic words and with a sense of wordplay dumb enough to think up come-ons like, “put your meat on my stick like shish kabob,” Cam’Ron might be the one man most responsible for trying to put some extra nails into the coffin of major label hip-hop.
- Music Reviews
Cam’Ron first blipped onto the radar screen in the summer of 2002 with two sweetly disposable singles: “Hey Ma,” and the admittedly catchy, Just Blaze-produced, “Oh Boy.” Backed by these small successes he used his leverage to start his own label, Diplomats, and introduce the rap world to such pure abominations as Juelz Santana.
Purple Haze, his newest release, is bloated with skits, full of guest appearances so sour they seem to fester with each additional listen and coated with a saccharine production sound akin to being pummeled with large pieces of rock candy.
But the final straw, the heinous act that sinks lower than all the other detritus on Purple Haze, is Cam’Ron’s trite, idiotic vocal style. In no time, past or present, will, “I leave you hole-y/ you’ll say ‘holy moley,’ ” constitute a threat or boast. Cam’Ron is illiterate, nonthreatening and deliriously outdated.
What’s more, Cam believes his raps have a real sense of ingenuity. Each song is the same formula: oral sex, rattling off endless labels of top class liquor and finding new and complex rhymes that involve words most of us mastered in the second grade. This is the kind of album that makes underground hip-hop fans retreat deeper into the earth; this is the foulness that makes our generation’s parents believe all rap music is sub-human. In short, Purple Haze might be the worst thing to happen to the hip-hop world since the VIBE awards.
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars