Killa Season

If ever there was an anticipated album, Killa Season is it

Rapper Cam'ron was born and raised in Harlem, attending Manhattan Center High School, where one of his basketball teammates was Mason "Mase" Betha, who also became a successful rapper. Though his playing earned him scholarship offers from top colleges, Cam'ron was unable to take advantage of them because of his poor academic record, and he enrolled at a small college in Texas instead. He quickly dropped out and returned to Harlem, where he became a drug dealer before turning to rap. Hooking up with the Bad Boy posse, he developed a pop-rap style similar to chief Bad Boy Puff Daddy. On October 23, 2005, Cam'ron made news when he escaped an attempted carjacking in Washington, DC with only a bullet wound on his arm. The next year he directed the straight to DVD film Killa Season and released an album of the same name. Message boards blew up right before the album's release when his Jay-Z diss track You Gotta Love It began appearing on mixtapes. Cam'ron’s new album Killa Season is being billed as a Dipset masterpiece. If ever there was an anticipated album, Killa Season is it. But does it live up to the hype?

For the most part Killa Season holds water

The production (Heatmakers, Frank Nitti, Alchemist and others) is pretty decent. The stops and hooks are certainly on point, and Cam'ron’s swag has never been better. Some of the album simply doesn’t make sense (which is classic Dipset), but the creative audio imagery is enough to keep even the most determined hater interested. We Make Change is vintage Cam'ron: lots of curious but catchy lingo strung together between a rhythmic hook. War showcases the confusing together-yet-independent mentality that characterizes the Dipset “movement”. Cam'ron supports Lil’ Wayne’s campaign for hip hop artist of the year with a well-placed feature on Touch It or Not. The track is a clever balance of hard, menacing production and clever overtures. Love My Life features Nicole Wray on a piano based hood serenade about Harlem life growing up on 140th and Lennox. White Girls is also entertaining, with an old-school Jackson 5 sample. You Gotta Love It is also included on the album (surprise), and fires at Jay-Z…even insinuating that Cam'ron had relations with Beyonce. Tracks like Wet Wipes, Girls, Cash, Cars and the Do Ya Thing Remix (along with a couple of voicemail interludes) are all skippable, but for the most part this album holds water.

Cam’ron largely sticks to the Dipset script

Cam'ron makes a transparent effort to keep this album as New York as possible. In an era of almost total southern domination of the industry by southern artists in terms of radio/video airplay, Cam'ron largely sticks to the Dipset script. Killa Season features guest appearances by Juelz Santana, Mo’Money, Hell Rell, 40 Cal, J.R Writer, and Jim Jones. You’d think that with so many cameos, the album would sound more like a mixtape, but it doesn’t. Instead, Cam'ron shines through as the undisputed boss of all things diplomatic. There are moments on Killa Season when Cam'ron comes across as a little too tough. Even when the Harlem emcee attempts to touch the heart, he draws blood. But as long as you know what you're getting into, it's brilliant. The album's finest moment – and one of the most intriguing tracks in Cam'ron's catalogue thus far – is I.B.S., an autobiographical tale that explains his significant weight loss was due to irritable bowel syndrome. Killa Season would have benefited from trimming and better planning, but those things are extremely rare in the world of Dipset. Taking that into account, the album is exceptional and a good enough excuse for two more years of mouthing off and starting trouble.