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| The Diplomats |
| Uptown Manhattan wake up! It has been almost two years since the Diplomats Diplomatic Immunity detonated and exploded onto the hip-hop music scene. Classics like “Oh Boy” and “Hey Ma” turned Cam’ron, Jim Jones and Juelz Santana into household names. Not only did they become overnight trendsetters with the inception of masculine pink in hoods across America, their own street lingo and the official Diplomats Sizzurp liquor, but they also put Harlem U.S.A. back on the map with permanence.
After Cam’ron signed to a solo deal with Roc-a-fella Records in 2002, Diplomat Records was created. Like a proud parent Diplomat Records soon gave birth to the Diplomats, a rap movement that was intended to re-route the path hip-hop music was taking. Original members included Jim Jones, Cam’ron, and Freakey Zeekey. Shortly thereafter Juelz Santana was brought into the mix to make for an unstoppable force in the hip-hop world. Like an epidemic, the Diplomats sound quickly spread from New York City to national to international fame. With an arsenal of rhymes and infinite ammunition these lyricists created a new sound in hip-hop and gave center stage back to the sixth borough, Harlem.
On November 23rd, Diplomatic Immunity 2 will be revealed with newly recruited soldiers to defend the frontlines the Diplomats created in the hip-hop game. If you thought the first album was laced with lyrical genius wait until you hear Dipsets weapons of mass destruction in their second installment. The newly enlisted JR Writer, Hell Rell, 40 Cal, and Jha Jha all add their individual spice to the Diplomats tasteful recipe while veterans Cam’ron, Juelz Santana and Jim Jones remind fans why they became fans in the first place. And while the prominent production on the first LP was done by the Heatmakerz who also make four appearances on Diplomatic Immunity 2, the Diplomats also added underground fire from producers like Skitzo, Develop and Stay Getting Productions to name a few.
Although the masterminds behind this musical revolution are all natives of Harlem, Manhattan, the newly added members cover many realms of hip-hop genres. The first lady of the Diplomats, Jha Jha, a Miami native, is the feline amongst this K-9 unit. Although Jha Jha’s flow stems from southern influence she is no stranger to what the streets in other cities like New York, Chicago and Detroit want to rock to. Being the only female of the Diplomats is a challenge that Jha Jha takes on full force with the grace of a lady and lyrics of a fierce leader. “I bring a little sexy twist to the Diplomats” says Jha Jha. Check out track #6 “Get From Around Me” on the Diplomats second LP Diplomatic Immunity 2, to hear an example of Jha Jha’s rugged flow.
While the Bronx native, JR Writer’s, one-on-one demeanor is quit introverted, his on-camera and stage presence resemble nothing of the same. JR Writer’s flow quickly grabs the attention of any listener and his cleaver lyrics exude a sort of surprising confidence. He has made appearances on underground mixtapes with the Diplomats on songs like “Shake” with Cam’ron but this time around he gets an entire track to confirm his ill lyrical skills. His tracks on the Diplomats second LP Diplomatic Immunity 2 gives the spotlight to JR Writer as he secures his spot as a member of the Diplomats with the poise of a first-round draft pick. JR Writer brings a strong, silent-type, personality to the Diplomats, which leaves plenty of room for true lyrical maximizing.
Hell Rell has a little more experience with the Diplomats then the other member’s do. He was down when the Diplomats first started. Now after doing a bid or two, Hell Rell is ready to expose his lyrical expertise and streetwise antics. Although the streets taught Hell Rell the in’s and out’s of making money he has transferred that energy from the concrete to the recording studio. An example of his energy transfer is Track #6 “Wouldn’t you like to be a gangsta too?” on Diplomatic Immunity 2. Hell Rell explains what he brings to the Diplomats, “…you know I’m from the bottom so I’m bringing that bottom music back to the game”.
Finally, 40Cal caters to the younger crowd. 40Cal spit lyrical venom alongside Jim Jones on tracks previously released on underground mix tapes. On their new release Diplomatic Immunity 2, 40Cal does his thing on Track #10, “40 Shots”. Now, while establishing his credibility as a member of the Diplomats, he still sharpens his skills by taking part in battles. In his own words he defines his role saying, “40Cal aint nothin’ to be fucked with.”
The Diplomats have become an unstoppable movement in hip-hop music. Although their grandstand approach is often overshadowed by their “underdog” status, the Diplomats know what style of music they want to release. The Diplomat soldiers’ pasts combined with their futures make the ingredients needed to cook up hard-core beats with lethal lyrics and everyone is eating it up. Track #3 on Diplomatic Immunity 2 summarizes the Diplomats stance with the lyrics “…we’re the truth, we’re the proof, get use to this!”
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| Cam'ron |
| Simply put, Harlem’s favorite son Cam’ron is a movement unto himself. From literally changing the face of urban fashion with his trendsetting, redefining sense of style and signature pink wardrobe, to his mind-boggling ghetto nursery rhymes, to the secret code he’s developed with his Diplomats crew - ‘Dip Set,’ ‘Byrd Gang,’ ‘Purple City,’ ‘Un Casa,’ ‘Sheist Bub,’ – ‘Killa Cam’ has turned Harlemworld into Cam’ron’s world.
Cameron Giles - the flamboyant young cat who would go onto become Dip Set superstar Cam’ron - came up in Harlem’s grimiest streets with the same hopes, fears, talents and dreams as the other kids on the block; except young Cam was maybe that much better. Whether it was kicking rhymes with his friends, getting the latest gear just right, or playing ball, Cameron Giles had it. His love and gift for basketball was the first to truly shine: as a guard for Manhattan Central High School, young Cameron was named All-City, All-American and was eventually awarded a college scholarship based on his on-court talents. “I been this way since I was, like, three,” muses Cam’ron. “From the moment I wake up at like seven in the morning in my boxers and socks, I’m that fresh. I’m Cam.”
But soon, he’d enter a different game entirely. Through friend and fellow-Harlemite Ma$e, Cam had a chance meeting with the late Notorious B.I.G. Though his city-wide reputation as a baller preceded him, Biggie Smalls was impressed with Cam’ron’s abilities on the mic. “Mase took me to his crib after he signed to Bad Boy and he just threw on a bunch of beats and I rapped for B.I.G.,” Cam remembers. “Every beat he threw on I had rhymes, I had mad rhymes back then. Big said he wanted to sign me.” Biggie and partner Lance “Un” Rivera were astounded by Cam'ron's skills and immediately signed him to their Untertainment Records.
Both his Untertainment debut, 1998’s Confessions of Fire, and his sophomore release, Sports, Drugs and Entertainment, went gold. But Cam, seeking to take his career to the next level, grew disenchanted with then-distributor Epic. Ever determined and creative, Killa Cam, as he was becoming known, took matters into his own hands; he and his Harlem Diplomats crew began putting out mixtapes for the streets, well before it was commonplace.
“It’s been going on about a couple years, but we made a tapes ‘cause we always had music. We would put all the songs on a CD and put them out on the streets for free. We started selling them for $5 just to get our money back. After I did it other artists started doing it too,” he remembers.
Eventually, Cam’ron’s buzz had become larger than just mixtapes; the streets were crying for another studio album. Always an opportunist, his friend and former manager Damon Dash negotiated Cam out of his deal with Epic and signed him and his Diplomat Records to a deal under Roc-A-Fella. In 2002, Cam released his long-awaited opus Come Home With Me, which sold over one million units and catapulted Cam’ron to celebrity status. The monumental success yielded the smash single "Oh Boy,” which also rocketed protege Juelz Santana to fame.
Now, with the release of Purple Haze, Come Home’s highly anticipated follow-up, Cam puts it down like only he can.
“I’ve been working on this for about 7-8 months. I always grow every album. I’m around nice artists like Juelz, Jim Jones, J.R. Writer and a whole bunch of new people and it keeps me on my toes,” Cam says. “It’s like tough love and that’s why every album I do is better than the last one.”
From the Jeep banger “Killa Cam,” to the certified street anthems “Get Em Girls” and “Shake,” to the radio hits “Hey Lady” “Lord You Know” featuring Jaheim and the new single, Cam’s spin on the Cyndi Lauper classic “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” Purple Haze continues Cam’s legend. Featuring appearances from the entire Dip Set crew – Juelz Santana, Jim Jones and Freekey Zeekey – as well as Kanye West, Jaheim, Lil Flip, and Twista, Cam’ron delivers his most diverse, creative and cinematic album to date. In fact, Cam plans to release a ‘Purple Haze’ short film in conjunction with the album.
“I want you to have the visual, even if you don’t see the movie,” muses Cam. “Visualize it just by listening. Its like a verbal movie or even a book.”
Purple Haze’s lead single, “Lord You Know,” features the thunderous crooning of thug-prince Jaheim. The song, a more introspective look at the streets, reveals Cam’s maturing view of the world. “The Jaheim joint is real soulful. I just wanted to give a tribute to all the people in jail. Jaheim came up with the hook and it was crazy. You feel that song in your gut,” Cam says. “I think that’s a big plus for everybody locked inside.”
But Cam’ron reveals that his favorite song is one that strikes in the heart, not the gut. “My favorite song is ‘Ghetto Soap Opera.’ It’s about me and my son’s mom and what we are going through right now,” he reveals.
Cam’ron, notorious for hisd tenacity, believes in constantly moving forward and Purple Haze is the culmination of that mentality. “If you do five albums and don’t grow, then you are just stupid,” Cam laughs. “That’s like going to high school for four years and still being in the 9th Grade. I went from artist to CEO to selling cologne to selling liquor.”
True to his word, Cam’ron is one of the elite few artists that has been able to escape the confines of the game to expand Diplomat Records into a franchise.
Along with the Purple Haze album and film, and his other ventures including “Oh Boy’ cologne, Cam’ron has taken his purple game to the spirit world as well – liquor that is. Along with his Diplomat partner Jim Jones, Cam has launched a cognac-based purple punch appropriately dubbed Sizzurp. Sizzurp has secured national distribution and is set to launch this summer. Be warned: Rap’s Pink Panther and Harlem’s freshest Diplomat – Cam’ron – is back with Purple Haze.
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| Juelz Santana |
| Question: In a time when beef and braggadocio run rampant in hip-hop wouldn’t it be uplifting for a new jack to blow a fresh breath of smoked-filled air into the game? Wouldn’t you appreciate a young blood eager to spit about realities and an everyday grind, rather than constant boasting?
Enter Juelz Santana.
OK, so Juelz, born LaRon James, isn’t completely wet behind the ears. Yes, he has benefited from a lesson or two already learned the tough way from his experiences in the rap industry. But even with his mainstream and mixtape successes - including recording, touring and shooting videos with Cam’ron’s crew The Diplomats - young Juelz is just now releasing his much-anticipated Diplomats/Roc-A-Fella solo debut, From Me To U, giving his fans their first opportunity to plunge into the realities and livelihood of the 19-year-old lyricist.
Growing up in Uptown Manhattan Juelz played a similar role to many Harlem teens, “hanging in the streets, hustling, doing everything I wasn’t supposed to be doing,” tells Juelz. “But I knew I wanted to change my life and could do it with music.” At 15 Juelz put together the group Draft Pick with a neighborhood friend. The duo was picked up by Priority Records, but it wasn’t long until Santana was introduced through his cousin to fellow Harlem rapper Cam’ron. “Cam didn’t even know he was gonna meet me,” Juelz remembers. “He was sleeping. So we wake him up and do the introductions and Cam tells me to spit for him and his reaction wasn’t like it was hotŠhe was sleeping.”
If Cam’ron seemed knocked out at the two’s first meeting he must not have been in dreamland because a week later Cam called his future protégé and asked him to roll through the studio. “I wasn’t really that excited when he called because I had been through some of this before. My heart was cold in the music game at this point and things were hard. A lot of people had told me to come down to the studio before but I never really got that feeling like this was it.”
Little did Juelz know that this, in fact, was it.
Soon after that studio session things began to fall into place for the budding MC. His first big move was an appearance on “Double Up” off of Cam’ron’s Sex, Drugs and Entertainment. The buzz began building as the Dips assaulted the streets with their Diplomat mixtapes. Next came Cam’s connection with Roc-A-Fella Records.
Soon after the Diplomats landed on the Roc, Juelz was given the major pieces he needed to play his game. The crew inked a seven-figure label deal with The Roc creating Diplomat Records with Juelz as vice president. Shortly following the deal were the young buck’s charming guest appearances on Cam’s smash hit singles ”Oh Boy” and “Hey Ma” off of his Come Home With Me LP, which led to a starring role on the Diplomats group album Diplomatic Immunity and it’s street-blazin’ smash “Dip Set Anthem.”
But From Me To U will be sure to take the hungry young heartthrob to the stars. With guest appearances predominantly from his Dip Set fam and a stack of hot beats from producers like the Heatmakers, Self and Charlemagne to name a few, Juelz gives fans the ideal honest debut: filled with heart, pride, talent and tales of the life of this Diplomat. For proof check the single “Santana’s Town,” which features an infectious hook from Cam. Another satisfying track is the heart-tugging “Raindrops” about his grandmother. From Me To U gives Juelz a personalized opportunity to spin his sincere tales of both hardships and struggle with an edge of pain and a splash of the glitz and glam Juelz has tasted since the Dips started ruling the streets.
So does that mean Juelz can answer the call for that new breed some of us might be craving? “I want people to see who I am, who Juelz is,” insists the Harlem Diplomat. “Hip-hop wants a change right now. The same people have been doing it for six or seven years. It’s not that it’s not hot music it’s just that it’s too common. It needs to be resurrected. I can resurrect it.”
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| Jim Jones |
| Though some of us may be hearing his name for the first time, Jim Jones is no Johnny-come-lately. He’s been on the block since 1997, making noise and music, riding shotgun with his longtime friend Cam’ron. “I’ve been with him in the game since his horse and carriage days,” he professes. “I’ve been on every album he did. I just stayed patient until it was my time to blow up.”
And now it looks like that time has come. Jim Jones is no longer riding shotgun, no longer a back seat driver. This time Jones is behind the wheel, putting the petal to the metal, riding fast and furious to the top.
And where is he going? “On My Way to Church,” he says. That’s the clever, conversation-inspiring title of his debut cd. “My family is a very religious family,” Jones explains. “I came up very church-oriented. My grandmother used to send me to Sunday school after I was able to go out on my own. I would end up on 42nd street playing video games or on the block hustling trying to make some money. So it’s like I left the house and I haven’t gotten to church yet. I’m still trying to find my way there.”
But, as in years past, Jones is still making pit-stops along the way and he takes listeners along for the ride. From track to track, Jones allows us to roll with him as he spits rhymes, tells stories and teaches a refresher course in what true hip hop is all about.
The first single from The Diplomats Present Jim Jones: On My Way to Church is “Certified Gangstas.” “This is an old Eazy E joint,” he says. “My dude Bangin’ Beats made the beats and I ran with it. We put a little east coast twist on a west coast song and people are loving it.” Jones said the song was so ‘hard’ it was originally intended to be strictly for the streets. “It was supposed to be only for the mix tapes and for the ‘hood but a buddy from the radio station just happened to be there when I did it and she said ‘I got to play this on the radio’.”
Jones’ favorite track from the cd is “Around My Way,” which he says “explains who I am, where I’ve been, what I’ve done and the things that I’ve been through.”
Another highlight is “Spanish Fly,” a song about “a true situation that went on in my life. It was about a female and shit like that. It breaks it down.”
“Only One Way Up” shows off yet another side of Jim Jones. “I did that one when I was on the beach in Miami. I was coolin’ and it was so relaxing, refreshing and chillin’! That was the first time I wrote some music outside of my environment.”
With guest shots by T.I., Lil Flip, Chico DeBarge, Bizzy Bone and of course, Cam’ron and their clique the Diplomats, On My Way to Churh is loaded with star power. “All of these are people I have personal relationships with so it was very easy to get them to be on the cd,” he says.
Jones says the songs on the set are a true reflection of his life, creating a musical backdrop to all that he has experienced. “My music reflects everything that I’ve been through. I often say I’ve written the soundtrack to my ‘hood because I came up so hard and that’s all I talk about.” Jones says his music speaks to people who need all the hope and inspiration they can get. “There are a lotta people who, it’s sad to say, ain’t got too much to look forward to so we do what we gotta do to survive and to get some money to pay our rent. I don’t glamorize that at any rate but it’s a harsh reality.”
It’s reality that he knows only too well. Growing up in the Bronx, Jones watched his mom hustle and grind to make a living. “My mom was a very unique individual. For like that whole era when crack first started hitting the air back in ‘81-82 my moms was one of the first ladies to move that. She got rich doing it; that was what she was into, that whole lavish life. I thought I was living. I ain’t realize that that shit was crazy until now but it was her just being young and I ended up living the same life so it was like a double edged sword.”
Living the life he lived, there were no rules so Jones made up his own. “As time went on I started to get a little bit looser because there really wasn’t any guidance. They shipped me to Harlem to stay with my grandmother in the projects.”
Jones found his share of trouble in Harlem but nothing serious enough to land him in jail. “I pretty much avoided a lot of shit. For some reason it seemed that I always escaped some hella fly shit and I thank God for that to this day.”
But even as he found himself in the throes of street life, he also found himself deeply in love with rap music, finding inspiration from a vast array of hip hop artists. The list reads like a who’s who of rappers: Snoop, Biggie Smalls, Kool G Rap, Nas, Jay Z, Slick Rick, Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, NWA, Eazy E, Master P, Bone, Thug- N-Harmony, and 2Pac.
Watching these great artists make their mark was all the inspiration Jones needed to become a rapper – that and the fact that he knew that, like all of them, he had that special something that would guarantee his success. “My mom always said I had the eye of the tiger. There’s just something about me, she said. I attract people to me. I really don’t know. It’s something in my soul, I just give out this aura.” What attracts people to Jones is not only his music and his talent but his loyalty and commitment to the people he cares about and his willingness to ride for his friends and family under any circumstances. “There’s nothing I won’t do for my niggas and for my family. I even go broke in certain situations but it’s worth it. I am not a shallow person like that. The game is not everything to me.”
But honesty is everything to him. That’s why he always speaks his mind, says exactly what’s on his heart. “What I need to say I’m going to say. I’m a voice of resistance because I came out of one of the most rebellious generations ever. That’s exactly what I am trying to get across.”
Jones says he’s still trying to get to church and along the way, he’ll continue to drop pearls of wisdom for others to pick up along the path that he’s paved for them.
But he feels he’s getting closer. He’s already reached some of his goals, he says. “People might think my goal is to sell a million records. No! I already passed my goal. I did it. Being in this game is my goal. This is my first album. Just to get on it and get the shit in the stores -- I reached my goal. Everything else is just a blessing.
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