Cam’ron – Killa Season

No homo! Cam’ron refers to the term more than once in his latest release Killa Season. Does he need to clarify that he’s not a fagot? Coming from a cocksure misogynist whose rhyming skill is indisputable when he bashes women, I find it to be amusing and ironic. In “Touch It or Not,” featuring Lil’ Wayne, Cam’s lyrics are malicious—“On your knees, show you how to top a boss / Lick, suck, deep throat, stop, cough, hop on, hop off, lollipop off / I know it’s white, but here come the hot sauce”—but his flow is so tight that he could makes the nastiest word sounds witty. Not that I worship the ground he spits on nor I support his violation of women, but the motherfucker knows damn well how to swing his dick to the beat, and at the same time, he manages to get the ladies to groove along.

Like Purple Haze, Killa Season’s narrations are nothing more than “Girls, Cash, Cars,” which exemplify the gangster’s glamorousness. The pitfall of the album, however, is way too many guest appearances, and is lacking hot beats. Even Cam’s virtuous deliveries can’t hold the recordings together. The sped-up sampling of Etta James’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Cry” in “Leave You Alone” is irritating. Cam’s off-key singing in “He Tried to Play Me” is awful. Stick with rapping, Killa. Cam also throws shots at Jigga in “You Gotta Love It,” but his punches are so weak that Jay-Z doesn’t even give him half a bar. When it comes to hustling and battling, Cam’s rhymes are nowhere near Hov.

Just when I thought Cam’s wordplay is vulgar—“I collect the chicken, call me Purdue”—he catches me by surprise with the cocaine metaphor in “White Girls.” Backed up by The Beat Firm’s Spanish-tinged production, Killa Cam steps up his game with his sharp, whimsical relationship with Snow White: “My pride and joy, I call her butter / When she bakes a cake, we’ll be lovers / She lives with me right, I hide her from my mother / See, she wouldn’t understand, I’m supplying the gutter / I let my baby hang outside with the brothers / Come back, cake on the bed the size of the covers / Shot five with a sucker, another five with a trucker / Took a hit without paying, won’t get a dime for my butter.” Too bad, Cam couldn’t swagger his way throughout the whole joint. No Killa classic.