I Got It MADE

NEW YORK — The fans clamoring inside Manhattan's Highline Ballroom on Monday night to see Cam'ron's first major hometown show in three years were in the mood for a reunion.

Many in the crowd could be seen sporting T-shirts and hats adorned with Dipset regalia, showing nostalgia for Cam'ron's Harlem-based crew, which has been on hiatus during his feud with his one-time Diplomats brother Jim Jones. Instead of a reunion, though, Cam held his own homecoming.

"I came here to party," Cam said, decked out in dark denim jeans, a red T-shirt, red leather jacket and matching designer print sneakers and tennis hat. "I missed y'all mutha----as, man."

The feeling was mutual.

Cam entered the stage alone to the blaring Just Blaze horns from the Diplomats' "I Really Mean It."


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"Y'all n----as dreamed it, I have seen it/ Body warm, heart anemic," he rapped, before letting the crowd finish off his lines.

"Let's not even waste time," Cam told his DJ, as he raced through one hit after another from the era when he, Jones, Juelz Santana and Freekey Zeekey had the streets rapt with Dipset fever.

"The Roc (Just Fire)," "Ambitionz Az a Killa" and "Get Em Girls," quickly followed as the crowd hung on every one of Cam's words.

The stage was scattered with only a few of the Harlem affiliates behind Cam, including Huddy Combs. Since his last album, 2006's Killa Season, Cam has been reclusive. First he relocated to Florida to tend to his ailing mother, who had suffered a number of strokes. Then came the rift with his one-time crew that only confused his cult-like followers.

Halfway through his hourlong set, Cam'ron stopped the music and began conversing with the crowd. He told them a story about a girl he was seeing and her disdain for her gig. The wailing sample of the snarky "I Hate My Job," from Cam'ron's upcoming release, Crime Pays (due May 12), began blasting through the speakers. "I did this for my homegirl," he said.

Cam kept up with the storytelling, as he weaved tales in and out to a number of his new tracks, from "Cookin' Up" to "Get It in Ohio."

"Lemme bring my neighborhood up," Cam later said, and the stage swelled from fewer than 10 people to well over 30, as new protégés and old homies crowded around him.

"Everybody be like, Cam, you need to make up with people," he added, then launched into "Got It for Cheap," another new track from Crime Pays. The thinly veiled tease didn't slow down the show much, if at all.

Any remote hope for a Diplomats reunion on this night faded early. During "Oh Boy," Cam's hit with Juelz Santana, the rapper offered a glimpse of where he's at in the feud, despite his chants of "Dipset for life" throughout the night.

"It's me, not no Santana," Cam rapped, replacing the original, "Listen to my homeboy Santana."