Cam’ron & A-Trak – “All I Really Wanted”
Way back in early 2014, the Harlem rap cult leader Cam’ron and the Montreal turntable wizard A-Trak announced plans for a collaborative EP. The combination made sense; A-Trak had cool-kid dance-music cachet, but he’d started off as a pure hip-hop DJ, a teen-protege DMC champion who’d gone on to become the first tour DJ for Kanye West, Cam’s former labelmate. I’m pretty sure A-Trak was wearing a Dipset shirt the first I heard him DJ in a club. Cam and A-Trak released two songs, “Humphrey” and the Juelz Santana collab “Dipshits,” but the EP never came out. Now, more than eight years later, Cam and A-Trak have finally gotten around to making an album together.
Cam and A-Trak’s new LP U Wasn’t There is apparently coming out later this month. The press materials make it sound like the album is the result of A-Trak spending years chasing Cam and finally coaxing an album’s worth of material out of him. A-Trak didn’t produce all of the album; U Wasn’t There is billed as a Cam’ron solo album, and it’ll feature contributions from producers like Just Blaze, DJ Khalil, Lakim, and !llmind. The album will also have guest-appearances from the likes of Conway The Machine, Jim Jones, Popcaan, and Styles P. Great! Can’t wait!
We don’t have all the details on the album yet, but it’ll apparently have “Dipshits” as a bonus track. (“Humphrey” has been nearly scrubbed from the internet; I wonder why. You can still find the song, but not through any of the obvious channels.) Cam and A-Trak have also shared the new single “All I Really Wanted,” which A-Trak co-produced with Beautiful Lou and G Koop. The producers have come up with the sort of helium-soul jam that used to be the Diplomats’ signature sound. Cam sounds a little more haggard, and he doesn’t have the same goony energy as he once did, but he still twists words up in charming and unpredictable ways. Listen to the track below.
U Wasn’t There is out 9/23 on Empire.