Celebrity Baby Blog: Cam'ron Thought About Retiring From Rap

Plus: Drake says his rhymes are 'more intimate' than mentor Lil Wayne's, in Mixtape Daily.
By Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Rahman Dukes and Jayson Rodriguez

src="http://www.mtv.com/shared/promoimages/bands/c/camron/camron051109/281x211.jpg"/>

Cam'ron

Photo: Asylum

The legendary Cam'ron and hip-hop "It" kid Drake. We know you guys are still loving Drake's So Far Gone mixtape, but are you rocking that new Cam'ron album yet? How do you feel about Killa's return, and does his new album stack up against Purple Haze, or Come Home With Me and his other pre-Dipset joints? Let us know in the comments section. It's day two of week two of the new Mixtape Daily, and again, we want to send love for all the support. Keep checking for us at MTVNews.com Monday-Friday, and — duhn, duhn, duhn, duhn! — at our brand-new URL: Mixtape.MTV.com. Let's go in!

Don't Sleep: Necessary Notables

Independent Album: Crime Pays

Starring: Cam'ron

Records We Can't Stop Playing: "Got It for Cheap," "Silky" and "Get It in Ohio"

Essential Info: One thing Cam'ron said he doesn't know how to do is fall back. Killa told us that even before his three-year hiatus — during which he spent a significant amount of time taking care of his mother who had three strokes — he contemplated retiring from rap.

"It was a time when I was thinking about that, before my moms got sick," Cam admitted. "I was like, 'All right, I got everybody off the ground. I kinda been doing this for a while. Let me fall back and maybe look into some other things.' "

Cam said he couldn't stop coming up with lines. "During that time period, I'd be somewhere eating, thinking of some rhymes. Or I'd be in my living room, thinking of some rhymes. I can't stop even if I wanted to stop," he explained. "It doesn't matter where I'm at — if I'm somewhere sitting still for more than an hour, rhymes start popping in my head. ... It's just kinda instilled in me."

Cam drops his long-overdue Crime Pays on Tuesday, and when he spoke with us, he came on the humble. Homie is genuinely glad to be back.


	MIXTAPE DAILY Who's next and who dominates — right here, all week long!.
	�Mixtape Daily Main Pick: Ace Hood and Lloyd Banks
	�Other Notables: Cam'ron and Drake
	�Celeb Faves: The Game, Andre Iguodala
	�Firestarter: Wale, Fabolous

"I'm just privileged to still be around," he said. "You got people that come in, one album, two albums, and they're gone. A lot of people couldn't take the break I took and come back into the game and people be checking for them. People would be like, 'F--- him.' That's the one thing I did realize taking this break, how much love I got. When you constantly working, working, you don't really get to appreciate the fans and people loving your stuff. Places I went to where I didn't even know people listen to rap, there were [fans] that would be like, 'Please come back.' "

Skitzo and AraabMuzik did the majority of the beats, and Killa rocked most of the records with no guest rappers. Everyone talks about the reunion of Cam and the Dipset, but can we get some Killa over Just Blaze and Kanye beats again?

Mixtape: So Far Gone

Starring: Drake

Records We Can't Stop Playing: "Successful" (featuring Trey Songz and Lil Wayne), "Ignant Sh--" (featuring Lil Wayne), "A Night Off" (featuring Lloyd) and "Say What's Real"

Essential Info: We mentioned this same mixtape early this year when we were only going once a week. Now that we're daily, it gives us a little more freedom to properly trumpet the sounds of Drake. Young Drizzy continues to show us that in just a few weeks, your buzz can go from 20 mph to off-the-charts. (Well, it feels like a short time, but this is Drake's third mixtape since 2007.) So Far Gone not only has him doing sold-out shows across the world, but it also throws his name in the hat for Rookie of the Year and, possibly, Mixtape of the Year.

The Toronto native came with a two-pronged attack of singing and rapping, with guest spots from a few homies, including Omarion, Trey Songz, Lil Wayne and Bun B. The former "Degrassi: The Next Generation" actor also hasn't given up on seeing his name on the cover of TV Guide or even your local movie-theater marquee.

"I like to give things to people, so whether it be a movie or I have a TV show that me and one of my best friends [fellow 'Degrassi' actor] Mazin Elsadig did," he said. "We write. It's comedy comparable to, like, Judd Apatow and Michael Cera, but with black people in it. So, I mean, there's all kinds of forms of self-expression, and it carries over, obviously, into music. My music is really personal. It's really based on honesty, so it's not much acting involved. And you know Wayne is a character when he performs, when he spits, he's animated. With me, with rapping, it's more intimate, it's more organic and more personal. My music, I think there's more acting on the business side of it than the music side of it."

Other Heat This Week

� DJ Woogie and Gucci Mane - Gucci the Great

� Raekwon the Chef and DJ Absolute - Blood on the Chef's Apron

� DJ E-V and Gucci Mane - Gucci Land

� Leak Jones and Lil Wayne - The Weezy Effect 2

� Paul Wall - Fast Life

Click here for photos of the "Other Heat."

For other artists featured in Mixtape Daily, check out Mixtape Daily Headlines.

Related Videos