Max Bell gets puters putin.
There’s no predicting when Cam’ron’s Killa Season 2 will drop. There have been talks of its release since 2011. At this point, it may go the way of Detox and never hit the shelves or your preferred digital streaming/download service. It might also fade into obscurity like Gunz n’ Butta, his 2011 album with Harlem native/Dipset affiliate Vado. Then again, Purple Haze saw the light after a year of push backs, and that’s one of the best rap albums ever.
Whatever the case, it appears his already delayed mixtape Ghetto Heaven Vol.1 will arrive on October 1st. There’s actually a countdown on DatPiff. That’s worth its weight in diamonds the color of Lemonheads and Timberlands the shade of Laffy Taffy, or something.
More promising than the countdown are the two Ghetto Heaven Vol. 1 cuts Killa dropped via Twitter yesterday.
“Next Up” is the lesser of the two. Though the beat sounds like something from a poor Araabmuzik imitator, it’s not an inherently bad track — there are just too many features and not enough Cam. In the fifty seconds he’s on the track the man is a passenger in his own car (thus, he has a driver); he’s draped in long minks and rocking Timberlands and rhymes ‘Michigan’ with ‘riveting.’ Cam has always been more of a lyricist than most give him credit for (see “Killa Cam” or his work Children of the Corn), and its nice to see him closer to the peak of his pen game than he’s been in the past few years.
As far as the features are concerned, Loaded Lux and Ms. Hustle are solid but forgettable. Both are out-shined by the ostensibly fourteen year-old Chris Miles. He isn’t saying much, but at his age Miles’ double-time dexterity is promising. Ideally, “Next Up” is meant to be a sample of rappers Cam is promoting, not those who will dominate the forthcoming mixtape.
The second loosie, “My Life (Duckin’ Onetime),” is my favorite Cam track since I can’t remember when. It’s the pusher paean, the laid back, coupe no roof cruising jam for hustlers hugging the block from Lenox Ave. to Crenshaw Blvd. Here Cam is in full narrative mode, documenting his day-to-day — dealing with his workers, chilling on fire escapes, and flights to his pad with the ocean view — while deep in the pocket. Instead of flexing his lyrical muscle, he’s kicking his feet up, and its fun to relax with him. And, unlike “Next Up,” the feature here is near perfect. Sen City sings the hook in Max B (the incarcerated one) fashion, interpolating Roy Ayers’ “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” by singing, “my life, my life, my life duckin’ onetime.” It’s everything a hook should be — smooth, pithy, and about that life.
If Ghetto Heaven Vol. 1 is on par with both of these tracks (the latter especially), the waiting will not be in vain. Below is the trailer for Cam’s movie “First of the Month” (see his Vine epic here). It looks both unintentionally (read: maybe intentionally) hilarious and frightening, a lot like Paid in Full really. There’s also a .gif of Killa counting money because this the Internet. I looked for one of him getting computers “puting,” but couldn’t find it. Bill O’Reilly should be on the case soon.
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