Lance “Un” Rivera says that Cam’ron was traumatized by getting comparisons to the legendary New York rapper, The Notorious B.I.G. Rivera discussed Cam's career and reuniting with him for the film Percentage, during a new interview with VladTV.
“I enjoy [Cam]’s creativity, we clashed a lot creatively,” he said. “‘Cause I had this thing with Cam — and I heard that he kinda traumatized Juelz with the same process … I always challenged Cam on when he thought he was better, I challenged him [and said,] ‘You hadn’t gotten better. This is sub par to me.’ And I wasn’t taking anything away from him. Cam [would say,] ‘Biggie woulda did it this way.” Rivera also described him as a "gold artist" rather than a "platinum" one.
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“He’s a legitimate gold artist like Redman and Method Man and all of these other guys, so Cam didn’t wanna put in the work or listen to what it took,” Rivera continued. “Puff had to tell Big, ”Machine Gun Funk’ is not gonna get you to an album.' Nas had to do Lauryn Hill ‘If I Ruled The World’ to get to that level. Jay didn’t really start making big records until Pharrell. Everything else was still this underground rapping choruses. Nah, if you wanna sell millions of records, here is what we learned and this is how we do it. That’s why Puff was so successful.”
Cam'ron had begun his career with Rivera and his Untertainment imprint. Under that label, he released his debut album, Confessions of Fire in 1998. However, Untertainment lost a distribution deal with Epic in 2000, causing the company to absorb Cam'ron's contract. By the end of the legal dispute, Cam ended up signing with Roc-A-Fella Records.
Lance "Un" Rivera With "VladTV"
Elsewhere in the interview, Rivera theorized that Dame Dash being from Harlem played a role in Cam'ron's decision to sign with him.
[Via]