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And Finally Beef Of The Week
CMU Beef Of The Week #209: Cam’ron v “Dumb ass gangstas”
By Aly Barchi | Published on Friday 6 June 2014
US rapper Cam’ron was in London this week to play a one-off show at The Forum on Tuesday night. Which you might take to mean he actually played a show at The Forum in London on Tuesday night, though that would be a silly assumption on your part, because he didn’t.
As those who were there will definitely know, and those who weren’t might nevertheless be aware, the Dipset MC failed to take the stage for his headlining PA (despite being snapped chatting with Westwood backstage on the night), and gave paying fans little to no notice that he’d decided to cancel his set.
‘Why though, why oh why oh why oh why, didn’t Cam’ron perform at his own gig?’, I hear you all cry like tired little babies. Well, he has had a fair go at explaining away his no-show. He really did try.
It was like this, you see… um… Cam’ron, apparently, received a tip-off that he was being “lined up” to get “rushed” by a big crowd of “dumb ass gangstas” during the show. So, upon learning this, he made an escape and went to a salsa bar with his homie JuJu. Or something like that.
This is what Cam’ron said happened, via the caption on a video post on Instagram: “So niggas brought 50 niggas to da show to jump me..in London? And rush da stage?!.. But me and juju was doing this… imum y’all better come wit… Lol… Sorry to all my fans dat came to da show but as u can see they tried to line me up. And only da barber lines me up… They had 15 niggas in front of da stage (that rushed the stage) and 35 niggas outside… And I was wit 2 niggas…”
That’s chapter one of the story. This is chapter two: “The people that brought me here were very very nice… but when I asked where the ‘s was at?? (That they were suppose to have) they never showed them to me. Not shitting on them cause they were cool… But we can’t play when it gets down to hammer time. So no I didn’t get robbed. No I didn’t get jumped. I was chillin doing da salsa wit #Juju. They tried to do my bro Juelz dirty.. Now me..foh.. Thx to da people who put me on to game!! To rest of London.. Love y’all… I really do and apologize again… But y’all other nigga. .. Lolololol y’all blew yak chance again.. Dumb ass gangsta’s lmfaoooo”.
Should you be dubious that any such stage-rushing went on, here’s video footage of some people leaving the audience and climbing onto the stage at the gig, after the cancellation was announced. Meanwhile, the references to Juelz in Cam’ron’s statement seemingly relate to a rumoured robbery, or attempted robbery, of fellow Dipset member Juelz Santana at a 2008 London show, which may explain his paranoia.
But who were those people climbing out of the audience? Well, hip hop site Ill Will reckons that the leader of the “dumb ass gangstas” was none other than So Solid Crew’s Megaman. And there is seemingly a beef of old at play here, stemming from a 2003 show Megaman promoted where Cam’ron also failed to perform but nonetheless kept hold of the advance paid to him.
Either way, Megaman did confirm on Twitter that he had gone to the show, though said that he had been trying to organise a “sensible meet to clear up past issues”, rather than attempting to stage a 50 man robbery. He added: “F the money, in the sense [that] expecting it back [is] obviously long [gone]. [But] I would never support any US artists that bumps fellow promoters in London”.
So those are the two sides of the story. And here’s how the Metropolitan Police told it: “Police were called to the scene at 10.31 hours on 3 Jun. The Forum staff were cancelling the show and they asked around 1300 people to leave the premises. Some of them became upset and some groups managed to get into the backstage area, but the venue’s security asked them all to leave. Because there were around 40 or 50 males in the backstage area, Forum staff called the police. We attended with a visible presence, but there were no incidents. People were quite happily moving out of the Forum and it was all sorted by 11pm”.
Oh well, at least Cam’ron got to practice his salsa dancing.
