The Dipset isn’t anywhere near as unified as they once were. After a slew of beefs seemingly broke the camp up, Cam’ron claimed he sold Juelz Santana‘s contract to Def Jam for a large sum of money. Now, after a long time between albums, Juelz is opening up about the beef, the contract, the new deal and more.
“I was upset about the part of me being ‘sold for $2 million,'” he told MTV recently. “At times like this, nobody is trying to ‘sell’ me. I could have come out and said, ‘Oh, yeah, Cam got bought out.’ But I didn’t go that route. They just gotta watch me move. We gonna make it hot.”
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It gets worse. According to Juelz, he was heating up guest spots alongside Lil Wayne, as they tried to push their I Can’t Feel My Face LP.
“I’m just gonna say a lot of big records. … I was on a good portion of those records, or asked to be on a good portion of those records that [Lil] Wayne was on — along with him, not like they asked me before they asked him, or vice versa. I know I was on a good portion of those records, ’cause the “I Can’t Feel My Face” thing. We were pushing that hard. People wanted to get both of us. I couldn’t go as far as the clearances. I could do my verse, then it got to the point where I couldn’t go there with people, because I didn’t want them to think that it was me being the bad guy not clearing stuff. I didn’t want that on my name. So, I would let people know, ‘I can’t really. … If you wanna just put it out on the mixtapes, we could do that all day. The fans definitely missed out on a lot of Juelz due to my contract.”
Now, one would think the beef would be full blown. Juelz says the contrary.
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“I have no hard feelings towards Cam. I tell people I couldn’t do business with him. But I will say he gave me the biggest chance I needed. I’m a dude from the ‘hood, so the chance he gave me is a chance I needed to never turn back. I’m good. My artistry, my talent, my career was never built on controversy. So I would never come out and say a whole bunch of things that could be said. All I can say is, I’m sorry he can’t be here to be a part of what’s about to happen, because we’re about to tear ’em up.”
Now, he is trying to build a new crew, The Skull Gang (Street Kids United by Loyalty and Loot, Goons and Niggas Getting It). Expect to hear them on Santana‘s next album, Born to Lose, Built to Win. With this new crew, he also claims that Dipset is not over.
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“The good thing about [my time with Cam]. I got a chance to learn a lot and be around Cam and Jim and watch us, the Diplomats, one of the greatest movements and still one of the greatest movements doing this thing today. I know the ins and outs of what it takes to build a powerful movement. I know the things that got us to the points where we needed to be. Then I know some of the things that was holding us back. I get to work around the things I need to work around. Jim has Byrd Gang, I have the Skull Gang, and Freekey Zekey has 730.”
“It’s no hard feelings, and now that I’m out of my situation, I don’t mind putting a Diplomat album together,” he continues. “All I gotta do is tell my lawyer to handle the business the right way, and the music gets taken care of. I love making music. We all love making music. Me, Jim, Zeke — we all down to do the Diplomat album. You gotta ask Cam what’s up about the Diplomat album when you get him front of this same camera.”
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Juelz also accepts that the crew looks bad in the public eye due to the problems they have had amongst each other.
“At first people kinda looked at us like, ‘Damn, what’s going on?’ They looking at us like we’re disloyal. But as the time went by, it’s kinda like, what we gonna do, just die out because the dude that was supposed to be the boss and the head of the table decided to disappear? That means we would have vanished along with that. We from Harlem, baby. We hustlers. We’re gonna stay afloat. We’re not even floating right now; we’re surfing. We not even surfing; I’m the ocean.”
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The new album won’t be out for some time, but that’s on purpose, according to him.
“I had to let everybody know in the Def Jam building that it was no rush to hand in a single, because now I’m a businessman. There’s nobody to go to when things ain’t right but me. I had to find out a lot of things I didn’t have to find out before. I could let other people handle things for me. I had to let the building know [the business] is where my mind is. There’s a lot more people depending on me. I can’t just be out here as an artist.”
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Expect mixtapes and a solo street CD, The Regan Era before the actual official album, which is currently slated for a 2009 release date.
