SameOldShawn: What was Cam like back then? He is, by the way, the inspiration for Rap Genius

Cipha Sounds: Really? How's that?

SOS: Our founders were talking about, I think, a line in "Family Ties" and what it meant, and that inspired them to build an early version of Rap Genius

CS: Wow. That's crazy

SOS: Yeah, so he's our spiritual godfather

CS: Yeah, Cam was cool. Everybody in Harlem World, they were always around Ma$e -- Blinky Blink and all of them. Cam was always..there was always girls at Lil Kim shows. There were some girls in my room, and Cam was in there. I had no game whatsoever. There'd be girls in my room, and I would be playing with my MPC. I was trying to make beats. And they'd be friends of the girls who were with all the other Junior M.A.F.I.A. guys

SOS: You listeners can't see this, but our cameraman Jason just shook his head forlornly at that part of the story

CS: I had an MPC. I was like, "I'm making beats right now, bitch." Fucking idiot I am

But Cam came to my room once with all these girls and that Harlem flavor. He was just like -- I to this day wish I had game like this -- he was just like, "Yo, why don't you just put your drink down and come over to my room?" And she's like, "No, you probably got a girl." He's like, "I got a lot of girls, you know what I mean? Friends." I was like, yo, this is so crazy

He was a dope rapper. He wrote "Crush On You." Cause "Crush On You" was a Lil Cease solo song on Lil Kim's album. I heard the version with him rapping it all the way through so that Cease could memorize it. And then I heard it on the album, and the song was blowing up, so they had to make it a Kim single. So she had to put a verse on it, cause she wasn't on the original version. He was dope back then

Then when -- what was the song he had with DMX, "Pull It" came out, and the other song "Magnum .357," I already knew them. He had played me the ".357" song way before, and I was already on top of it