Cam’ron Discusses The Importance Of Rucker Park, LeBron James And His New Emoji App Coming Out

Photo Credit: Joshua Scott

Cam'ron was in attendance Monday night (Aug. 11)  at the famous Rucker Park in Harlem for the game between the EBC Rucker Park All-Stars Vs. the standouts from the Reebok Classic Breakout Camp. Along with Cam'ron, Philadelphia 76ers' Nerlens Noel and the Big Daddy Diesel, Shaquille O'Neal showed up to support the bright young talent that would hit the court for the special event that night.

Cam took some time from his busy schedule at the Rucker to sit down with XXL and give us his take on the Entertainers Basketball Classic, LeBron's return to the Cleveland Cavaliers, his new emoji app coming out, and the potential talks of a fight between him and Bernard Hopkins.—Roger Krastz

XXL: Being from Harlem, tell me about the importance of the Rucker Park when you were growing up?
Cam'ron: I mean its dope man. I'm from 140th and Lenox. So me coming over here to 8th Ave to play, I got to meet new people, see new faces. This is where the legends played at. Way before I played here, Dr. J, Earl Monroe, Speedy, Master Rob, Future, and a bunch of greats that I used to love to watch growing up hit this court. Then I got a chance to play here, so it was dope. But for them to continue to be successful throwing the tournament I'm very proud of it, and it's very good for Harlem.

If you could choose a NBA squad of current players to coach here at the Rucker, what 5 players would you choose?
I would have Kyrie Irving at the point. Definitely Kevin Durant as a small forward. I would probably put Dwight Howard as my center. My two guard would be James Harden, and of course my fifth player would be LeBron James.

How did you feel about LeBron's decision to go back home and play for the Cavs?
I think it's dope man. I think he always wanted to go home. He never wanted to leave. It's just a lot of stuff that people don't talk about that I'm not scared to say. You got to realize somebody was allegedly boning his mother and people on the team knew, and nobody told him, so he wanted to leave.  Nobody on the team from 2009 when he was there is still on the Cavs [now]. No one from the players or the coaching staff. I think he felt betrayed. They didn't tell him everything that was going on, so he wanted to get away from it.

If they were to make a movie about the you and JuJu's life, what actor and actress would you want playing the roles? and what would you name the movie?
To be honest I think we would play ourselves. It ain't like we mad old, or we met each other when we were 10 or 11 years old. We met each other when we were pretty much adults. I can act, she can act, so we would play ourselves in the movie, and the name of the flick would be "I-95." She from Miami, and I'm from New York, so I-95 ends in Miami.

I hear you've been working on an Emoji app. When can we expect that?
They are working on illustrations right now, I believe they said its set to drop at the end of October. Once the illustrations get done and when the new iPhone and Andriod software drops it will probably be available.

Is this fight between you and Bernard Hopkins actually going to happen?
At the beginning he wanted to do it, but then he turned me down. He's still the champion and people still have to come and fight him in his weight division, so I don't think it will happen any time soon because he's the champ. If he wasn't the champ, and he lost his last couple of fights, I think he would probably do it. When I wanted to do that it wasn't disrespecting Bernard Hopkins. I've been watching him fight for 10-15 years. I've never even seen him in trouble. I've never even seen him bleeding or anything like that, so I just felt he should be making more money. I was watching his last fight in D.C. It was almost an empty crowd and he's not doing PPV. So I'm like, if he fight me he's going to get PPV and potentially a 50 million dollar pay out. It wasn't that I was trying to disrespect him. I was just looking at the money potential, but I wasn't going to be there to lose neither.