Just when we needed them least

This Dipset reunion seems to be going just like the first time around: no one seems to give a shit except for a few random people on the Internets.

I know Dipset was supposedly big in New York. Dallas Penn wrote about it on a number of occasions, possibly in a series of senior moments. (FWIW sometimes I write a post, then realize I already wrote it like two years ago, then I publish it anyway.) But I was out in New York a couple of times back in the mid aughts, and I don't recall hearing any Dipset at all period. All I ever heard was godawful reggae music, blasting from every car radio, boombox and what have you. You must hear way more reggae in New York than you do actual Caribbean countries. Down in the islands, at least the safe parts, all you ever hear is "The Tide Is High" by Blondie and "Girl I'm Gonna Make You Sweat," or whatever it's called. One time, I must have been in New York during the absolute height of that song "Welcome to Jamrock" by one of Bob Marley's suspect children. It was horrible.

It could be that Dipset was more of an early '00s phenomenon, which was already over by the time I could have witnessed it up close and personal. No homo. It could very well be the case that Jim Jones at the height of his popularity, circa "We Fly High," was way more popular than Dipset back when they were putting out a string of popular mixtapes and amusing people on the Internets with their homoerotic behavior masked as conspicuous consumption and homophobia. At any rate, I suspect that if Jim Jones were anywhere near as popular today as he was back in '06 or whatever, there wouldn't be any Dipset reunion to speak of. It's possible that I documented the whole thing here and on my own site, but as of right now I couldn't tell you why Cam'ron and Jim Jones had a falling out. In general, it must have had to do with Jim Jones thinking he could make a lot more money without Cam'ron weighing him down.

Come to think of it, a lot of what I've written about Dipset in general and Cam'ron in particular has been conjecture - even more so than the rest of the BS I write here. But that's because Cam'ron remains somewhat of an enigma: he disappears for months, if not years at a time; he doesn't do a whole lot of press, even when he's got something to promote; and you can never tell what the fuck he's talking about when he's rapping, except that it probably has to do with drugs, money and disrespecting women. It was around the time he disappeared for like six months, right when a beef he had with Jay-Z or somebody was starting to get traction, that it occurred to me that Cam'ron must spend a significant amount of time sitting around in his underwear, in a dark room watching Woody Allen movies, including Vicky Christina Barcelona, arguably the best movie of all time, of ALL TIME (and I'm not one of these people who thinks everything he does is brilliant). It all became clear to me when I heard that he was working on his own version of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Whatever went wrong between Jim Jones and Cam'ron, it couldn't have been that bad, if they decided to forget all about it as soon as they didn't have any choice in the matter. I can't help but see this as part of the same trend in which Jay-Z "brings out" 50 Cent at his ridonkulously expensive concert with Eminem at Yankee Stadium, and Fiddy claims he and Kanye are thinking about going out on tour with one another, rather than lobbing insults at one another, and scheduling their albums to come out the same day, in hopes of ruining each other's first week sales. I guess that's no longer an option for Fiddy, now that he realizes that no one really liked his music in the first place. If he's gonna win any competition, it's gonna be on the basis of exhibiting anti-social behavior. Cam and Jimmy at least made that song going at Kanye, over the "Let's Have a Toast to the Douchebags" beat - but even that seems like something they came up with out of desperation. I think there was another Dipset song this summer, with no one famous being insulted, but no one noticed. I've listened to "Toast" - Cam and Jimmy's version of "Douchebags" - as many as four times now, just because it's always fascinating to heat and actual rapper rapping over Kanye West production. (Obviously I'm referring only to the Cam'ron part of "Toast.") It took me back to the days of "Down and Out." If nothing else comes of this Dipset reunion, Cam'ron ought to consider recording his own versions of every song on Dark Twisted Fantasy. It might be the only way he can get anyone to give a shit, at this point.