THE LENS CRAFTER

Phil Knott Cuts Through The Smoke with Killa’ Cam

Celebrated RESPECT. photographer, Phil Knott, has been in the game for almost two decades. The Brit has captured pioneering images of the culture in a style that is distinctively his own. Color, light, depth, fucking around with digital experimentation of the image … and a one-on-one nature that is truly one-of-a-kind. His mark documenting Hip-Hop is undeniable.

Looking within the RESPECT. archive we dug up this gem from our premiere issue. Take note to this photo that won’t get you contact high, but is “on a higher level.”

Cam’Ron Photo Copyright Phil Knott

 

“He just smokes. You have no choice––it’s either that or you go home. This was a no–choicer, really.”

 

– Phil Knott

The post CAM’RON Classic! Veteran Rap Culture Photographer PHIL KNOTT Made it Go Up In Smoke! appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Location: New York City, NY

 

Photo Copyright Diana Levine

RESPECT.

The post RESPECT. Throwback: Harlem Legend JIM JONES documented by Photo Wiz DIANA LEVINE appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Red Mcfly drops Wavy. Photo Credit: Instagram

WAVY.
Photo Courtesy of Instagram

The post New Music: Red McFly & WorldwideMario Drop Max B Inspired ‘Wavy’ appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

From “Certified Gangsta”

Juelz Santana, Jim Jones, Freekey Zekey, Duke Da God, Hell Rell, Jim Jones and Cam’ron are forever engrained into hip hop culture as Dipset! They were fashionably different, hand their own slang, their own swag and cult following. Some consider them the modern day Wu Tang Clan.

Breaking into the music game, being noticed and being consistent can be tough. Jim Jones began as Cam’ron’s hype man. 

Remember Horse and Carriage? Jimmy was Mr. Me Too!

Appearing on a Mother’s Day edition of the Scoop B Radio Podcast, Nancy Jones, mother of Love & Hip Hop reality star and rapper, Jim Jones, weighed in on Jim and Cam’ron’s relationship being repairable, stating:

“Well you know what that’s on them. I would love for them to get it together and even though a little damage has been done. And if it was left up to me, I honestly would call myself stepping in but you know what? They are two grown men, they’re not young boys anymore. So that’s something where they have to either work it out or don’t work it out and that’s how it is. I hate for it to be like that but sometimes it is what it is.

Check Out Mama Jones and Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson on Scoop B Radio:

Mama Jones recalled the early days:

“I would always tell not only him, but his sisters and all of them it’s always better off having your own because you have no problems or nothing like that. After a while when I saw different things with him and Cam I said to him: ‘now it’s time to stop the things you are doing with him and do you.’ I didn’t know he was going go and rap but I told it was time to stop and do you. You do something great and something that you know where you can make money, because I knew soon as you was born I knew you were a star in my stomach and everything, soon as you were born that was it. I said: ‘oh a star is born.’

She recalled when Jimmy starting his solo career:  

“So one day I was laying in bed then he came home with this record saying, “I’m On My Way To Church” and showed me a $175,000 check,” she told me on Scoop B Radio. “And I said: ‘what the hell?’ 

“And I see him in front of the album and I almost lost my mind. Me and him were in front of the bed and I started jumping on the bed and after that he told me “mommy you inspired me because you told me now it’s time for me to go out and start to do my own.”

Mama Jones said that she learned from her own life experiences that it was better to blaze her own trail and she imparted that wisdom on to her son. “Yeah do your own,” she said.

“It’s nothing like you having your own because when you’re underneath somebody it’s a problem. You know I have a problem with it, I tell you like this I never really held on to a job I always made my own jobs because I can’t take a boss that’s over me telling me what to do, how to do it and the whole nine I’m not good at following directions like that so instead I have to go out and do my own and that’s what I did and that’s what I wanted him to do.”

She also talked about the early days of Mase, Jimmy, and Cam’ron:

“Oh I was very happy for them, I told them to be very careful. There were times they would get into little scraps and stuff like that. And I would have to come between them and tell them to get it together. Whenever they got into their little disputes they would get it together but now everybody is grown up and everybody wants their own. Everybody wants this and that, it’s kind of a little rough it’s kind of a little hard to where I say I’m gonna to control anybody. And I don’t want to control nobody and I got tired of the bickering and carrying on, making yourself look like an ass out there to people on TV or Instagram or on the radio. I don’t even like even with Love and Hip Hop the way they’re carrying on and stuff like that. Even though we started out like that, but when we started out with Love and Hip Hop it wasn’t like it is now Love and Hip Hop. Now, I might as well call it the wrestling ring.”

Despite differences, both Cam’ron and Jim Jones are coming around. Jones recently spoke about he and Cam’ron fractured relationship in February in an interview with Hot 97’s Funkmaster Flex. He was contrite. According to Jones, Cam’ron was the most important member of the group and he protected him at all costs, making sure he was “untouchable.”

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The post Mama Jones on Jim Jones & Cam’ron’s Friendship: “I would love for them to get it together” appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Love and Hip Hop New York‘s Nancy “Mama Jones” & sports and entertainment journalist Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson posing on the runway at NYFW. Photo Credit: Eric Salvary

Yesterday was Mother’s Day. Food, fun, laughter and just being. Celebrating the woman who brought you into this world and how special she is shouldn’t just be one day, however. It should be year round. One mother who has landed into many livingrooms and is the life of the party is Nancy Jones. Better known to the cult following of Love & Hip Hop fans as Mama Jones.

While many know her as the mom of Harlem rapper, Jim Jones, she’s got a story to tell of her own.  At 58 years old, she’s the backbone of her family, confidant and wise soul to many. Your age is how you feel! Let her tell it, she doesn’t feel a day over 21! Oh no I never feel my age,” Mama Jones told me on Scoop B Radio.

Check Out Nancy Mama Jones and Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson on the Scoop B Radio Podcast

 

“I’m 58 and I’m really proud of my age. I thank God I’m still here and alive and I thank God for allowing me to have this nice little slim figure I’ve had since I was younger. And I thank God He made me not a bad looking girl. So, I’m satisfied, I don’t need to get any plastic surgery. I like me just the way that I am, trust me.”

Checking in on the Scoop B Radio Podcast, Mama Jones also discussed how both appearing on Love & Hip Hop and her outgoing personality chaged her life. “Love and Hip Hop changed my life really nice and beautifully,” she said. “I can say that they gave me an opportunity for me to act and carry on and branch out and do other things than just being a reality TV star. I don’t consider myself that but that’s what my daughters say. It’s kind of hard because I still go out a lot of times by myself and my son gets very upset.”

Apparently, her popularity has gotten so big, she got a grand announcement on the loudspeaker at a local grocery store: “One time when I went in there somebody said: Mama Jones has now entered Shoprite,” she said. 

“I ended up leaving all of my groceries and everything because people were shocked when we came in there. I’m stopping to say hello to people and take pictures, but when they said that I said: I gotta go now’ and I had to leave because everybody was coming at me thinking they were getting pictures and stuff like that. But I know who the young man that said it is and he didn’t mean no harm. He was just excited that we came in there. I had to tell him: you can’t do that, that’s not nice that’s a little dangerous there. But you know, it changed our lives a little bit even for my kids even though they might not be on TV. With me putting pictures on Instagram, with my family when they walk the street people tell them I seen you on Mama Jones’ Instagram. So it changed us to where we have to be more aware especially going out into the street, that’s about it. I’m not saying somebody’s coming to harm us but you never know.”

Aside from being the life of the party and on reality television, Mama Jones has a career of her own. She owns  a set of women’s fragrance lines: Pum Kash and Pique’ Miami. She also has a men’s cologne called Touché’. Mama Jones tried her hand at a men and women’s fashion and she also put out music of her own.

Say what? Momma Jones rhyming? 

Mama Jones credits Chrissy Lampkin, longtime girlfriend to her son, Jim Jones to encouraging her to do it, well; sorta!  “Chrissy inspired me on that one,” she said. “When she called me a psychotic bitch, when she texted me, I said: ‘okay now I’m going to show you how psychotic I really am.’ “And that’s exactly what I did, I went and made that song. It wasn’t just for her only it was for my son too he had to catch himself and get her in order, get her in check.”

While she’s joking about Chrissy in this instance, many perceive that both Mama Jones and Chrissy don’t get along, a myth she debunked on Scoop B Radio. So why do they clash so much?

“She feels like my son is too much of a momma’s boy and she feels like I spoil my son. But I told her: listen hey, he came out of my pum-pum no matter how old they get they’re still my child and no matter what I’m still going to spoil them all. People think that we hate each other but we don’t hate each other she just gets mad because of that. But we do have a great time we have a good time, you know a lot of people don’t understand. They only see what they see and that’s because she brings that out there and this way people are getting it all wrong it’s not that, it’s nothing wrong. We do have good times.”

Aside from all of that, Mama Jones is looking forward to the new season of Chrissy and Jimmy.

“I don’t even know what to expect myself,” she said. “But they have me going on the boot camp you know that right? The first show is family boot camp. Chrissy does things and she thinks I really hate her. “But I don’t hate her. You know I have some love there for her but she always tells everybody that I’m messing with her and this and that but I don’t mess with that girl but anyway, it’s gonna be a goodie.”

Stay tuned! 

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The post Scoop B: Nancy Mama Jones Discusses How Love & Hip Hop Changed Her Life appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Yesterday, ESPN and Kobe Bryant debuted Canvas, a new content initiative, one of six short video presentations focused on an NBA on-court topic through the eyes of Kobe Bryant.

“Guarding The Greats,” the first of the series debuted on ESPN’s NBA COUNTDOWN. Countdown’s cast of Michelle Beadle, Earvin “Magic Johnson,” Jalen Rose and Chauncey Billups provided analysis on the topic during the show. Bryant serves as creator, director and writer of the show and provides voiceovers.

Rapper Juelz Santana is an admirer of Bryant from afar despite growing up a Knicks fan. The Harlem lyricist who’s assortment of jerseys and Jeff Hamilton jackets that he and fellow Dipset members Cam’ron, Hell Rell, Freekey Zekey and Jim Jones sported in videos like ‘Oh Boy’ and ‘Hey Ma’ in the early 2000s may suggest that Bryant may get a pass.

Check Out Juelz Santana checking In With Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson on Scoop B Radio

“I wasn’t a fan of Kobe, but not in a bad way,” Juelz Santana told me by phone on Scoop B Radio. “But he demanded my respect. You couldn’t hate on him. no matter what. You know that guy that you may not like, but you can’t say nothin’ bad about him? That’s what Kobe was to me. I was a big Jordan fan and everybody always said he was better than Jordan, so that was my whole dilemma with not being a Kobe fan.”

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The post Juelz Santana On Kobe Bryant: “He Demanded My Respect” appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Dipset’s own, Cam’ron and Juelz Santana surprised us, dropping a collaborative track entitled “Oh Yeah,” produced by Trigga T.

The beat already gives you the classic feel that these New York guys use to deliver back in the day. Juelz has been pretty low in the rap game, which spread some noise about him maybe retiring from it. The Harlem boy finally comes out to the world, dropping a smooth verse at the end of the new track.  It was reported a couple of days ago, Santana had lost his home to foreclosure in New Jersey, but it’ s not stopping him from giving his fans some new music ahead. Rapper, Cam’ron also throws in a little humor as he use’s a quote from Birdman‘s Power 105 interview.

Will this be the start to a possible reunion that Dipset fans have been waiting for? People hope so! Be sure to check out Cam’ron at the Smoker’s Club Tour, where Cam will be headlining. It starts May 31st in Vancouver, B.C. and ends July 14th in Norfolk, Virginia.

check the new track out below:

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The post Cam’ron and Juelz Santana Drop “Oh Yeah” [LISTEN] appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.