Three The Hard Way (pause)

Time flies especially when one of your aliases is "The Fly Boys." It's been 10 years since the Cam'ron, Jim Jones, Juelz Santana and the rest of that "hooligan gang" the Diplomats (a collective of Harlem hustlers and goons) released their double disc effort, Diplomatic Immunity. Since then they've gone through more then their fair share of label drama, beefs, break ups and make ups. To celebrate the fact that they were able survive the turbulent rap game, they are commemorating the 10 year anniversary of Diplomatic Immunity with a concert tonight at B.B. King.

Of course such an event deserves some shine so we compiled a list of their best songs as a group. No solo spots, just songs where at least two of the three star players rocked out together. Say it with us now... DIP SET! DIP SET! DIP SET! Owwwwwww!

See also: Live: Dipset Brings Pandemonium To The Best Buy Theater

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YOU MAAAAAD!

Best known as the balls behind Brooklyn's infamous after hours party The Shank, Lou Galluch (a.k.a. Bury Me In Brooklyn) may have flown a tad too close to the sun with his New Year's Eve plans this year. Rather than throw one of his usual $10 dirty warehouse after hours jams, he thought big: who would bring out a ton of people with money to spend? After consulting with friends who work on large branding events around the city, he settled on Cam'ron. His friends "told me that they would middle man the deal," he explains.

Things went sideways.

See also:
- Watch A Cam'ron Question Cause Three Contestants To Get Lost On Jeopardy!
- Juelz Santana on His New Album: "It's Time To Follow the Leader Again"

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Cam'ron w/Flatbush Zombies, Asaad, Reese
The Well
Saturday, July 14

Better than: The Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival.

Mark July 14 on your calendar as another historic date in New York hip-hop's current growth spurt. On this day, people from all corners of the city gathered in a semi-legal warehouse yard in Bushwick to witness what few could believe: King Jaffi Joe/Young Flea/Rico/Killa Cam himself was to take the stage for the first installment of the brilliantly titled "Whippin' Work" concert series, performing alongside buzzing upstarts Flatbush Zombies, Reese and Asaad. Folks arrived as early as 4 p.m. to ensure prime real estate for this rare occurrence, and a heavy cloud of dank hung over the yard despite bouncers searching hats, wallets, and shoes TSA-style at the door.

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Drake w/ J. Cole, Waka Flocka Flame, Meek Mill, 2 Chainz, French Montana
Nikon Theater at Jones Beach
Saturday, June 16

Better than: That other suburban rap mega-show.

Well over halfway through his set, having already given the crowd a festival's worth of openers and played everything but his biggest hits, Drake turned to the crowd: "New York, let me show you how much I love you." Four hours in, his Club Paradise tour had bridged the gap not only between openers Waka Flocka Flame and J. Cole or genres like rap and R&B, but also across a wide range of demographics, seating spoiled 16-year-olds rocking "Self Made" tees side-by-side with old-school heads who first heard surprise guest Busta Rhymes on "Scenario," and not "Look at Me Now." But regardless of that, Drake was right: The show's most exciting moments were still yet to come.

At concerts like this, all those demographics share a desire to believe that their performance is particularly special, realer than all the others and put on just for them. Drake, once awkward in these settings, now knows better than to spoil the fun, spending a long ten minutes moving through the crowd singling out the girl 300 feet away in the red tank top and the couple in matching YOLO hats, but as he spun across the stage to the descending piano chords that anchor "Take Care" or called upon The Weeknd's Abel Tesfaye for some unexpected crew love, it was hard to believe that audiences in Akron or Saratoga saw the same thing.

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In honor of today being 4/20—every smoker's favorite day of the year—SOTC has compiled the 25 Best Rap Songs relating to weed. Though some may be more about bud than others, all are guaranteed to make your high all the more enjoyable. Be forewarned, though... this list doesn't have any happy hippy weed music—this is straight thugged-out entertainment. Locate your lighters.

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Since the days of Wild Style and Krush Groove, rappers have put their music on hold and delved into the film world. A bunch of these efforts were pretty bad—remember Ice-T in Leprechaun in the Hood—while others were so bad they were good. Cam crying in Killa Season or KRS fleeing the scene without a word in Who's The Man? had some unintentional comedy, as did DMX trying to explain to Nas what our purpose on earth is ("Shorty can't eat no books!") in Belly. And then there were the ones that were actually straight-up good.

The 18 films that follow didn't get much in the way of Oscar recognition, but if cinema is meant to entertain, well, they do that and then some.

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Thanks to Voice pal Mr. Eddie Huang, we came across the above clip of some Jeopardy! contestants who have apparently never seen the video for "Killa Cam." When supplied with the answer "Rapper Cam'ron had a pink one of these alliterative super-SUV's, but sold it as it got too much attention," the three hopefuls stared blankly at Jeopardy host Alex Trebek, who looked a little disappointed that no one knew how to reply to his query. (Trebek: Closet Diplomats fan? Or just irritated that nobody figured out the only SUV out there with an alliterative name is the Range Rover?) While this isn't the best "Unexpected Cam'ron appearance on national television" moment, it's definitely going to make it into the top five. A clip from the video featuring the pink Range after the jump.

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The Diplomats & Vado
Best Buy Theater
Friday, September 30

Better than: Waiting for the next big NYC hip-hop collective to appear.

"It ain't over! Fuck y'all talkin' about?" Cam'ron emphatically declared at one point during Friday night's celebration of the Diplomats' debut Diplomatic Immunity. He was right. The Diplomats—Cam, Jim Jones, Juelz Santana and Freekey Zekey—have managed to reign as one of NYC's definitive hip-hop groups, despite in-fighting and a relatively limited body of work.

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Hot 97 Summer Jam
New Meadowlands Stadium
Sunday, June 5

Better than: Sitting at home and moping like 50 Cent.

Rick Ross closed out Summer Jam.

Just so there's no revisionist history here, let's remember how incredible that statement is. Three years ago, Ross was the punching bag of hip-hop, the laughingstock of the streets. After recording countless verses that fetishized Tony Montana fantasies, someone pinched him—Ross' cartoonish thought bubble vanished into thin air, and he was rudely snapped back to reality. He wasn't a druglord superhero; he was William Roberts, a grown man playing dress-up, a former correctional officer who wanted to be a rapper so badly that he rewrote his personal history. Two years ago, he wasn't being played on New York radio.

And here, onstage at Giants Stadium, was Rick Ross—his chest puffed out, his black-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt open wide but still somehow stretching tight—cheered on by fifty thousand strong. They welcomed his street anthem, "B.M.F.," chanting a chorus and cadence that, in various incarnations, has blasted out of car windows on 125th ever since it came out last summer: "I think I'm Big Meech, Larry Hoover." Rick Ross can make up a lot of things, but even he couldn't make this up.

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This next joint is getting lit for a tradition in hip-hop long since passed--not Iceberg sweaters, but album skits. There've been so many awful ones that the handful of good ones weren't enough to keep them from going to hell in a backpack. But a few were incredibly vivid--and funny. Of course, it helped if the rapper performing them sounded cool saying pretty much anything, a la Ghostface Killah ("It feel hot at night..."). Or they were performed by Dave Chappelle, who Talib Kweli brought on board to imitate Nelson Mandela.

As you read on, you'll realize that three out of the 10 skits collected here are Wu-Tang related. To anyone tempted to complain about that, I say: Fuck off. I'm from the Wally era.

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