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STORY
How Cam’ron Built a Sports-Media Mini Empire With 'It Is What It Is'
By Frazier Tharpe
When Cam’ron announced, in 2022, that he was launching a sports show, it was a surprising pivot, but one that made a certain kind of sense for the notoriously opinionated Harlem rapper. What really turned heads, shortly after the debut of It Is What It Is, was the appearance of a guest who soon became Cam’ron’s co-host: Mase. The two had grown up playing basketball together in Harlem, but as they rose through the hip-hop world, they famously feuded and stopped speaking for years. As Frazier Tharpe reports in the latest GQ Hype, now they’re beefing again, except this time it’s just two old friends bantering about an outrageous Myles Turner fit, or whether or not the Celtics should have fired Ime Udoka. Occasionally the riffs veer into reflections on their time coming up together. “There’s a lot of shit me and him been through that other people that I’m around may not know,” Cam’ron says. “Me and him remembering a lot of shit that we did [in real time] is super cool.” Sometimes sports talk is a gateway to real talk. —Alex Hoyt, articles editor
Rich Paul’s birthday party just might be the place where it finally goes down. Or so Cam’ron is thinking.
Over the last 14 months, the veteran rapper, 48, has pivoted to an unexpected second act: sports media. These days, instead of finding Cam posted on a Harlem corner or driving down Collins Avenue in Miami with the top down, you can catch him in Las Vegas. That’s where he films his sports show, It Is What It Is,, out of a hotel on the Strip. Five days a week, he comments on the daily happenings in basketball and football with a uniquely Killa spin: no-holds-barred and hilariously, profanely blunt. No player or coach is above reproach, or a roasting, when the situation calls for it. Ruffled feathers are a given, and, as far as Cam is concerned, anyone who feels a way can refer back to the show’s title.
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