Cam’ron has given some insight into the real reason why Juelz Santana and Lil Wayne‘s long-awaited collaborative album I Can’t Feel My Face never saw the light of day.
In the mid-2000s, Juelz and Weezy had fans in a frenzy with reports of a joint album on the horizon – but nothing came to light. There ended up being a version of the album that leaked online, and there was very little fanfare compared to what there could have been had the project got a full release.
During the latest episode of his Talk With Flee show that aired on Tuesday (February 11), Killa addressed the ongoing narrative that he’d blocked the effort from coming out – though he did admit it was “when we wasn’t all on the same page.”
“Lil Wayne wasn’t the super superstar,” the Dipset rapper began. “He was a star, but remember Lil Wayne emerged into a superstar after Tha Carter [albums] and ‘A Milli’ and all that shit. So [Wayne] didn’t put out his first album yet [at this point.]”
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Cam continued: “So Juelz and Lil Wayne had a project. Def Jam is under Universal, which Lil Wayne was signed to. So when they wanted to put this project out, Universal told Def Jam, ‘Well Lil Wayne still didn’t give us his album yet so if y’all wanna put this project out, we’re taking 95% and Def Jam, y’all could take 5%.’ And so Steve Garley – shout to Steve Garley. He’s now the head lawyer for Universal [and] at the time he was the head lawyer for Def Jam. And we still good to this day.
“We had a joint venture deal with Def Jam so if that project came out that means that Def Jam would get 2.5 percent of the album and me and Juelz would get 2.5 percent of the album. And they said, ‘Cam, we love you and all that – but we’re not doing that. We can’t do that.’
“And they was more on that tip because Lil Wayne didn’t even hand in his project yet. So they like, ‘How we gonna okay the Juelz and Wayne project if Lil Wayne didn’t even hand in his project? Maybe we can revisit it after Lil Wayne’s project comes out but until then, no.'”
He concluded, “So, Steve Garley and Def Jam at the particular time didn’t okay it – but I get the blame.”
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The convo happens around the 33-minute mark below.
It’s to be noted that Lil Wayne released Tha Carter in 2004, which was his fourth studio album. The platinum-selling Tha Carter II followed a year and a half later in late 2005.
He and Juelz started teasing a joint project around 2005/2006, so at minimum Weezy was four albums in by that point – if not five. However, Cam’ron may have slightly misremembered the timeline and the label may have been waiting on a specific project that they’d not yet received.
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In a November 2022 interview with VLAD TV, Juelz addressed the project as well and blamed its lack of release on “politics” – which sounds essentially like what Cam was saying.
“Me and Wayne, just like normal, we did a bunch of records together,” Juelz explained. “A project worth got leaked. About 20 records did get leaked out there, which is the I Can’t Feel My Face you see. Politics wise, we didn’t get to put the album out on a major label because there was too much politics at the time, and you had Def Jam, Universal, Cash Money and Diplomats, you know what I’m saying?
“Four different entities that had to come upon an agreement and come under one accord to push a project. As you see, Wayne was supposed to drop an album with T-Pain, the T-Wayne album. That album never came out. Just so you know, it wasn’t a Juelz and Wayne [situation].”
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He added: “That time, like the way you get projects now from big artists, you didn’t get back in the day around our time because it was so much involved for you to get that. It was never about the artists, we were cool, and we was making music together. It was way bigger than us. We didn’t have the end-all control. See, now it’s a lot less. That’s why you can have a Durk and Lil Baby, you can have Drake and Future.”
