With A-Trak and Harlem rapper Cam’ron’s Federal Reserve EP due out in the near future, the Canadian deejay spoke with Vlad TV about how the idea for the project with Cam came about.
According to A-Trak, he and Cam’ron initially planned on working together for one song, but he says that idea eventually snowballed into something bigger. He added that in the age of the internet, there isn’t anything enthralling about two artists coming together for only one collaboration.
“It came together pretty organically, pretty easily too,” A-Trak said. “I started last fall. I just had an idea to make a song with him at first. It’s as simple as like—I remember I was talking to my team back in New York and we were just sorta thinking ‘I’ve got these beats. Let me see what kind of guests I would get on em.’ I wanted to do something with Cam and it went from an idea of doing one song to immediately talking about a full project. Like as soon as we connected. I hit up Dame, and me, Dame, and Cam we just linked up. And I played them—I played Cam some beats. And there was enough stuff that he liked right away where he was comfortable. Where he was like ‘Alright, I can work with this guy’…There’s nothing surprising about one collaboration appearing on the internet. We were more like ‘Let’s make this something actually tangible. Something more complete. That we can curate and maybe even do some shows around it. And this and that.’”
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A-Trak later commended the Dipset rapper for his hospitality while they recorded Federal Reserve at Cam’s home studio. He says that at one point, Cam’ron would take time to cook shrimp and pork chops in between recording songs.
“The way that Cam and I work is I just go to his crib and he records there,” he said. “He’s got a studio at his crib and his engineer is just there. And the guy happens to be a good host. And he enjoys cooking. So, there was one day in particular where we showed up and he just—he picked up a couple different kinds of meat and shrimp and this and that. Like ‘I’m gonna cook today.’ He would do one song and then be like ‘Alright, let me go cook up these pork chops.’ And then everybody would eat a little bit. And then he would record another joint. He records pretty fast. And then he’d be like ‘Alright, let me fire up this shrimp real quick.’ And then go back to recording.”
In the interview, which was published today (May 13), A-Trak revealed that Federal Reserve is 90 percent done and should be complete within the next couple of days. He also shared the details of his show with Cam’ron in New York City on May 31.
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Both Cam’ron and A-Trak appeared on the cover of Complex magazine weeks ago, and discussed their work together in a feature story. In the Complex interview, Cam recalled being unfamiliar with A-Trak’s music before being introduced to it months ago.
“This is something brand-new to me,” he said. “I didn’t even know nothing about this world or this culture. [Miss Info] mentioned he was one of the biggest people to do it. So when Dame called me and said we should do an EP together, I was like, ‘Let’s do it. Sounds good.'”
