Parisian hip-hop devotee Laurent Daumail is one of a few but growing number… Read Full Bio ↴Parisian hip-hop devotee Laurent Daumail is one of a few but growing number of French artists updating hip-hop for the chill-out crowd, drawing on the beats'n'samples groundwork of producers such as Rakim, DJ Premier, and Prince Paul and combining it with broad, impressionistic strokes of dub, jazz, and soundtrack-y ambience. Like countrymen the Mighty Bop and la Funk Mob, Cam is stylistically closest to Mo'Wax artists such as DJ Shadow and DJ Krush; minimalist, downbeat instrumental hip-hop built from obscure samples and stomp-box turntable accompaniment, bent and twisted into new, artfully arranged compositions.

His debut, 1994's Underground Vibes, was released on the tiny French label Street Jazz and was followed by a live recording for the Inflammable imprint (one of only a few "live" recordings in a genre so reliant on the temporal concessions of the recording studio). Dubbed Underground Live, the album featured performed extrapolations of many of the tracks from his debut, as well as a few new and improvised tracks. Now nearly impossible to find, those first two albums were reissued in America by Shadow Records, packaged together as the single-CD priced Mad Blunted Jazz (particularly useful since acquiring both on import could run more than 50 dollars!).

Although Cam's music has found little acceptance in his home country, audiences in the U.K., Japan, and America have begun picking up on his style. In 1996 Cam was featured on, among many others, the sprawling Mo'Wax compilation Headz 2, remixed tracks for such artists as Tek 9 and la Funk Mob, and most recently collaborated on live and in-studio projects with Snooze and DJ Krush (he co-wrote a few tracks on the latter's 1997 Mo'Wax release, Mi Sound). Cam released Substances on Inflammable in 1997. The next year, his major-label debut, The Beat Assassinated, appeared on Columbia Records. In 2000, he released a three-volume series named The Loa Project. Cam dropped HoneyMoon, a smooth mix album that combined jazz and underground hip hop, at the close of 2001.

Intro
DJ Cam Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

es fanatica de lo sensual
ella tiene una foto mia
y ya me la puedo imaginar
lo que hace cuando esta solita
pero no le voy a preguntar
escucho su voz cuando se agita
por su manera de respirar
puedo imaginarme lo que edta haciendo

Overall Meaning

The lyrics to DJ Cam's "Intro" are in Spanish and translate to "she is a fan of the sensual, she has a photo of me, and I can already imagine what she does when she is alone, but I'm not going to ask her. I hear her voice when she gets excited, by the way she breathes, I can imagine what she is doing."

The lyrics describe the singer's desire for a woman who is sexually adventurous and how he is turned on by the thought of her being alone and using a photo of him to pleasure herself. However, he is restrained and chooses not to ask her about her actions. The way he describes the sound of her breathing and the tone of her voice suggests that he is intimately connected with her and knows her well, but still chooses to keep a respectful distance.

Line by Line Meaning

es fanatica de lo sensual
She is obsessed with sensuality

ella tiene una foto mia
She has a photo of me

y ya me la puedo imaginar
And I can already envision what she does when she's alone

lo que hace cuando esta solita
What she does when she's by herself

pero no le voy a preguntar
But I won't ask her

escucho su voz cuando se agita
I hear her voice when she's aroused

por su manera de respirar
From the way she breathes

puedo imaginarme lo que esta haciendo
I can imagine what she's doing

Contributed by Adeline H. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

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