Jim Jones Discusses Beef With Cam'ron

By: Yves Erwin Salomon

The Diplomats'Jim Jones recently addressed the ongoing beef that he's had with Diplomats founder Cam'ron. On the set of the video for the remix of Yung Berg's "Sexy Lady," Jones finally opened up about what's been going on. He told MTV.com, "We going through our little differences and things like that. When you come up in this game, loyal to a (fault), you look to certain people to always take care of you above and beyond, because you'd do the same thing for them. And, of course, there's a lot of money at stake here. And no matter what anyone tells you, when money comes into play, people do change in certain ways and things like that. Because we didn't grow up with this type of money we playing with now, so it's only (normal) that you're gonna change in some aspect. But for us, loyalty is everything, and when you break that code of honor a little bit, it tends to make the water rough."

Jones added, "I opted to go back to the dock and start building my own boat. So I could go out and fish for myself, you know what I mean? There's still a fleet of Diplomat boats and when the time comes we'll all get on it and we'll go out and fish again. But right now, I'm my own fisherman... There was a little disruption going on in there, but it's still Diplomats by all means."

Jones has launched his own Byrd Gang label through Asylum Records and will be releasing projects by the late Stack Bundles and Max B in the coming months.

The rapper also made it clear that the beef with Cam'ron is an internal family issue. He said, "It's about two brothers feuding, and brothers do feud, you can't take that (away). I know brothers that go through it tremendously, even scrap. You know the media always look for something to pick on. The Diplomats been running for a hell of a long time. We going on 11 years right now, and yes, I know if you seen me and Cam, wherever you seen Cam, you seen Jim Jones and things like that. But like I said, everybody gets older and sometimes best friends do grow apart as the time goes on, but you never know what could happen. We might just pop up together and slap fire out of one of you. So don't ever forget that. What I can do, what me and Cam could do, toward each other, you punks can't do."

As far as the Diplomats'beefs with Jay-Z, Nas and 50 Cent, Jones shared that he'd be willing to work with anybody except Jay-Z. The rapper explained, "I would love to do a song with Fif. I told people I'm a businessman. At the end of the day, you never say never because you don't make your decisions, God does. I know there's a lot of grudges, I know there's a lot of gripes out there. There's probably one person I wouldn't do a song with, and that's probably Jay(-Z). I really ain't got no taste for that right there. That's not my side of the fence and that's not my speed. ... (However, if you other MCs) want to lock it, holler at me. We could lock in together, we could do a song dissing each other, we could do a song that's getting money, we could do whatever. I'm with it. You can bring your crew, I can bring my crew, we'll lock in the studio. That goes for 50, that goes for Nas, that goes for anybody."