Dame Dash Reveals The True Story Behind Cam’ron 2005 Near Death Shooting

Dame Dash appeared in an interview and recalled the untold story behind the near-fatal attack on Dipset’s Cam’ron in 2005 in Washington, DC.  

While being interviewed on Showtime’s “All the Smoke podcast, Dame revealed that Cam’ron was shot in 2005 in our nation’s capital because of his role of “Rico” which was a character based on real-life drug kingpin, Albert “Alpo” Martinez. Dame Dash was the executive producer of the film.

Camron was in DC for a Howard University homecoming event when, according to police, he was shot three times while at a stoplight driving a pricey 2006 royal blue Lamborghini sportscar and wearing hundreds of thousands in jewelry.  He sustained wounds to both arms and managed to drive himself to the hospital. 

Dame gave the background, on the shooting, explaining that it was Cam’s role in Paid In Full that made him a target.

“Cam went through a lot, you know he got shot over that role in Washington,” Dame revealed. “Yeah, that was over that. He’s never told his story, but there was times I hadn’t really realized what happened I was asking him to do another role once and he was like ‘yo bro I got shot over that role”. 

The movie Paid in Full has become a cultural classic film, as well as an iconic story amongst the hip hop community. Based on a true story, it chronicles the lives of fictional characters, Ace, Mitch, and the aforementioned Rico who provide a cautionary tale of their rise to drug dealing supremacy in Harlem in the 1980s. The inspiration for the movie was the real-life story of drug kingpins Azie Faison, Rich Porter, and “Alpo” Martinez who grew up as friends and later business partners managing a multi-million dollar drug empire during the 80s crack era in NYC. 

In real life, Fason was robbed, shot in the face, and left for dead in a robbery which led to him leaving the crack business immediately. Martinez and Porter resumed business which sadly led to Martinez murdering his best friend Rich Porter over the details of a drug deal, moving to Washington DC to sell more drugs, and eventually becoming a government informant to avoid the death penalty after being caught. Martinez was released from prison in 2015 after serving a 35-year sentence, and after leaving the witness protection program was slain in Harlem on October 31st, 2021. In 2020, Cam’ron announced that he was in talks about releasing a sequel to the iconic street flick.