Cam’ron’s coup: He raps bad brilliantly. Most MCs get respect for how much they can do — how many rhythmic back flips they land, how nuanced their tales are. From his 1998 debut through his 2002 platinum-plus breakthrough, Cam’ron’s trick has been radically different: He flaunts how little.

Minimalist and obsessive, the 28-year-old thug repeats phrases and sounds, mutating them and shifting meanings. On the great single “Lord You Know,” he compares a hustler’s arrest to the Twin Towers’ collapse: “It wasn’t 9/11, but it was 9-1-1/Gave him nine plus one, dropped a dime on dun/I told him get his .9 and run.”

The song finds sadness in the rub between heavy-hearted synths and R&B singer Jaheim’s pleading hook. Callous MCs such as Cam often use sorrowful beats as emotional prosthetics, backdrops for routine mamapologies. Here, he conveys pain ingeniously: “Hustlin’ is a hassle/ Percoset, Demerol, capsules of Paxil,” he raps, leaving it ambiguous whether he’s pushing antidepressants — or popping them for relief.

Mostly, though, crack gets cooked, bitches give blow jobs, money piles up. Rote stuff, so it’s best when he loses himself in a word buzz, delighting in sound over sense. On “Get ’Em Girls,” he’s a gangsta Ned Flanders: “I’m low-key, low-key/Leave you poky-poky/No Rice-a-Roni/That’s the okey-dokey.” Catchy and hard, it’s like Missy gibberish swathed in 50 Cent menace.

The beats reflect that balance. Some are aggressively insane (“Shake”), others adore pop (the Cyndi Lauper–interpolating “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”). Cam’ron writes pop hooks and avant-garde rhymes while staying as close to the streets as a manhole cover.

DOWNLOAD THESE “Lord You Know,” “Down and Out,” “Shake”