Camu Tao

Who was Camu Tao?

Camu Tao was an American rapper and producer who was signed to the Definitive Jux label. He was a member of several groups: S.A. Smash, the underground hiphop supergroup Weathermen, Central Services, and the music collective Cardboard City.

He was also part of Columbus, Ohio's MHz crew with Copywrite, RJD2, Jakki Tha MotaMouth & Tage Proto. Partnering with Cage to form The Nighthawks, the two crafted an album during a single-three day creative session.

Smith died on May 25, 2008, after a two-year battle with lung cancer. At the time of his death, he was producing a song for Cage's I Never Knew You EP and working on his first solo for Definitive Jux. On July 9, 2009, El-P announced via Twitter that the album, King of Hearts, was finished, and would be released on October 20, 2009. King of Hearts was released on August 17, 2010 by Definitive Jux in collaboration with Fat Possum Records along with a free download EP from Central Services. About the album, El-P said:

We all expected to get Camu in the studio and go as far as he wanted to go with the record. The songs are bare, but then again a lot of them are just what he wanted. A lot of them wouldn’t have changed much. Knowing Camu, he had a lot of talented musician friends he would have liked to have collaborated and have involved. I do think the album would have been different had he lived to complete it.