Question: In a time when beef and braggadocio run rampant in hip-hop wouldn’t it be uplifting for a new jack to blow a fresh breath of smoked-filled air into the game? Wouldn’t you appreciate a young blood eager to spit about realities and an everyday grind, rather than constant boasting?

Enter Juelz Santana.

OK, so Juelz, born LaRon James, isn’t completely wet behind the ears. Yes, he has benefited from a lesson or two already learned the tough way from his experiences in the rap industry. But even with his mainstream and mixtape successes - including recording, touring and shooting videos with Cam’ron’s crew The Diplomats - young Juelz is just now releasing his much-anticipated Diplomats/Roc-A-Fella solo debut, From Me To U, giving his fans their first opportunity to plunge into the realities and livelihood of the 19-year-old lyricist.

Growing up in Uptown Manhattan Juelz played a similar role to many Harlem teens, “hanging in the streets, hustling, doing everything I wasn’t supposed to be doing,” tells Juelz. “But I knew I wanted to change my life and could do it with music.” At 15 Juelz put together the group Draft Pick with a neighborhood friend. The duo was picked up by Priority Records, but it wasn’t long until Santana was introduced through his cousin to fellow Harlem rapper Cam’ron. “Cam didn’t even know he was gonna meet me,” Juelz remembers. “He was sleeping. So we wake him up and do the introductions and Cam t ells me to spit for him and his reaction wasn’t like it was hotŠhe was sleeping.”

If Cam’ron seemed knocked out at the two’s first meeting he must not have been in dreamland because a week later Cam called his future protégé and asked him to roll through the studio. “I wasn’t really that excited when he called because I had been through some of this before. My heart was cold in the music game at this point and things were hard. A lot of people had told me to come down to the studio before but I never really got that feeling like this was it.”

Little did Juelz know that this, in fact, was it.

Soon after that studio session things began to fall into place for the budding MC. His first big move was an appearance on “Double Up” off of Cam’ron’s Sex, Drugs and Entertainment. The buzz began building as the Dips assaulted the streets with their Diplomat mixtapes. Next came Cam’s connection with Roc-A-Fella Records.

Soon after the Diplomats landed on the Roc, Juelz was given the major pieces he needed to play his game. The crew inked a seven-figure label deal with The Roc creating Diplomat Records with Juelz as vice president. Shortly following the deal were the young buck’s charming guest appearances on Cam’s smash hit singles ”Oh Boy” and “Hey Ma” off of his Come Home With Me LP, which led to a starring role on the Diplomats group album Diplomatic Immunity and it’s street-blazin’ smash “Dip Set Anthem.”

But From Me To U will be sure to take the hungry young heartthrob to the stars. With guest appearances predominantly from his Dip Set fam and a stack of hot beats from producers like the Heatmakers, Self and Charlemagne to name a few, Juelz gives fans the ideal honest debut: filled with heart, pride, talent and tales of the life of this Diplomat. For proof check the single “Santana’s Town,” which features an infectious hook from Cam. Another satisfying track is the heart-tugging “Raindrops” about his grandmother. From Me To U gives Juelz a personalized opportunity to spin his sincere tales of both hardships and struggle with an edge of pain and a splash of the glitz and glam Juelz has tasted since the Dips started ruling the streets.

So does that mean Juelz can answer the call for that new breed some of us might be craving? “I want people to see who I am, who Juelz is,” insists the Harlem Diplomat. “Hip-hop wants a change right now. The same people have been doing it for six or seven years. It’s not that it’s not hot music it’s just that it’s too common. It needs to be resurrected. I can resurrect it.”