Uptown Saturday Night

33⅓ Main Series #125

by Patrick Rivers, William Fulton

Geechi Suede and Sonny Cheeba are Camp Lo. These two emcees from the Bronx, NY entered the American hip hop scene with an insider slang that bewildered listeners as they radiated the look of a bygone era of black culture. In 1996, they collaborated with producer Ski and a host of other contributors to create Uptown Saturday Night, featuring the seminal single "Luchini (a.k.a. This is It).†? While other 1990s rappers referred to 1970s Blaxploitation culture, Camp Lo were self-described "time travelers†? who weaved the slang and style of a soulful past into state-of-the-art lyrical flows. Uptown Saturday Night is a tapestry of 1970s black popular culture and 1990s New York City hip hop. This volume will detail how the album's fantastic world of "Coolie High†? reflected classic films like Cooley High and the Sidney Poitier film from which the album's title is derived, and promoted vintage slang and fashion. The book features new interviews with Camp Lo, producer Ski, Trugoy the Dove from De La Soul, Ish from Digable Planets, and others, and offers musical and cultural analyses that detail the development of the album and its essential contributions to a post-soul aesthetic.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

154 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 7, 2017

About the author

When Patrick isn't reading and writing Sci-Fi, he loves to beat on the drums, strum the guitar, and sing. He attended the University of North Carolina Greensboro where he received his BS in Business Administration. He resides in North Carolina, where he enjoys numerous walks in the beautiful scenery.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I am a fan of the boom bap style of rap, there's no denying that Uptown Saturday Night was a game changer for hip hop, not only did Camp Lo eschew the normal types of beats and still incorporate jazz and soul samples but they were literate and even had their own language, which was influenced hip hop lyrics. Oh and Sparkle was famously used by Australian electronic group The Avalanches on their legendary debut Since I Left You.

This book is an excellent companion piece to the Pharcyde book I read last week as it also describes 90's hip hop and there are some parallels, well Rivers goes deeper as Camp Lo were already in their late 20's when they dropped their debut so they experienced the beginnings of hip hop.

There's also the obligatory analysis of the album, which I liked but I will admit I gravitated more to the historical sections of the book. Since I am a bit of a completist I am hoping that more classic hip hop groups and artists get their own books as ten in a 127 strong series is too little.

[Nat]

I remember the hot Fresno afternoon in 1998 driving around with my brother in my parents' white Accord when I heard this for the first time—totally unexpected and weird and great and, in retrospect, unsurpassingly mid-to-late 90s. This 33 1/3 has a good balance between the context of the creation of the album, explanation of some of the more idiosyncratic lingo, and song-by-song breakdown of production, samples, etc.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books where I enjoyed reading it, and going through a lot of the details and history, but I'd probably have to go back and revisit it just to kind remember all the finer details. A lot of info packed into a tiny book.

[Sheehan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dope.

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book about a somewhat forgotten/neglected hip-hop classic. Very thoughtful writing, one of the better ones in the series. Well, one of the best I've read in a while...

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real neighborhood,
an urge to make things with friends,
This: this is it, what?