Critics’ Cult Classics: Hanif Abdurraqib on Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night”

When it dropped in January of 1997, Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night” thrilled some listeners and confounded others. ‘Uptown Saturday Night’ got lost in that because it didn’t really have a foothold in either world,” Abdurraqib says. “At a time when a lot of these guys with underground roots were bending to the hyper-commercialization of hip-hop, Camp Lo never changed who they were.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics:Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night”Fugees’ “The Score”“Uptown Saturday Night” (1974)“Midnight Express” (1978)“The Black Connection” (1974)Dynasty’s “Adventures in the Land of Music”Elliott Wilson’s review of “Uptown Saturday Night” (The Source)Slum Village’s “Fan-Tas-Tic (Vol. 1)”Puff Daddy’s “No Way Out”Pete Rock and Camp Lo’s “80 Blocks from Tiffany’s”Camp Lo’s “Black Hollywood”Jay-Z’s “American Gangster”Wyclef Jean’s “The Carnival”New episodes drop every Thursday.