Vinson Cunningham: Welcome to Critics at Large, a podcast from The New Yorker. I'm Vinson Cunningham. Naomi Fry: I'm Alex Schwartz. And I'm Nomie Frye. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. Hello, guys. Hello. Happy August. Happy August. A Vinson Cunningham: summer podcast from The New Yorker. Naomi Fry: A summer podcast from The New Yorker. You know, we have an August tradition on this pod, okay? We do things a little bit differently. It's the Critics at Large summer interview series. Woo-hoo. Woo. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Naomi Fry: Okay. Okay, and what this gives us is the chance to bring some of our brilliant New Yorker colleagues into the fold, right? Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. In my experience, people kind of imagine us all kind of around a table or something talking to our New Yorker colleagues, and the truth is different. We, so we see each other in passing, we trade compliments about pieces, but we don't often get to sit down and really kind of get into the brain of, of our colleagues. So honestly, it's kind of a selfish pleasure for us, and we hope it feels the same way for the audience. Naomi Fry: So over the next three weeks, we'll each be interviewing one of our dear colleagues. A guest critic, if you will. And this year, these conversations are all gonna be focused around the idea of cult classics. You guys, why did this theme sound exciting to us? Can we take our listeners through it? Alex Schwartz: Well, a cult classic by definition is something that a certain group of people are obsessed with. Just really rabidly into, and so there's a built-in community of people who think that this is the greatest thing. And there's also the corresponding idea that it was something that was missed at the time. Maybe- Right ... tons of people love it now, but they didn't then. So if you're one of the people who did love it, you have a little smug sense- ... that you're one of the elect and you get it. So I think, you know, I was just really excited to find out what some of our colleagues loved in this category, what they are the cognoscente of. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. I think one of the things that is always sort of humming under our show, but we never talk about it just straight on, is just taste. Alex Schwartz: Oh, yeah. Vinson Cunningham: How you get it, where it comes from. And so to be able to use this idea of the cult classic to inspect the tastes of people that we enjoy and whose writing we love, I think it's hard to pass up on. Naomi Fry: Absolutely. And so Alex, who are you gonna be talking to, and what are you gonna be talking about? Alex Schwartz: I am talking with the great Emily Nussbaum. Before Emily was the magazine's theater critic, she was, of course, the television critic, and she and I are talking about a beloved show of hers that I had heard of, People told me I would love it, I should get into it, and for whatever reason, I didn't really pursue it, and now the chance has come. I will not spoil what it is here, but it takes place at a Shakespeare festival. Naomi Fry: Well, color me intrigued, Alex. Alex Schwartz: Yes. Naomi Fry: Uh, f- as for myself, I'm gonna be talking to my friend and colleague Hannah Goldfield, who covers restaurants and food culture for The New Yorker about what a cult classic looks like when it's in the world of food… Vincent, however, today you're up. And who are you talking with? Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Today I'm talking with our colleague, Hanif Abdurraqib. Um, he is, in addition to being a very accomplished and talented poet, is, uh, to my mind, one of the chief people working today about the intersection of personal life, the life of the emotions, and our engagements with art, you know, whether it's music or even basketball, he writes about very beautifully. So when I reached out to him to see what he might wanna talk about as a cult classic, he mentioned an album that I knew about when I was a kid, Uptown Saturday Night. It's a 1997, uh, album by this group Camp Lo, this, um, from the Bronx, Sonny Cheeba and Geechi Suede. Uptown Saturday Night is this duo engaging in a kind of… It's almost a work of historical fiction. It's, uh, two rappers immersing themselves in, in the world of '70s blaxploitation, all this kind of, um, capers, a kind of jolly criminality, talking about diamond theft and pickpocketing, robbery in a way that's, I don't know, charming and fun, and an example of how rap can have, you know, one foot in social facts, but also another in a kind of imaginative role playing, a kind of time travel. Um, so just to listen to Hanif talk about this album as one of his private obsessions, it's just a joy. That's today on Critics at Large. Hanif Abdurraqib on Camp Lowe's Uptown Saturday Night. ________________ Vinson Cunningham: Hanif, thank you so much for doing this. Yeah, yeah, Hanif Abdurraqib: yeah. I appreciate y'all making the time. Vinson Cunningham: So part of the, part of the brief here is to talk about the cult classic. So before we get into the artifact that you chose, Camp Lo's Uptown Saturday Night, I would just love to hear you talk about the idea generally of cult classic. What, what is, what does that criterion mean to you? How do you... What section of the brand do the, does the cult classic live in, and how do you know that something is in fact a cult classic? Hanif Abdurraqib: You know, I think I spend so much time, uh, immersed in a world of my own making where everything that I stumble across that I did not know existed before automatically gets catapulted to this h- uh, place of high reverence in my own kind of self-made world. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. I'm the youngest of four. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Hanif Abdurraqib: I spent a lot of time alone when I was young, and this was at the dawn of, not the dawn of the internet, but the dawn of the internet as we have come to know it now, right? There was a lot of, particularly on music message boards, there was just a lot of information that one could consume, which intersected with the Napster peer-to-peer sharing era. Mm-hmm. I remember for example, when I was just messing around on the internet and I found like Vashti Bunyan, you know what I mean? And I, I didn't know anyone who, who knew who she was. I didn't know anyone who listened to her. I didn't know, you know. My life has been predicated on seeking out my own moments of self discovery and revelation. And so I didn’t have anything to kind of sharpen my own taste against. There are artists like I think Alice Coltrane for example- Vinson Cunningham: Yeah ... Hanif Abdurraqib: who have what some would consider like a cult following, which in my mind simply means she is not as recognized as she should be in the mainstream ecosystem, but there is an ecosystem beneath the mainstream where she is revered. But like to me, I didn't have access to that, to, to, to either of those ecosystems to weigh someone like Alice Coltrane against the mainstream and the underground. Right. And so to me she was just like a, a goddess onto herself in the world I created. So this is a long way of saying I maybe don't have a good grasp. You know, I, I, I, when I got asked to do this I was like, "I hope I picked something that is actually- ... considered a cult classic." Vinson Cunningham: So speaking of this sort of process of a kind of solitary discovery, tell me how- How you first happened upon Kamp Lowe's Uptown Saturday Night. Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah. You know, this is interesting because a, a, a benefit and a, a detriment to not having that kind of sharpening is that every now and then something comes along and, and you think it's singular. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Hanif Abdurraqib: And then you step outside of that self-made world, and everyone else is like, "What the hell is..." You know? A- a- and Kamp Lowe's Uptown Saturday Night was one of those things for me, 'cause I had older siblings who, two of whom were in college during a golden age of college radio- Mm-hmm ... in, in the '90s. And so they were bringing all kinds of stuff into the house. Camp Lo's Uptown Saturday Night's an interesting record because my brother got the album on cassette, and I remember him being almost instantly lukewarm about it. Lucchini was big. That single had been big that summer, you know? Huge song. Huge song. That song's incredible, right? But I, I think in that era of rap, many people were like, "I love this song. Hopefully the whole album isn't like this." And it is. CLIP: Camp Lo - Luchini AKA This is It Vinson Cunningham: Tell me, tell me, so why is that? Is it, like, the sort of bright horns? Is it the sort of, um, the relative kinda upbeat nature of it? What i- what is it that people wanted, but only in this one dose? Hanif Abdurraqib: Well, I think, I think it's a perfect single because it's playing on this kind of blaxploitation era nostalgia- Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm ... Hanif Abdurraqib: both sonically and just, like, this aesthetically, narratively. And I think for ... I can't really speak for my oldest brother, but the vibe I got was, in a small dose, this works. In a large dose, this c- becomes a bit cartoonish, you know? Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: Fair. Hanif Abdurraqib: That wasn't the case for me. I loved it. I thought it was transportative. I thought it was brilliant and smart. You know, the, um I thought it was funny at times that the cover of the album is, is paying homage to The Sugar Shack that, that Ernie Barnes painting that was also featured on the, uh, sitcom Good Times. You know, on the- And on the, on Martin Gaye ... Martin Gaye record. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah, yeah. Hanif Abdurraqib: I Want You. Uptown Saturday Night came out in January of '97. But[a][b] I remember bundling up and walking the streets of, of, of my block listening to Camp Lo's Uptown Saturday Night and feeling transported and feeling like, "This is a smart record." And then I remember reading the reviews when it came, when they, the reviews hit, particularly The Source. And, you know, shout out to him, he's a legend, but I remember Elliot Wilson, um, had a lukewarm review of, of the record- Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm ... Hanif Abdurraqib: where he was like, "These guys aren't talking about anything. They sound kinda foolish." And I remember being so offended by that. You know, as a k- as a 13-year-old, a 14-year-old, I remember being so offended by that. Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: So how much, how much of the sort of, um, the identity of the group were you aware of? Just to sort of lay it out for the, the listeners, as we mentioned, this, the, the, the album comes out January '97. Um, and Camp Lo is made of, you know, it's these guys, Sonny Cheeba, Geechi Suede. Their real names are Salahadin Wilds and Salahdin Wallace. Um produced mostly by the producer Ski, who worked famously with Jay-Z in around the same era. Um, the record even from the title of the record on down, Uptown Saturday Night, a reference to a kind of comedy, crime, thriller, a call back to the Blaxploitation era. If you listen to the record, they're talking about a lot of recognizable figures in that kind of mythology. Iceberg Slim- ... the, the famous sort of almost tall tale, uh, pimp. Uh, stuff like that is, the, the, the references go back to that time, but also the soundscape. At a time when hip hop is still, it seems to me, clarifying its relationships it- to its antecedents. Mm-hmm. Right? So part of it is like, "Hey, we still... Yeah, it's the '90s, but we grew up with funk music." Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: And, and a certain relationship to horn lines and all. And so on some level it's, it's kind of, I don't know, myth-making, storytelling. But on the other hand, it's saying, "Well, I genuinely love these sounds and I want them to be part of the texture of this music that is still kind of emerging." Hanif Abdurraqib: Absolutely. Here's the thing. I think that 1997, particularly early '97, was such an interesting time for rap music because it was, you know, Camp Lo's Uptown Saturday Night came out, um, after the murder of Tupac, but before the murder of Biggie. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Hanif Abdurraqib: Right? And so there was this high tension that was being reflected in the music, and there was this, of course, not only a coastal divide, um, but a sense of rage undergirding a lot of this music particularly in the mainstream, um, a sense of needing to be aggressively authentic in a way that tied to one's geography. You know? Yeah. Like, I'm 10 toes down, I'm digging into this, this particular type of New York rap. In 1996 was also, I think, one of the great rap al- r- great years for rap albums in history. Vinson: A heyday of the hip hop group. For me it was Fugees, The Score was my bible, but Mobb Deep, uh, Camp Lo, I mean, A Tribe Called Quest. The, the, the idea of hip hop as a collective art that happened within the context of a group was at its high point at this point as well. Yeah. And, and so by the time I got into Uptown Saturday Night, it was such a divorce from what I had been listening to. So you had records like Mobb Deep's Hell on Earth, right? Yeah. Which is telling the very specific story of a New York that has failed young Black people. In the case of Mobb Deep, they're thinking about young Black men specifically, right? And so Uptown Saturday Night is interesting bec- because it is a, an incredibly New York album, but it's just not a New York of the present. It's this kind of '70s, i- it's almost like they are mapping the aesthetics of the '70s onto present day New York. And so these two guys are like aliens in another place. You know? It's like they're like aliens dropped into a present, and they're still very strictly embedded in the aesthetics and cultural language and survival tools of 1970s New York. And even at that early age, I was very clear in understanding they are building a world that is not the actual world, and they are characters in that world. So it actually doesn't matter who they are, or, you know, in the context of this record. It doesn't matter who they are or- Vinson Cunningham: The sociological Hanif Abdurraqib: facts- ... what their families are like ... of their lives. Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: All this stuff. Hanif Abdurraqib: Doesn't matter. It is almost like the language of Camp Lo, which I think is an important part of this whole thing. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. In a minute, we're doing a close listen of Camp Lo's Uptown Saturday Night. Critics at Large from The New Yorker will be right back. :: MIDROLL:: Let's get really granular. Which songs were especially, like, important to your sort of growing into this album? Hanif Abdurraqib: The songs that really pulled me in... I actually didn't love Luccini, you know? Like, Luccini, it was kind of everywhere. Um, and it was a hit, you know, but I didn't love it. I love Sparkle, and I love... There's a stretch on, on Uptown Saturday Night where you go from, like, Sparkle to Negro Leagues, so I think that's, like, track 5 to 10, and I lived there. I really lived in those five songs. Sparkle on its own is good, and on that album there's a mix, there's a, a Mr. Midnight mix of Sparkle. It's the very last song. Vinson Cunningham: At the, at the very, the very last song is the mix of that, and it's so hypnotic- Yes ... and haunting. Let's play the openings to some of these songs. Do you wanna hear... Which version of Sparkle do you wanna hear first? Oh, the Hanif Abdurraqib: mix. The remix, for sure. Vinson Cunningham: The mix. Uh, very last track on the album, uh, Sparkle, Mr. Midnight Mix. CLIP: Sparkle Mr. Midnight mix Hanif Abdurraqib: the language of Camp Lo, which I think is an important part of this whole thing. You know, because we can talk about the sound or we can talk about the production or the world building that they were doing, but the actual material language sounded as though it was being pulled from an ancient dictionary, for me. You know, I was like, "I think I know what these words mean, but I maybe don't know what they mean pressed up against each other." So, I mean, to use the technical term, they're, they're doing a lot of talking their shit on this. Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah. Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: On this record. Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: And it's like, I don't ... Diamante, I mean, sounds like diamond. I don't know what it means. They're ... I know exactly what you mean, that, that bar for bar there's a lot of study to do. Hanif Abdurraqib: Well, yeah. I mean, you look at that first Sonny Chiba verse where it's like Diamond Runner, Strange Is The Paradise, Sugar Cane Alley Scats, Low End Parade with The Black Spades. You know, it, it's almost as though he's simply descr- It's very actually, um I, I don't always like rap jazz comparisons, 'cause I don't They're often sonic, but from a linguistic standpoint I, I tend to think that Sonny Cheeba is almost oft- often, not always, but often borrowing from, like, the language of Duke Ellington standards. You know, this, not just rhythmically- Mm ... but from a standpoint of image. You know, the satin doll, Courvoisier spinnin' on the r- spillin' on the rocks, these kind of things. So they're not only, uh, pulling from c- these '70s references, which are already, like, steeped in their Midnight Express, you know, they're referencing that, that movie from '78, these kind of things. But, um, from a language standpoint, I remember at age 13, which I was when this album came out- Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm ... Hanif Abdurraqib: not actually caring as much what they were saying on a beat-by-beat language level, but really enjoying how it was said. Sonny Cheeba's- Yeah ... such an interesting rapper because, um, there are points on this record where he goes some stretches without rhyming in a traditional sense, right? But he can make you fee- he always makes you feel like he's rhyming, because there's either- Yeah ... some complex internal rhyme ha- rhyme happening, or he's swinging up on the vowel sounds. So you heard it in that first verse of The Diamond Runner's verse, alley scat, so where, like, at the A's in alley and scat really have a upswing, in Black Spades the A has an upswing. CLIP: Sparkle - Mr. Midnight mix Spilling on the rocks, I, so on, on these vowel sounds, he's almost, like, taking you up a rollercoaster. So it feels like everything is intertwined- Yeah even if he's not rhyming, um, doing these, like, end bar rhymes that, that people's ears are more trained to. Vinson Cunningham: This all brings to mind another big question, which is how at this time in your life were you developing your taste in rap itself, the art of rap? Because it seems to me that again, in the mid-'90s, we've got this great upswing. It's, uh, the, the art form is on its way to sort of its eventual mainstream flowering, and one of the things that is contested is what does it mean to be a good rapper? Mm. Is it about rhyme scheme? Is it about pocket? Is it about flow? Is it about subject matter? What i- of course it's gonna be a mix of all these things, but what matters most? For you, what was that, what was happening in your mind about what makes rap good? Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah, you know, I was one of those people who admired technical skill. I loved Big Daddy Kane, I loved G Rap. Like I, I, I, I liked a, a technically skilled rapper. However My first favorite rapper was Slick Rick Vinson Cunningham: Mm Hanif Abdurraqib: And my second favorite rapper was, like, Biz Markie Vinson Cunningham: Great, just great voices Hanif Abdurraqib: Great voices who in, in some ways did not mind sacrificing a bit of technical skill for the sense of, for the sake of narrative world-building Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm Hanif Abdurraqib: You know? And so Camp Lo was kinda perfect for me because I do think they are technically skilled. I actually think Sonny Cheeba's far more technically skilled than the reviews gave him credit for. But if they could sacrifice technical skill for the sake of telling a story, Sonny Cheeba specifically would do that. Um, even if the language wasn't as clear, he was interested in kind of building a world where that language would make sense to you Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Well, let's keep, let's stay in that middle of the album that you said was so important to you. Which, what's, uh, what's another, um, we got Sparkle, we got Black Connection, we got Swing Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah. I feel like Sonny Cheeba's verse on Black Connection is very memorable to me, that second verse, 'cause I think he has two different verses, but the second verse on Black Connection- Okay ... is so memorable to Vinson Cunningham: me Is that about, like, a minute in or something like that? Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah. Let's do it Uh, probably, like, 40 seconds Vinson Cunningham: 40 seconds in, Black Connection? Hanif Abdurraqib: I love Black Connection because, um, it's referencing a fi- again, referencing a film from the '70s, unsurprisingly- Vinson Cunningham: Yeah ... Hanif Abdurraqib: about, like, I don't know if, if, have you seen, have you ever seen The Black Connection? Vinson Cunningham: No, I have not. Hanif Abdurraqib: It's, like, a very, the, it's about this, uh- this drug dealer- Mm-hmm ... who gets in, who, who kind of, there's a drug deal gone wrong in Vegas, and the Italian mob gets after him. And so it's just about him, you know, attempting to outwit and escape the Italian mob while holding on to his riches, you know what I mean? Like, while trying... And so, so much about Black Connection and the song is almost the two of them mirroring this and saying, "We've got these diamonds. You know, we've, we've copped these diamonds, and we have to make our way to safety. We have to make our way to prosperity and keep moving." Like, so much of what I love about Camp Lo in Uptown Saturday Night is that really, i- i- if, if we do, like, a wide angle lens with the record, it's essentially a heist film. Vinson Cunningham: Did, were you a fan of that cinema? The, the, that, the heist film, the Blaxploitation film, the mob film. Was, was that a part of your, your consciousness before you heard this record? Hanif Abdurraqib: Oh, yeah. Vinson Cunningham: Okay. Hanif Abdurraqib: I, I loved, you know, I, we didn't have cable often in my house growing up. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Hanif Abdurraqib: So we only had the, the basic channels, and one of those channels was, like, a weird Black public access channel. And on Sundays, and sometimes Saturday nights, they would show Blaxploitation films from the '70s. Oh, cool. So, like, you know, I knew, I knew who Pam Grier was when I was, like, 10. You know? Um, 'cause all those Pam Grier films- Oh, that's, that's a coming of Vinson Cunningham: age. Geez ... Hanif Abdurraqib: A true coming of age. And, and, like, Richard Roundtree and- Yeah ... you know, so I, I loved all those films, and I, I, I, I understood. As I got older, I was like, "Okay, these are a little ridiculous," um, and in some ways, maybe harmful from a stereotypical standpoint. But I also just loved the idea of, um, the Black anti-hero, in a way. Yeah. The, the regular Black anti-hero, not like a, you know, a superhero sent down from somewhere else. Just a person who has done some level of wrong trying to make the world right. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. And, and did that- narrative or did part of the power of that narrative over you have anything to do with, like, did you see that archetype in your real life? Did it pluck some chord of feeling in you that, um... Was there some recognition there or was it purely escapism? Hanif Abdurraqib: No. No. No. Yeah, I grew up around, I grew up around, like, real hustlers. I grew up around hustlers who had a code and a way of life that I found in some ways admirable. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Hanif Abdurraqib: There's, for example, when I was 12 or 13 years old, there were some kids in my neighborhood, young Black kids, who got beat up by the cops, right? They were stealing from the store. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Hanif Abdurraqib: Um, stole some candy bars at the store, which all of us did, and the cops caught them and chased after them. And because they ran, the cops caught up to them and beat them, right? And when that story started to circulate around our neighborhood, there was this thing that happened where a lot of the hustlers post that incident would, would let the younger guys like me and my friends hold their gold chains while they played basketball, and if we did that, they would give us $10. And I, I realize now what they were doing was saying, "We are gonna give you money so that you don't have to steal, so that you never actually have to come in contact with the cops, 'cause you don't want the cops around and we don't want them around either." Vinson Cunningham: Right. Hanif Abdurraqib: But that's also saying, "We're gonna live by a code that protects this neighborhood." And I really loved- What Camp Lo, particularly in Black Connection, because Black Connection is not this song about selfless means. They're talking about bringing people along with them And so the hustle, the hustle, if done well, if, if operated well with a code, is almost like a communal activity. It's not just a singular activity where one person benefits and no one else touches anything. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. I mean, the other thing that that anecdote brings to mind, maybe this'll be the last thing we listen to before we kind of fast-forward and talk about the, the further reception of this album. Um, one of the things that that anecdote brings to mind too is, like, yes, there's that, um, moral edge, but it's also the, the, um, emphasis on the sensual, on just things and their beauty. Right. Like the gold chain. Right. In Black Connection, you know, "In France, I dance by the moon, sailing from Cancun," that there's just this emphasis on images and feeling and- Hanif Abdurraqib: Mm-hmm Vinson Cunningham: the world of the senses. And for this reason, I... We've been talking about it a lot, but can we just listen to the beginning of Luchini real quick? Just to be like- Of course ... "Damn, this sounds good" Yes. And maybe talk about that in rap too? Yeah, I mean, the art of the sample, this, this sample from the- Mm-hmm ... the, the '70s band Dynasty- Dynasty, yeah ... the horns, the, the drum, the just like, "Let's get rich, man." It's pouring from the sky. That like, on some level, one of the functions of rap music at that time when I was a kid, and for me it wasn't my big brother, it was my, God rest his soul, my, my older cousin Shamik, who introduced me to this music. And part of the reason for, part of the rationale was that the music was kind of a gold chain handed to you, and it- Right, right ... a, a way to just say, "Here's something beautiful. Here's something that sounds good, and no matter what's going on in your life, you can f- you can get rich" just by some process of substitution. And that just like gratuitous recourse to feeling is so strong in that record. I mean, it's impossible. And I mean, you said- Yeah ... you didn't love it the most, but to me, man, that song still sounds so good. So why do we talk about this classic, and not a classic. Critics at Large from TNY will be right back. :: MIDROLL:: So why do we talk about this album whose virtues we, we have, I think, established at this point? Why do we talk about it now as a cult classic instead of as a capital C classic, like some of the albums we've talked about. Hanif Abdurraqib: Right. Yeah. Well, it's, it's not Nearly as well known or archived or revisited as those records. This was not uncommon for 1997 because there weren't as many publications reviewing rap albums- Mm-hmm ... or writing about rap albums. Again, the internet was in nascent stages, et cetera. But it only, it was reviewed only in one place, and that was The Source by Elliot Wilson, and it got three out of five mics. And Elliot Wilson... And I actually think that review is, that, that mic number is generous 'cause the review is mostly not good. Like Elliot- Yeah ... it's, it's short. I- people listening might remember the, the, the reviews in The Source were, like, just small, kind of- Vinson Cunningham: They were capsule reviews- Yeah ... and they had a mic system. Just for those who don't know, it was five mics. Five mics, classic. Five microphones, and you... And so just like a star system. And Elliot Wilson, uh, who Hanif is talking about, is, you know, I think you would have to call him one of the greats of hip-hop- Yeah ... criticism and- Legend. Much respect ... and journalism. Yeah. He's still, uh, an active podcaster, et cetera. But, um, I mean, you could do the collected reviews of Elliot Wilson very easily. So anyway- Yeah, you- Please ... Hanif Abdurraqib: he, he wr- I'm looking at it now. I mean, he, he does this thing where only one paragraph is complimentary, and it's not even that complimentary. It, it's like Luchini's good, Black Connection is good. And then he's like, and then he starts naming the people associated with the record, like De La Soul, you know, True Headed Dove did some production on it, and Skee. And then it's like, "Uptown Saturday Night dwindles with each subsequent musical scene. Say Word is boring. Negro League is a dreary posse cut. Nikki Blinson, come on, are aimless filler." Mm-hmm. "You get tired," so he get tired of these cinematic inspirations, and they don't have the ability to live up to their potential. So that's, like, the only review that existed in 1997 it also suffered due to when it came out. It came out, it was the last week of January '97, so it had about a month and a half to live in the cultural consciousness before Biggie's murder. And- Vinson Cunningham: Hmm ... Hanif Abdurraqib: I really do think there is a before hip-hop, the, you know, before that and, and after that. You know, I had before Tupac and Biggie's murder and after. And it was hard even in the underground realm. Like, I wasn't listening to a ton of mainstream rap But even the underground got swallowed by that. It got consumed by that. And a, and a part of what happened, too, was a lot of the commentary around these murders was creating this kind of panic around the violence in hip-hop, where it's like... You know, I remember being a kid in 1997 and thinking rap music was going to end because the way that people were talking, it was like, how can this genre sustain itself through all this violence? And so there's a way that- Not just Camp Lo. A lot of those albums that came out in early 1997, um- Yeah ... got swallowed- Kind of painted over. Yeah, they kinda got painted over. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. It, it's such an interesting moment in hip-hop. I grew up in New York, and therefore the Tupac and Biggie thing took on these huge, mythic, and as you say, almost like existential dimensions. W- like, where does hip-hop go from here? And I think it has something to do With what we've talked about kind of throughout this conversation, which is, like, what is the relationship to, to fact- Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah Vinson Cunningham: of hip-hop? It's almost like even if you think about, you know, the tradition stretching from '94, Nas Illmatic, you know, I'm, I'm a storyteller. I'm telling you about things that happened, um, but with style and some sort of, like, mythic pizzazz, as opposed to it's almost like hip-hop at this moment had to decide whether it was a, um, if it was a kind of either blaxploitation or, um, or a mythic genre, or if it was a kind of true crime. Hanif Abdurraqib: Right, right. Vinson Cunningham: You know? And it seems like '97 was one of the hinge moments that said, "Actually, we're going in the direction of true crime," that it's, it's a storytelling genre inevitably, but what stories do we tell? How do we interpret just raps? How do we interpret verses? Are they about... You know, recently Jay-Z, you know, in, in a concert, he had these big concerts here in New York, and he does these freestyles that are about, like, you know, real grievances he has in his life. "Why are people messing with me and talking about me?" Uh. Yeah. "Why are they mad at me because I won't target, uh, uh, boycott Target?" It's like it, it seems to be a development, the, or maybe the culmination, the final flowering of a devel- a development that started in '97, which is- Yeah ... no, it's, it, there's a real-life drama that hip-hop is supposed to narr- narrate, and so therefore maybe, maybe, and maybe this is part of Elliott Wilson's, uh, review that's kind of calling it frivolous or something seems to be the flavor of the review. It's like, uh, we don't have time for this kind of, like, role-playing or something like Hanif Abdurraqib: that. Right, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, '97 is such an interesting... I, I, s- I, 96 I think is the, the greatest year for the hip-hop album. then you contrast that with '97, which is a kinda rough year for the hip-hop album, which isn't to say- Yeah ... there weren't good albums. Company Flow's Funcrusher Plus came out that year. Um, DOOM by Mood came out that year. Shout out, uh, Cincinnati, Ohio. but you also had this real divide for me between what was going on in the underground, and what was going on in the mainstream, which was this- Mm-hmm um, immediate pivot towards intense opulence, you know? And so y- you listen to, like- It, you listen to, like, Slum Village's Fantastic Vol. 1, which came out in '97, and then you listen to something like No Way Out, uh- Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm ... Hanif Abdurraqib: and you're like, "What the hell is happening?" These are two worlds that, um, you know- Have very little reference one Vinson Cunningham: to the other. Very little reference. Hanif Abdurraqib: And that was the start of this kind of pulling apart, I think, it did seem like there was this clear divide, or th- there was always a divide, but the divide was widening quickly in '97 between what was happening- Yeah ... in the underground and what was happening in the mainstream because, um, those two weren't even speaking to each other in a way. And so Uptown Saturday Night got lost in that because it didn't really have a foothold in either world. Um- Yeah ... when it came out, it didn't, and then as that divide accelerated, there was kind of no place to put it, 'cause it's not really an underground rap record. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. I was thinking about this, 'cause we think about commercial hip-hop, and then the, at least the way that we have figured underground hip-hop has always had this relationship to, like, conscious rap, where it's like a Tribe Called Quest or De La Soul. Albums where they, like, the sort of consciousness, social commentary, a, a certain relationship to, like, almost wisdom literature is- Right ... you know, that's the idea that we have of, um, underground. L- What would later be called the, you know, backpack rap, all these other kinds of things. Um, and this is not like a nerd album. It's not that. No. I love Q-Tip. He- They're not trying to be Q-Tip, you know? Hanif Abdurraqib: No. No, no. They're not, you know... I don't love the term conscious hip-hop, of course, because I do think it creates this unnecessary divide that largely serves... It, it doesn't serve the artist making the music, and it doesn't really serve particularly, like, Black people consuming the music. However, I st- I think Camp Lo's Uptown Saturday Night is doing a form of social commentary. It's just not a social commentary that can be mapped onto present day. Camp Lo, on Uptown Saturday Night, is effectively saying, "This, this moment that you have built, this New York that you have built in 1997, is untenable and unsurvivable for the people in it. And so we are going to reverse engineer a New York that we know how to survive in. And if that means that we are pic- if we're picking your pocket, if we're taking your wallet out of your pocket, if we're slipping some-" Right diamonds off your hand, that's what it is. And, and be lucky that we are not attaining this hustle through modern means." Otherwise it would be more violent than it is. And so there's a way that that's also social commentary, I think. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. It, uh, the narrative style here is something much more playful, you know? It's, it's- Right ... you have to really be willing to, um, think in terms of a much more, you might call it literary kind of narrator that is, uh, weaving connections that you have to kind of, I don't know, sit with for a little bit longer, as opposed to- Being told something- Right in a way that, you know, if you think of the classic, quote-unquote, conscious rapper is gonna be, you know, talking about the news, you know? Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah. Or, Vinson Cunningham: or like guiding you- Like some sort of documentary report from the street. Hanif Abdurraqib: Yeah, like guiding you to a revelation instead of letting you arrive at the revelation through the close listening to a story. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Camp Lo kept making albums as recently, uh, as 2017. It, they never sort of, um... I w- I think this is probably the album of theirs that is most discussed. Yeah. They, you know, and they, and they never sort of got big, big in the way that we think of, uh, an act getting big. Did you continue to follow them, or was this just sort of a, a pinpoint in time for you? Hanif Abdurraqib: I'm a big Camp Lo fan. I'm a- Okay ... 80 Blocks from Tiffany's is the record they made with Pete Rock that came out in 2013. It's one of my favorite rap albums of the 2010s. I think the sophomore album was pretty rough. Let's Do It Again was pretty rough. But, like, Black Hollywood, uh, which is the third record, is, is great. On one hand, because I, we spent all this time talking about, like, the potential inaccessibility of what they were offering, it's funny to say this, but I, I can't figure out why they didn't... I didn't e- ever expect them to be huge, right? But I don't know- Yeah why they didn't claim a more robust lane, ''cause they didn't change their style at all, you know? Which actually- Yeah ... that is what I love and respect about them, is that at a time where, as we mentioned a lot of these guys were bending to the hyper-commercialization of, of hip hop, Camp Lo- Right never changed who they were. And in a way, I, I, I love Jay-Z's American Gangster. I think it is one of his four classic records, and I remember the first time I heard it, I was like, "This isn't that far removed from a Can't Blow Out." Like, this is Can't Blow record. It, Vinson Cunningham: it's totally owing something to the cinema, totally it shows how much of that DNA sort of persisted. It's so funny because now that we're talking about this, one of my favorite albums that I feel kinda heartbroken about too, because it didn't really have a constituency after that year. I think this is just such a great theory of, of, of rap music sort of at the millennial turn. But, um, 'cause for me, it was... I've, I've told you about my love for Fugees, The Score. The next year comes Wyclef Jean's The Carnival. The Carnival, Hanif Abdurraqib: yes. Vinson Cunningham: This playful kinda, I mean, it's right there in the title, carnival bazaar of an album. It's just like there are affective, you know, dimensions, just, uh, areas of feeling in rap that did sort of... They didn't die But they did, they did get sort of, uh, cast aside you know, this, this exercise makes me think of just, uh, this is a, this album's a cult classic because actually a whole door in hip-hop, it didn't close, but it really, it creaked shut. Hanif Abdurraqib: Oh, absolutely. you know, it felt like if you were someone who was on the other side of that door upon its closing, you just, the, the price to get through it was too... You had to alter yourself. You almost had to, like, alter who you were before the door closed- Yeah ... if you wanted anything touching mainstream success. I will say this. It, it's, it's 2026 right now. Um, the 30th anniversary of that record, of Uptown Saturday Night, will be in January of next year, and I hope someone writes about it. And maybe The New Yorker will let me write about it. Who knows? Vinson Cunningham: Uh- I was about to say, I hope y- you, I f- I feel like you got a, you got a laptop, man. Man, you know how to use that thing. I mean, it's gotta be you. Uh, this is why we had to get this guy here. I, I cannot thank you enough. Hanif Abdurraqib: No, this was a pleasure. You're welcome. This was a real pleasure. Vinson Cunningham: This has been a special summer edition of Critics at Large. Alex Barasch is our consulting editor, and Rhiannon Corby is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Our show is mixed by Mike Kutchman, and we had engineering help today from Fran Bandy, with music, as always, by Alexis Cuadrado. Next week, hear Nomi's conversation with Hannah Goldfield all about the cult classics of the food world. CLIP And in the meantime, you can listen to all of our episodes anytime at newyorker.com/critics