July 7, 2014

CampLo_LuchiniThe team of Ski Beatz and the silky days satin nights squad from the Bronx are like butter that never goes bad. 17 years after the original Uptown Saturday Night, the chemistry is uh, “cold retarded.” That’s the title of their latest song and what it lacks in political correctness, it compensates with classical uptown bombing. From jump, they set themselves up for timelessness, by being permanently trapped in a 1976 filled with Ernie Barnes paintings and Good Times re-runs.

Few stay fresh decades after their ostensible expiration date, but Sonny Cheeba, Geechie Suede and Ski built an indelibly soulful style. The DNA was passed on into Wiz Khalifa, Curren$y, and Wale — even if the latter has repudiated all traces of it to be the face of Nivea (I’m guessing). But the vets remain agile, shouting out 183rd and the roaches on the wall, attending ambiguous seminars. The cold-blooded bongs and semi-automatic slang remains tangled enough to leave Rap Geniuses befuddled. The diamond crooks invented their own language, so as to not be enslaved by another man’s system. As the king of Disco tweeted: Camp Lo are one of the greatest musical groups of all-time. This is true because they cannot be dated.

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