“Black Connection” / Camp Lo
Uptown Saturday Night (Profile, Arista - 1997)
p/ Ski Beatz 

There’s something to be said for the missing links in hip-hop. Somewhere between the new cloud rap that’s so quickly gained our attention, the late 90’s underground, the weedier deep south and the mafioso of the 90’s there’s an amazing aesthetic link lying just outside of reach. The luxurious horns and strings found on RZA and DR Period records of the 90’s have found their way into SPACEGHOSTPURRP and Gorgio MoMurda’s approach filtered through a lens of Screw and late 90’s joints. If you’ve read this blog for any period of time, you might know my affinity for Ski Beatz newer work. However, I’ve largely left his older work to it’s own. This is something I’ve wanted to throw on the Dopeness for a minute, but the time never presented itself. Still, hearing the recent slew of mixtapes has only only compounded how relevant a touchstone this record, and particularly “Black Connection” is today. It’s a peak of an aesthetic mode, splitting the difference between absolute smoothness in beat construction and a gritty uptown vibe. It’s long, lazy horns are a contrast perfectly with the alternating stabs of string and harp floating over it’s back-of-the-pocket break. Lo’s chemistry a duo comes from their dialectic urgency, packing vernacular into interweaving patterns (and presaging the raspy tag team raps of the Main Attrakionz among others). It’s a song where everything is everything -it’s cinematic, making it’s own setting and populating it with rich characters and culture with a beautifully dark aesthetic that’s been finding it’s way back into “black hoodie rap” in 2011.