Camp Lo
In Black Hollywood

Good Hands Records 2007

By ignore staff

The Two Coreys and now this: a proper sophomore album from Camp Lo a decade after they released Uptown Saturday Night and “Luchini.” Did I step into the wrong phone booth to barf earlier this summer or something? After finding the Discman, it’s official: Uptown Saturday Night is a thousand times better than In Black Hollywood and Uptown’s beats are categorically box-fresh in comparison—which is weird because both albums utilize the same producer, Ski.

I can’t get huffy at this when hip hop is currently ringing its last payments from murdering the English language in broad daylight and Kayne is off in Japan defending homosexuals in a Daft Punk helmet like My So Called Life ain’t on DVD. The smokey flows of Sonny Cheeba and, er, Geechi Suede are still affably and curiously their own, but a good bit of their ’97 moonlighting party swagger can be found on a flattened milk cart in Fresh Kills.

They’re still working that blaxploitation angle, but now there's too much "cinematic" crime and video lifestyle squawk, not to mention they spell out “J-O-B.” Listening to this, it's impossible not to imagine giving them a little professional guidance. That fourth track “Pushahoe” is more dated than it reads. I mean, America has fucked itself and the world has started to die in less time than it has taken Camp Lo to drop this. Did these guys get locked inside Uptown’s cover after the switch was flipped? Give me a good single at least. Man, goddamn it. Is there a hotline? I need to know. It's sad.

This discourse of Camp Lo's In Black Hollywood is written for ignore Magazine, copyright 2007.