Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Lupe Fiasco: The Next Big Thing?


Whenever a new artist brings something fresh or new to music, there is often a temptation to label them "the future" of whatever genre of music they make. In the case of hip-hop, a genre approaching thirty, there has been plenty of artists that were fresh and new that unfortunately didn't always turn out to be the future. Usually, they were a great diversion before being drowned under the current of mainstream music as it moved on towards whatever moved the most product. Labeling something as the future really just means it's the future you hope for.

That said, I hope the future of hip-hop includes more skateboarding anthems and tales of zombie gangstas all while being socially conscientious. Lupe Fiasco brings all of this and more in his first full length album, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liqour.

Lupe Fiasco, real name Wassulu Muhammad Jaco, received his first taste of mainstream success with a guest verse on fellow Chicagoian Kanye West's single, Touch The Sky. With the aforementioned skate anthem, Kick, Push, the first single off Food & Liqour getting good radio and MTV airplay since it's release in July and leaked(but incomplete) copies of Food & Liqour circulating online generating huge buzz, the album was one of the most anticipated releases of the year. All of this has Lupe poised to be the breakout hip-hop artist of 2006.

Push, well, kicks with a simple strings sample and a steady beat. There isn't that much to the production, the attraction is mainly Fiasco's flow and lyrics. The story of a kid's love affair with skating, it shows Fiasco's empathy for and admiration of the skating scene:

I dedicate this one right here/ To all my homies out there grinding You know what I'm saying?/ Legally and illegally

The album even features a shout out to Tony Hawk on the latter track Outro, an eleven minute monster that appears to thank anyone who even remotely helped with Food & Liqour(probably the only time Tony Hawk will be thanked alongside Talib Kweli and Jay-Z). Kick, Push also contains themes found throughout the album; feelings of alienation, the hope for love, and the search for a place that feels like home:

And away he rolled/ Just a rebel to the world with no place to go And so he kick, push, kick, push, kick, push, kick, push, coast So come and skate with me/ Just a rebel/ Looking for a place to be

In a stark contrast to most mainstream hip-hop, Fiasco features plenty of strong female imagery, fittingly for an album dedicated to a grandmother. The skater protagonist of Push meets a skater girl:

Met his girlfriend she was clapping in the crowd/ Love is what what was happening to him now Uh, he said I would marry you/ But I'm engaged to these arials and variels And I don't think this board is strong enough to carry two/ She said Bow, I weigh 120 pounds Now, let me make one thing clear/ I don't need to ride yours/ I got mine right here

Assertive skating women, the new staple of rap? The motif continues in other tracks: He Say, She Say, a plea to an absent father from a woman who doesn't want him around her, just to be there for their son. On Hurt Me Soul Lupe admits he hated hip-hop for it's degradation of women, but also admits being a hypocrite and singing songs that refer to women as bitches, even if he wouldn't sing that part. In an art form where male posturing is such a large part of an artist's supposed marketability, this is remarkable.

Lyrically, Food & Liqour is way beyond mainstream hip-hop, finding better company with the likes of Talib Kweli, Common, and Lupe's stated direct influence, Nas. His flow is effortless from verse to hook to verse. Subjects range from his dislike of gangsta-oriented hip-hop on the catchy I Gotcha; Lupe serves out "realness" while telling us: I Know You Sick Of Them Players Big Car And Watch Ya/ Either They Pimps Or They Macks Or They Mobsters. He continues his assault on the scathing second verse of Daydreaming, a thorough dismantling of bling-bling clichés. A Muslim, Lupe links the liquor stores prevalent in the ghetto to keeping funeral homes in business and quotes his prophet on American Terrorist saying: the ink of a scholar is worth a thousand times more than the blood of a martyr.

Food & Liqour also makes great use of it's many guest artists. Unlike a lot of hip-hop albums, these aren't merely brief, uninspired appearances strictly meant to get a well-known name written on the track list. Fiasco makes full use of his collaborator's talents on tracks like Just Might Be Ok, He Say She Say(featuring Gemini), American Terrorists (featuring Matthew Santos), and holds his own against the world's most famous semi-retired rapper on Pressure(that rapper being Jay-Z).

With clever lyrics and a catchy delivery style, along with a refreshing break from current hip-hop, Lupe Fiasco has definitely put out one of the, if not the, best hip-hop albums of the year. Save for The Coup's Pick A Bigger Weapon, nothing else comes close.

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