Lupe Fiasco Pioneers New Hip-Hop
Fiasco Tackles Unique Subject Matter on Food & Liquor and The Cool
Lupe raps about gun violence, egocentricity, and obsession with cars, women, and jewelry. But if it sounds like he is condoning any of these things, you aren’t listening nearly hard enough.
Common Ground With Kanye West
Inevitably, Lupe draws comparisons to Kanye West, who is an excellent rapper in his own right. It’s no insult; West’s Graduation was among the best mainstream hip-hop albums of 2007. His unique style of heavy sampling and lyrics describing subjects somewhat unique to modern rap laid some of the groundwork for Lupe and made for a great, replayable album.
However, what Lupe Fiasco has done in just two full albums eclipses anything ever heard from the genre before. Lupe is clever, intelligent, and bitingly sarcastic, and is the best thing going on in hip-hop right now.
Lupe's Unique Background
Part of what makes Lupe stand out from his genre is his background. Born Muslim, his faith influences his music subtly, with examples ranging from the Islamic prayer his first album opens with, to his reference to the Qur'an in the song “American Terrorist”. His religious choices affect his lifestyle, too: Lupe doesn’t go to clubs, drink, or smoke.
Interestingly, none of this compromises his identity as a rapper. Nothing he does feels or sounds held back: he’s honest and open about his flaws, and readily admits that he is not “the poster boy for Islam”.
"Well, I was born Muslim, so Islam plays a part in my everything I do, to a certain extent. ... [but] I still got my flaws and stuff like that, so I don't really wear [my faith] on my sleeve," he told AllHipHop.com. Still, his unique religious perspective gives his music and lyrics a rare dimension of spiritual insightfulness.
Food and Liquor
His first album, Food and Liquor, is immediately fascinating. His incredible use of metaphor and rhyme combined with his unique background makes for an album that captures you right away and doesn’t let go. This album runs the thematic gamut; some songs like “I Gotcha” are fun, upbeat, and incredibly well-written, while songs like the skateboarding anthem “Kick, Push” are humorous while still personal. Then you have songs like “American Terrorist”, a vicious but articulate political commentary that goes beyond simply narrating current events.
The Cool
His most recent album, The Cool, expands on what Food started. Musically, not only is it much catchier, it’s a whole lot more diverse. Lyrically, the album is absolutely incredible. His songs range in subject from child soldiers to the ironies and hypocrisies of hip-hop to cheeseburgers.
His criticisms have become even more fierce this time around, with tracks like “Dumb it Down”, which criticizes his industry’s tendency to maintain the status quo, and the more introspective “Hip Hop Saved My Life”, which tells the first chapter in the pseudo-fictional semi-autobiographical story of a young rapper named Michael Young History (my cool young history).
This parable in particular brims with a sort of sad irony, describing at one point Michael’s struggle to finish writing a new song called ‘STACK THAT CHEESE’ while in the next room his baby son cries from hunger. "Hip Hop Saved My Life" is emblematic of why The Cool is such an incredible CD. It is shocking, clever, and above all, enjoyable, and among the best albums released so far this year.
Fiasco is Brimming with Potential
Despite his youth and relative newness, the ground Lupe Fiasco has managed to break this early into his career is awe-inspiring. At only 25 years old, he already has demonstrated startling innovation in and a near mastery of his genre, and has nowhere to go but up.
