Lupe Fiasco

yah this album is a total load

that is disappointing but not unexpected

DJP, is there anything redeeming on this? i recall you being Lupe's #1 apologist the last two albums (frankly yr enthusiasm was what made me listen in the first place, found 'em hit & miss tho)

First album was great imo. Second was just a ghost of the first. The new one is different animal, but it's a rodent with rabies and I'm calling Animal Control to come take it away.

LOL!!!!!!

The Cool gets a really hard time but it has plenty of good moments, I always thought Go Baby would have been a huge hit for him if it had been put out as a single. It wasn't as good as the debut which is pretty solid apart from the never ending last song where he says thanks to everyone he's ever met.

I listened to Lasers this afternoon and thought it sounded okay to begin with but my about track five I was just desperate for it to end, it seemed to get worse as it went on. I have a big problem with the artwork too, did he really think that looked clever?

http://www.alltshirts4you.com/images/Anarchy-Logo.jpg

lololo

All I've heard so far is "I'm Beaming" and some other horrendous piece of shit that made me decide I am going to focus on my positive memories of The Cool.

A rapper who wears glasses in his video, how refreshing.

― danzig (danzig), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 16:03 (4 years ago)

LOL not really novel any more huh

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61JC483JP0L.jpg

All I've heard so far is "I'm Beaming" and some other horrendous piece of shit that made me decide I am going to focus on my positive memories of The Cool.

Considering "I'm Beaming" isn't even on here, you are much better off focusing elsewhere.

i wish he would have somehow let us know this was going to be a fiasco

what a fiasco for lupe disaster

"As Lupe tells it, "Strange Fruition" is a re-imagining of "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday. "It's about slaves in the south, and how they looked like strange fruit in the south. Which is funny, because the song was written by a white guy," says Lupe. "The fruit has ripened in 2012, it's still just as strange, just as odd, among the other layers in the song. That's the "America" portion of the album."

http://hiphopwired.com/2012/08/23/8-things-you-must-know-about-lupe-fiascos-food-liquor-2-the-great-american-rap-album-pt-1/2/

this fuckin guy

you know, I read that comment and really didn't parse it until you said "this fuckin guy"

That's the "America" portion of the thread.

u_u

as opposed to the "great" portion of the album

have we observed that the album cover idea was stolen from spinal tap

I dunno -- Lupe himself is stolen from Spinal TAp

second response hall of fame up there

'An example of the split of the album is evident in its introductory track, "Strange Fruition (The Art Of Falling Off)." The first voice you hear on the album is a speech by James Baldwin on the "N-Word" and how it is a word created by Americans. "We invented the word N-Word, white people invented it," says Baldwin on the track before the Soundtrakk-produced beat drops. The song sets the pace for the album not as a return to form of the old Lupe from Food And Liquor, but as an evolution to what he is now. He's backing up his bold statements of our homeland with facts from historians.'

i thought this revive would be for the SPIN thing

spin thing chat is in the spin thread

so... Food & Liquor II appears to be a boring, poorly conceived exercise in concern-trolling

no real surprises there, I guess

He's backing up his bold statements of our homeland with facts from historians.'

The thing that made The Cool work for me was so many of the songs were told from the standpoint of a character, whether it was Lupe himself talking about how much he sucks at Street Fighter II or vignettes about child soldiers or epidemics or a dude struggling to make it in the rap game; he was telling a story, and there was an implied moral viewpoint but you didn't need to subscribe to it, and the points where there was an explicit moral viewpoint were tied up in crazy allusions and wordplay (see: "Dumb It Down").

This has been replaced by songs like "Audobon Ballroom" with this immortal chorus:

Now white people
Can't say 'nigga'
Sorry gotta take it back
Now black people
We're not niggas
Cuz God made us better than that

DROP THAT SCIENCE, LUPE

ffs no one wanted you to rap MORE like Kanye, you moron

oh my god and "Bitch Bad" actually makes me want to smack my head against a brick wall

seriously how do you even make a song like this and not go "huh, not only is this condescending paternalistic Marc Loiism to the nth degree, but it also sounds like hot trash in July"

how is this the same person who wrote "Dumb It Down"

has he been smoking a lot of weed, is that what happened?

Eh, what the hell, I'll defend this record. I can't rep for "Bad Bitch" and some of the sillier songs on the second half of the disc, but the first side has a great energy. It's spirited and funny, and for the first time in a while Lupe sounds open to the suggestion that maybe he's opinions aren't the end all be all. He seems more self-aware than his obnoxious online presence would have you believe, and I like the way he #KanyeShrugs his way through some of his stupidier positions (not voting, calling the president a terrorist). Plus the production is really good. All in all way better than I could have expected from post-Lasers Lupe.

huh

I didn't even make it to the second half of the album because I found the first half so self-important and stupid, so I can't even imagine what the second half must be like

Second half has some bad love songs and some misguided features, and it just goes on too long. But I think you're missing the humor in the record, taking some things at face value that aren't meant to be. That's probably Lupe's fault—he puts his foot in his mouth so much these days—but I think he finds a good balance on this album between serious Lupe and just fucking around Lupe

one of the worst things about "Bitch Bad" is the smirking "ah, the plot thickens" attemps at levity

So many bad things about "Bad Bitch" I couldn't even list them, but the "reading from a teleprompter" flow is a deal breaker, too. Also the story just makes no damn sense.

"Bitch Bad," excuse me. Allergy med season has me typo-ing like crazy

there's a local radio DJ who intros the song like "let's get into some new lupe, bad beeeeeyotch" with zero irony

hahahaha. The weird thing is Lupe uses "bitch" in a non-ironic, non-deconstructed way on the album, too. Granted he doesn't direct it at women, but it just muddles his already confused argument that much more

His "I'm killing these bitchesssss!" adlib is maybe the only part of that song I like. It's legitimately funny, and it makes an argument more cleanly in about two seconds than he's able to in 48 bars

Lupe 2016

Haha, I was actually thinking of you when that story broke.

So did I!

he'll only be 34, dammit

LF was tweeting about social revolution, Marxist analysis of technology etc and retweeting others doing the same, then came this: https://twitter.com/LupeFiasco/status/333713212933562368. RIP Lupe, brutally silenced by capitalist apparatchiks.

my favorite part of this is that the account now constantly retweets people who praise lupe, including one person who likes him "because he doesn't sugar code"

I am under the impression that Tetsuo & Youth is kind of awesome. I own no previous LP LPs but I am going to probably pick this one up. What does ILX think of it? It's getting solid reviews elsewhere...

i think it's surprisingly good compared to his last 2 albums but not necessarily that great by any other measure, and definitely not as good as Food & Liquor

lol the first post in this thread

i like food & liquor! well, i played most of it anyway. and liked it. never heard it. that's all i got...

Tetsuo and Youth is an amazing album that has depth to it but is very easily digestible, it goes down smooth, real smooth. Highly recommended.