Lupe Fiasco

Time to Dumb it down

Lupe Fiasco

From his first single “Kick Push” Lupe Fiasco instantly set himself apart from everybody else in the hip hop industry. 5 years later and his grown to be on of the most respected and talented rappers of our time. With his third album Lasers topping the charts, it’s only right that’s we get familiar with Lupe from his initiation to his rise and rise in hip hop and our hearts.

Born Wasulu Muhammad Jaco, Lupe Fiasco grew up in Chicago with his parents and 8 siblings. His father was a member of the Black Panther Party and lived next door a crack house. In his early teens his father taught him how to use guns to protect himself from drug dealers. Lupe was initially not a fan of hip hop, until 8^th grade when he heard Nas’ album “It Was Written”, from that point on Lupe began pursuing a hip hop career and went by the rap name Little Lu or Lu the Underdog till he finally settled on  Lupe Fiasco. At 19 Lupe was in a rap group called Da Pak, whose sound was inspired by the Californian gangster rap. The group was signed to Epic records but split up after their first single. Regarding this period of his life, Lupe commented on it, saying “We had a song out about cocaine, guns, and women, and I would go to a record store and look at it and think, 'What are you doing?' I felt like a hypocrite. I was acting like this rapper who would never be judged, and I had to destroy that guy. Because what Lupe Fiasco says on this microphone is going to come back to Wasalu Jaco”.

He then switched his sound to a more lyrical, conscious sound which was inspired by Nas and Jay-z. With regards to Jay-z, the two met before Lupe was signed to Atlantic Records and it was Jay-z who helped him get the record deal with Atlantic Records. Jay also went on to describe Lupe as reminding him of a younger version of himself.

While working on his debut album Lupe released the Fahrenheit 1/15 mixtape which included the track “Muhammad Walks” a remix of Kanye’s “Jesus walks”, the track was a favourite amongst Muslims. His debut album “Food and Liquor” was released on the 19 September 2006 and featured production from Jay-z, Kanye West and The Neptunes. The album went on to be nominated for 3 Grammys, winning one for Best Urban/ Alternative Performance for the single “Day Dreamin” featuring Jill Scott.

The following year he released his second album “The Cool” which featured the chart topping single “Superstar”. In that same year Lupe along with Kanye and Pharrell formed a group called Child Rebel Soldier, they have since released two tracks “US Placers” and “Don’t Stop”. In an interview with Mtv Lupe stated that the full length album will be due to the demand of the fans.

In 2010 Lupe went on Twitter to announce that his third album was complete and waiting for release from his record label. Fans then began a petition demanding that Lupe’s third album Lasers be released. The petition had over 5000 signatures in its first day and has since reached over 28 000 signatures. The petition also gained a lot of media attention, even going on to be featured on CNN. The petition put a lot of pressure on the record label leading them to finally giving the album a release date which was the 8^th of March 2011. The album debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 Chart and has since released two official singles “Show goes on” and “Words I never Said” featuring Skylar Grey. In an interview with Mtv UK Lupe said the creation of the album was “a very painful, dark, fucked-up process” due to all the struggles regarding getting the album released.

But regardless of all the drama surrounding the album, like the album’s first single’s title the show goes on and so it has with the album topping the Billboard Rap Albums chart. So make sho you cop a copy of this album, because believe me when I see its another beautiful Lupe Fiasco production.

-Hip Hop