Rap Laureate: Lupe Fiasco

In this 50th year of celebration for the impact and importance of hip-hop culture, we have created a new annual award and publication, the Rap Laureate, to recognize the most important MCs and their impact within the history of rap. We decided to do this in the same year b-boying/bgirling will be an Olympic event. The same year that many major cities still have active graffiti communities and public art creation festivals. In a year when the technology of the DJ and producer are more accessible than ever with DJ academies and producer showcases popping up all over the country. A year that has seen “knowledge of self” continue to take new forms in books, films and academic courses at universities around the world. This 50t year affords us the opportunity to be both reflective on hip-hop’s past and inspired by what its future could be.

We decided that we would not retread important ground that previous scholars and practitioners have already covered. Instead, we want to look at the catalogs of MCs that have created bodies of work that are especially relevant in educational spaces. Let us acknowledge that rap music is literature and MCs are some of our time's most popular writers. We know that early generations of hip-hop consumers listened to, read liner notes from, and memorized lyrics of MCs in the 80’s, 90’s and early 2000’s - these were their tools to cultivate a deep and meaningful appreciation for the literature that is rap music. Our hope is that this publication is an additional tool towards that end, announced at the WBL festival annually. For this inaugural Rap Laureate, we made the choice to focus on the body of work of one of the most impactful MCs of the last 20 years. We chose him because of his willingness to create commercial, underground, poignant and political music that in some ways is a throwback to previous generations of MCs with the added attention of a large audience willing to engage in dialogue about tough topics connected to his music.

Mazi Mutafa executive Director Words Beats & Life

We chose Lupe Fiasco because his body of work reflects the kind of storytelling, contemplative fiction and in-the-moment dialogues about the impact of rap all over the world. He is an artist that is always willing to be misunderstood, while encouraging his audience to learn more and also never lifting himself beyond criticism.

In so many ways, these are the attributes of the kinds of leaders we need today.

Thank you, Lupe, for just doing it the way you want.

Lupe Fiasco

The expression of Lupe Fiasco’s view of the world is in a state of constant evolution. It cycles between pessimism, self-righteousness, intellectuallyastute class analysis, and unfettered honesty. At the same time, it is undergirded by unshakable principles and an ancient code. Fiasco explains on his song “American Terrorist” that “jihad is not a holy war.” He is more than likely referring to the greatest form of jihad, the personal struggle against worldly desires. He consistently critiques capitalism, but loves shoes and high fashion, and is close friends with the fashion world’s darling designer Virgil Abloh, who even appears on Lupe’s latest EP, House. Lupe’s music is a constant jihad of him trying to marry his core beliefs to his love of hip hop culture and the spoils of wealth and fame.

Lupe’s unique childhood is ingrained in him. He grew up doing martial arts with his father, who was an instructor and owner of dojos in the Chicago area. He frequently references martial arts in his music and named one of his fashion lines Righteous Kung Fu. Fiasco’s understanding of Eastern traditions go far beyond Japanese anime and self-defense. Specifically, Lupe has stated that

relationships and professional standing. Even President Theodore Roosevelt was enamored with Inazo’s presentation of Bushido code and is said to have purchased five dozen copies of the book. Lupe’s musical career is filled with Bushido principles.

But, much like his life experiences, Lupe prides himself on having varied subject matter and being an unpredictable matter. He said in a recent interview that “there’s so much to talk about if you allow yourself to not get caught up in the status quo.” He claims that he won’t rap to beats that inspire “basic words” and doesn’t work on deadlines, living by the mantra, “I’ll get it done when it’s done.” The music must challenge him to go deeper, which is made all the more impressive by the fact that he has been an incredibly productive rapper.

Lupe Fiasco’s approach to music is clearly adherent to the Samurai Code of the 15th through 19th century which is referred to as Edo Bushido and Meiji Bushido. Bushido is a Japanese word meaning “the way of the warrior.” Ancient samurai were mainly concerned with mastery in battle and overcoming opponents and enemies with force. This changed during the era of Edo Bushido. It was a moment of peace, so samurai were forced to find purpose and valor in other aspects of life, aside from war. Samurai began to value compassion and a sense of duty, heroic courage, righteousness, honesty and self-honor. 20th century author Nitobe Inazo introduced the world to Bushido virtues as a code of conduct that could enhance personal

Lupe Fiasco’s depth is intriguing and endearing because his approach to music is complex in its simplicity. He doesn’t try to please reviewers or podcasters. Fiasco follows the samurai code and honors himself by making music that he wants to hear, regardless of what the press and tastemakers say. When Joe Budden and the cohosts of his podcast made fun of him for making the song “Dinosaurs”, where he discusses the prehistoric animals in a modern context, he responded with the following quote: “there’s so much to talk about if you allow yourself to not get caught up in the status quo or trying to appease fucking Mal and Rory (Budden’s cohosts), or rep the fucking Joe Budden Podcast, when you’re trying to really experience the fullness that the world has to give.”

“The way I was raised, the way of the things that my father instilled in us — specifically training through the martial arts and Bushido and samurai code.”

In the Bushido samurai code, honor or “meiyo” can never be stripped from you by insult, rather you can take it from yourself in how you accept the insult as truth. Lupe understands he will be misunderstood. He partially credits himself for the invention of the website “Rap Genius”, which interprets lyrics. Fiasco asks the deeper questions and doesn’t fault the listener for not knowing the answer, or not even understanding the initial question. He states the following in an interview with Vulture:

“Life is very complicated, from my understanding. So I think, in certain capacities, when you listen to Lupe Fiasco music, you get a reflection of the complexity of the situations that we find ourselves in. I just don’t put “Fuck the police,” and that’s it. It’s like, “Why are we fucking the police? Is it even cool to say ‘Fuck the police’? What does that do with the police? What are we going to do if we don’t have police?” Let’s break it down and get into the nuts and bolts. I think that is where you find the solutions, if you’re willing to do the work.”

One certainly learns that Lupe is invested in his music and it is a brave undertaking. Heroic courage or “yu” in the samurai code calls for the kind of calculated bravery that Lupe displays in his music as opposed to recklessness. He doesn’t shy away from saying what he means - especially when it is related to the most important samurai virtue, justice or rectitude. According to Lupe, he does his best work when the “work requires a relationship to mortality and death and crisis and tragedy.”

Lupe’s courage is inextricably tied to his compassion. He speaks on issues that many of the artists he’s influenced do not. While many of his songs are aimed at African Americans in the United States, the Muslim-bred lyricist also speaks against war and unnecessary violence around the world. While most of the rap world has praised fellow Chicagoan President Barack Obama, Fiasco has been critical, referring to the nation’s first Black President as “the biggest terrorist.” His compassion is displayed in an interview with Vulture, in which he talks about making music for those who have died unjustly. He states:

“Unfortunately, you see there’s other Jonylahs: This little kid gets murdered in Chicago; a 1-year old gets murdered in Brooklyn. Right after Ahmaud Arbery, you get George Floyd. Alan is mirrored in kids in Syria and kids in Yemen, kids in war zones that are just kind of casualties of war, externalities. Stop this shit. Stop shooting at kids. Stop dropping bombs on apartment buildings and fucking hospitals. Stop trying to be vigilantes only for Black people. I’m at my best when I’m doing that work, but that work requires a relationship to mortality and death and crisis and tragedy, which I can stand. I can fight that fight, but I do cry every time I make these fucking songs.”

Music is very personal to Lupe Fiasco, as is the way of the Bushido Samurai. The Samurai code is filled with virtues that deal with personal responsibility and reflection and most importantly - justice. Alan refers to Alan Kurdi, a 3-year-old Syrian child who perished by drowning in the Mediterranean during an attempt to flee the war-torn country. Jonylah Watkins was a 6-month-old baby shot dead while she sat in a car with her father in the Woodlawn section

of Lupe’s hometown of Chicago. The shooting was allegedly retaliation for her father stealing a gaming console. On his songs “Jonylah Forever” and “Alan Forever”, Fiasco paints a picture of their futures and shows the potential that was lost in their untimely demise. Rather than simply lament the costs of international wars and urban violence, he presents his audience with what was lost by embodying the victims and giving them a voice.

After receiving mountains of criticism for perceived antisemitism and political hyperbole, Lupe generally avoids the press. He prefers to use social media rather than have his words filter through a journalist. His recent EP “SHOES” is produced entirely by an up-andcoming producer named Kaelin Ellis. When asked why he was suddenly doing interviews for this latest work, he stated “because of Kaelin.” Fiasco felt responsible for Kaelin’s success as an artist. In doing press for Kaelin’s benefit, despite an aversion to press and interviews, Lupe is using the Bushido virtue of "chugi", or loyalty and duty. Having only met and shared music virtually, it certainly does not sound as though Fiasco and Ellis have a long standing relationship. But, part of chugi is faithful execution of commitments.

The son of a member of the Black Panther Party, Lupe has clearly been influenced by socialism. On “American Terrorist”, Fiasco is reminiscent of a Fred Hampton speech to the Rainbow Coalition. He discusses the economic degradation and exploitation of different races of poor people. He raps that even the Ku Klux Klansmen who were angry at people of color, are now starting to see a class-based kinship with their old adversaries because they can often barely afford the gasoline to light their crosses. Lupe’s relationship to wealth is complicated. In adherence to the samurai code and his father’s socialist teachings, he understands the trappings of wealth and money. Inazo Nitobe, author of Bushido: The Soul of Japan, stated that “riches hinder wisdom”. Bushido samurai believed that “luxury was the greatest menace to manhood.” Lupe Fiasco is a fashion connoisseur, so luxury is part of the industry which he is a part of and passionate about. Still, Lupe’s music prioritizes justice, including economic justice.

On “Tranquillo”, Lupe again follows the Bushido samurai code to the letter as he begins his recitation with “no material possessions shall cloud my judgment.” He claims to instead follow “natural codes of conduct” that are “wholesome.” Fiasco desires to “find value in simplicity” and promises to give his enemies “altruism and empathy”. In doing so, he is

reflecting another important virtue of the bushido Samurai code; benevolence and mercy. Sympathy, pity, affection, love and magnanimity are elements of the “highest trait of the human soul.” Rap is traditionally an art form based around competition and vanquishing rivals. Kool Moe Dee deposed Chief Rocker Busy Bee Starski, Roxanne Shante destroyed the Real Roxanne, LL Cool J knocked out Kool Moe Dee, KRS beat MC Shan, Common threw lyrical shots at Ice Cube and on and on. Even more contemporary rappers that probably fit in Lupe’s genre like Kenrick Lamar, tried to establish dominance in his “Control” freestyle. Lupe, however, pushes empathy and coexistence, instead choosing to criticize behavior and the powers that be, rather than fire off direct disses or subliminal shots at his colleagues.

In Blues People, Leroy Jones described the word “cool” to be a “specific reaction to the world, a specific relationship to one’s environment.” While Black men saw suffering and brutal oppression, they remained stoic, detached, and even “unimpressed” as a survival mechanism. On “The Coolest”, Lupe struggles with what the original meaning of cool is versus the seductive perversion of coolness created by our white supremacist culture industry. Jones stated that “in a world that is basically irrational, the most legitimate relationship to it is nonparticipation.” Part of Lupe’s coolness is not only in his avoidance of the music press and antagonistic relationship with the music industry, it has been the threat of retirement. Rappers including Jay Z and others have threatened retirement before, some have been sincere, others have been motivated by marketing. Lupe’s feels real, except for the fact that there is so much to talk about. It’s hard to predict that Lupe will ever be able to quiet himself when he is inspired by random beats tweeted to him and trips to the Natural History Museum.

Lupe's retirement feels except for the fact that there is so much to talk about.

There is something empowering about the ability to pass on participation in a repressive system, even when the threat of violence looms large. However, “The Coolest’ shows how enticing the capitalist perversion of the concept can be, in that a man like Lupe, raised by a socialist Black Panther, can still be seduced. Much like Jones, Lupe is speaking specifically to Black men, as he talks about the “the ones who had deadbeat daddies”, alluding to

an old and recently disproven stereotype of Black familial structure. The theme of Black men not having sufficient involvement in their children’s lives has been a subject Lupe has visited since the early days of his career. “He Say She Say” on his inaugural album Food and Liquor spoke from the perspective of a child whose father didn’t bother to spend time with his son. One can surmise that Lupe is implicitly crediting the mentorship of his father, a former Black Panther,

engineer, and karate instructor, for his success over his peers, who grew up in the rugged and unforgiving Chicagoland area. The culture industry has made coolness into wealth, widespread popularity, and fame, when in fact, as Jones states, “it was this America that one was supposed to ‘be cool’ in the face of.” Lupe lamented that he was being drawn in by the culture industry in the following stanza:

A obscene obsession for the bling She would be my queen, I could be her king, together She would make me cool, and we would both rule, forever And I would never feel pain And never be without pleasure, ever, again”

Lupe recognizes that the allure of fame for someone talented and influential will have a domino effect. When he models the culture industry’s perversion of coolness, other young Black men and boys will inevitably follow suit and seek participation, sometimes through destructive means. Lupe states the following:

“She said, that she would give me greatness, status, placement Above the others, my face with grace covers of the magazines Of the hustlers, paper, the likes of which That I had never seen, her eyes glow green With the logo of our dreams, the purpose of our scene

“Come, these are the tales of The Cool Guaranteed to go and make you fail from your school

And seek unholy grails like a fool And hang with the players of the pool Fast talkin’ all the hustle.”

Lupe is open about his inner struggle with the culture industry and its products. On “Hurt Me Soul”, he talks about how he hated the degradation of women in hip hop, but was enticed by Too $hort’s humorous raps. In a compromise, he recited the raps, but omitted the words he found most offensive. Rap Music for Lupe is a mix of Food and Liquor, it both nourishes you and tears you apart, and it is habit forming and addictive. Lupe struggled with what some aging rappers deal with when they recognize that decades of lyrical gangsterism is difficult to reconcile with their identities as fathers and husbands. Lupe, however, was struggling with this issue on his very first studio album.

On Food & Liquor

II: The Great American Rap Album, he continues to discuss his personal struggles while simultaneously criticizing the society that produces them. On “Form Follows Function”, a song titled after a late 19th and early 20th architectural principle that states that a building form should be suited for its function, Lupe begins by stating “shout outs to my inner demon that be creepin’ around my temple, ready to set me off like Vivica or make me cross like a crucifix.”

Fiasco acknowledges his own imperfection and inner struggles, an admission that is often ignored by music reviewers and tastemakers who accuse him of being

“preachy.” Those people should also consider that at times Lupe is not rapping to or for an audience, but to himself. He is reminding himself of the pitfalls of capitalism on a macro-scale, such as government failures, historical holocausts, and oppression, to keep himself vigilant. The title also acknowledges the intentionality in Lupe Fiasco’s art. Each detail is thought through, as opposed to the improvisational style of other artists. Even if Lupe were to improvise, it would be because a particular song called for improvisation. It also follows a Zen martial arts principle of “process not product.”

The admission of his own struggles to live and fulfill his principles are examples of another virtue of Bushido. Honesty and sincerity are paramount in the Bushido samurai tradition. While most rappers elevate every project they release to “classic” status, Lupe rated his Drogas Light album a “7/10”, admitting that it was a “curation of pre-existing material.” Honesty is not always paired with humility in the Bushido samurai code, which is why Lupe still refers to himself as a “brilliant rapper” in the same review.

On Lupe’s song NGL, Lupe recites a hodgepodge of realism and nihilism for the Black American proletariat. NGL stands for Niggas Gon’ Lose. Lupe is a product of the nihilistic Black generation, whose hopelessness was “a

threat to its very existence” according to Cornel West in his seminal book, Race Matters.

“The Words I Never Said” are similar to the first essay in James Baldwin’s classic “The Fire Next Time.” Baldwin wrote the essay to his nephew whose name was also James Baldwin. It often feels as though Baldwin is writing to his younger self while simultaneously reaffirming and reassuring himself of his present day political beliefs. Fiasco blames society for the problems in urban Black communities, but also rhetorically asks why members of said community haven’t taken action. Fiasco states:”

about the liquor store but what you drinking liquor for?

Complain about the gloom but when’d you pick a broom up?

“Complain

Just listening to Pac ain’t gone make it stop

A rebel in your thoughts, ain’t gon’ make it halt”

While he’s critical of President Obama in the very song for his foreign policy mishaps and failure to condemn acts of war, he sounds just like him on “the Words I Never Said” and other songs throughout his vast catalog. Obama gave speeches asking for accountability from Black men as fathers. The 2008 speech to the NAACP sounded eerily like Lupe’s “He Say She Say” and other tracks that call for personal responsibility.

Lupe Fiasco’s critiques of capitalism avoid hackneyed tropes of pseudoconscientiousness, but reflect a well-studied understanding of its history. The title of his song “Manilla” is taken from a popular currency used in the Atlantic Slave Trade. The Portuguese used copper or brass bracelets called manillas, which derived its name from the Portuguese word “manilha” meaning hand ring. Manillas had been used in Africa for generations and were adorned by women in an ostentatious presentation of their husband’s wealth. An enslaved person’s life was given the value of approximately 12 to 15 manillas. After reciting complicated lyrics, the voice of what sounds like a teenager giving a school report explains the significance of Manillas.

The album Drogas Wave is filled with material like Manillas. One can clearly see that Lupe is an avid reader, and like any good teacher, is excited to share knowledge. His understanding of the roots of capitalism in the Atlantic Slave Trade are flexed on the songs like WAV Files where he melodically recites the names of slave ships and on “Gold vs the Right Thing to Do”. The latter song is another reference to the Bushido samurai code that warns against excess and encourages thrift for warriors. Capitalism encouraged men to justify evil deeds, but in “Gold vs the Right Thing to Do” the ghosts of enslaved Africans bring down slave ships and drown their crews.

Dr.JasonNichols

In a genre that has many people who fashion themselves fighters, Lupe Fiasco is rap music’s lone samurai. His pen is as powerful as a katana, slicing through the excess and materialism of the culture industry. The code he follows predates the “street code” or more modern understanding of ethics. While his albums have had various textures and themes and a plethora of rhyme styles, the consistency lies in the ethical underpinning. This approach will continue until Lupe decides to truly bow out - like a true samurai warrior.

RENAISSANCE MAN

Leon Battista Alberti, an renowned Italian architect of the 15th century is credited with coining the phrase “Renaissance man”, someone who “can do all things if they will.” Defined loosely, it is a universal character whose talents, interests, and knowledge covers a wide range of ideas, topics and information. While the title has become somewhat flat in modern times with the democratization of genius in the digital age, it is one that Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, better known as Lupe Fiasco, can lay rightful claim to. A quick study of his creative work, not simply his music, but also his fashion, design, and academic pursuits, presents an individual that couldn’t simply be defined as “rapper” or even “artist”. Throughout Hip-Hop there is a long lineage of eclectic and bizarre characters. From Kanye to Ghostface (Hell the entire WU), to Lauryn Hill, DOOM (R.I.P.), Cardi B and 3 Stacks to name a small few; the culture and music of Hip-Hop has long been a place where uniquely gifted, imaginative wordsmiths and talents leave indelible marks through their musical contributions, but also their philosophy and personality (that often starts with or is filtered of course through the music we love).

What is most powerful about his work is that he asks more questions than he gives answers.

Lupe came into our awareness in the midst of the apex for millennials, a generation very much steeped in the lessons of the past who came of age at the beginning of the digital era. Unlike any generation before, they had an ability to access, distribute and curate large amounts of information, and experiences that are unprecedented in human history. Lupe’s emergence also coincided with possibly the apex of HipHop’s commercial and cultural viability. By the mid-aughts; rap music had established itself as the pre-dominate commercial music, and the culture itself long established as the younger generation’s modus operandi for style and communication. Lupe is amongst the generation of Hip-Hop heads who sit at the way point of Hip-Hop’s rise to relevance and its commodification into cultural Americana.

Lupe’s career also spans some of the most important moments in American History, a post 9-11 world, the second Iraq war, the housing bubble, the Bush, Obama and Trump years as well as the Black Lives Matter movement. Alongside his love of manga, Eastern culture and philosophy and obscure references, Lupe’s concerns around equality and

justice for oppressed people, the conversations he directly wishes to have with the black community and his critiques of capitalism show someone deeply affected by the state of the world. An overarching idea that much of Lupe’s music loops back to are his concerns and observations of the conscience of the world in which we live. What is most powerful about his work is that he asks more questions than he gives answers. Possibly, on a casual listen, one could think Lupe is delivering a sermon of respectability politics or delving into a spiral of contradictions, but listen closer and you hear the pondering of an artist who is just as confused and searching for the reasons as any of us. Throughout his career and within his catalog, we witness the demons and villains that he grapples with, and in turn, what he sees those around him dealing with as well.

Lupe, the person, also represents a particular black figure that rarely is discussed. A young black man with an active and substantial relationship with his father despite being raised in a “single parent” home by his mother. A young black figure in the hood who was exposed to a myriad of influences, not just banging, sex and violence.

The popular tropes of black life, in particular, urban black life, simply don’t apply to Lupe, even in his personal life he defies the conventional. Lupe’s emergence wasn’t as much an anomaly as it was an inevitability, nor was it new. Artists such as Outkast, Tribe, Black Star, even NaS had backgrounds that were similar, in family structure as well as influences. Lupe is an example of the black body not being a monolith and what happens when that presence finds and holds a platform to express the multitude of ideas that encompass their experience.

Fiasco’s body of work is vast. In addition to seven full length studio albums, he’s also released six official mixtapes. For the sake of brevity, the focus will be on his seven studio albums, as they represent the core of Lupe’s output and where both the lay fan, as well as the fanatic know him. Lupe’s prolific output relative to his peers also further cements his status as a true renaissance man. A rare artist who can’t be confined or defined by one aspect of who he is and what he’s experienced.

mikal amin lee

Food & Liquor 20 06

Atwenty four year old Lupe made his “official” commercial debut (he’d put one single out with a short-lived group “the pak” at nineteen) under the watchful eye of executive producer Jay-Z, after he was impressed by Lupe’s guest appearance on Kanye West’s “Touch the Sky.” From the outset, Lupe set his existential agenda, with the album’s name being a metaphor for good (“Food”) and evil (“Liquor”). Food & Liquor spans a myriad of topics from capitalism and mass consumption, to single parent households, personal and community vices. As he says in his intro,

“Complain about the liquor store but what you drinking liquor for? Complain about the gloom but when’d you pick a broom up? Just listening to Pac ain’t gone make it stop A rebel in your thoughts, ain’t gon’ make it halt”

As the album builds, Lupe’s wordplay, storytelling and penchant for extended metaphors gives us an insight into the mind of a young philosopher and shows how the environment he came from affects him. Lupe sets the stage for his universal pondering in this intro, laying out his dichotomy and alluding to the temptations, desires, obstacles and challenges he and his community face on a daily basis.

Earlier in the intro, his sister, Ayesha Jacko lays out the duality and dichotomy of life through the contrast of corner stores (also, nicknamed “Food & Liquors”) describing the actual life that plays out in their neighborhood in and around them.

Food and liquor stores

rest on every corner

From 45th and State to the last standing Henry Horner

J&J’s, Harold’s Chicken, good finger lickin’

While they sin, gin, sin sin at Rothschild’s and Kenwood Liquors

The winos crooked stagger meets the high stride of the youth

She details the seediness of the establishment, describing characters lost to their lowest vices, unable to deal with the pain that turns to anger,

They rebel and raise hell across alleyways and in classroom settings

They get, high off that trunk bass and 20/20 rims

They rock braids, Air Force Ones, and Timbs

They drink Hennessy, Hypnotiq, and 40’s They call they women hoes, bust downs, and shorties

They keep funeral homes in business and gunshot wards of hospitals full

And then, ultimately alludes to a hero, or at least a truth teller who will offer us hope (Lupe) as they expose the reality we face. The well is running dry

The days of Malcolm and Martin have ended Our hope has descended and off to the side

Waiting for the reinstallment of the

revolution

we are dying at the cost of our own pollution

Because

But God has another solution, that has evolved from the hood I present one who turns, the Fiasco to good

As a lyricist, and writer, Lupe’s style is dense, chocked full with layered and veiled meanings, allusions and allegory. In this debut, Lupe immediately lays claims to being a gifted storyteller, with all these tools at his disposal. One of his gifts is that despite his desire to tackle complex subjects, and crafting his music in a way that requires a close read, his prowess in delivery and structure allow for a pleasurable listen. As Hip-Hop emceeing has evolved, one of its main traits has been the level of speed and dexterity an emcee is required to have to show a level of skill. Multisyllabic rhyme patterns and triple entendres, to the uninitiated, can feel uninviting at best, and garbled incoherence at its worst. Lupe doesn’t stray into these dead ends, while still giving a master class in poetry over beats.

One of his songs, “He Say/ She say” is a great example of his storytelling. The song structure is a traditional hook/ verse/hook/verse, with the two verses being identical, except for the point of view. Lupe relays a first person conversation between a mother and her ex-husband. As the mother laments the lack of presence in his son’s life and the effects of this in the first verse, which then becomes the son’s identical conversation with his father in the second. Considering the parallel of Lupe’s own experience with a household wherein the father wasn’t a daily physical presence, yet was clearly a regular one within his son’s life, the song conveys how critical it is to the development of a child. In particular in this case of a young man to have his father’s presence more than anything:

I try to make him understand That I’m his number one fan

But it’s like you booing from the stands

You know the world is out to get him So why don’t you give him a chance?”

Earlier in the verse, the speaker (Mom/Son) lays out the consequences of the actions (or inaction) by the father that affect his son.

and he’s starting to harbor

Cool on food for thought, but for you he’s a starver

Starting to use red markers on his work His teacher say they know he’s much smarter But he’s hurt

Used to hand his homework in first like he was the classroom starter.”

Burst to tears, let him know she’s serious

“Now he’s fighting in class

Got a note last week that says he might not pass

Ask me if his daddy was sick of us

Cause you ain’t never pick him up

You see what his problem is?

He don’t know where his poppa is No positive male role model

To play football and build railroad models

It’s making a hole; you’ve been digging it

Cause you ain’t been kicking it

Since he was old enough to hold bottles

He wasn’t supposed to get introduced to that

He don’t deserve to get used to that

Now I ain’t asking you for money or to come back to me

Some days it ain’t sunny, but it ain’t so hard Just breaks my heart When I try to provide and he say ‘Mommy, that ain’t your job’

To be a man,

The song highlights a cause and effect to the father’s absence, ironically only present even in the verse through the voice of the mother and son, as Lupe does not have the father responding to the protests of his family. This, in a way, strengthens the position of the family, as the mother who speaks first, is the voice, and the conscious relaying to her (ex) partner what the cost of his absence is. A young man lost to violence, to apathy and possibly to end up as one of the nameless “winos” or “rebels” calling women “hoes” that Ayesha refers to in the intro. Lupe’s reference to the son’s harboring “a cool” on food for thought, a great play on words to show the son’s decreasing interest in school learning, is an idea he’ll return to in not only successive songs, but albums as well.

We see that cool personified in a song of the same name on the album, wherein we meet a nameless character (for now) who returns from an untimely demise. Again, Lupe’s imagery serves as much to

bring numerous meanings and ideas, as it does to give listeners a powerful picture and something to connect with in the song

He came back, in the same suit that he was buried in Similar to the one his grandfather was married in Yes, he was still fresh to death

Bling, two earrings, a chain layin’ on his chest He still had it cause they couldn’t find it

And the bullets from his enemies sat like two inches behind it

Smelled the Hennessy from when his niggas got reminded

And poured out liquor in his memory, he didn’t

mind it

But, he couldn’t sip it fast enough

So the liquor was just fillin’ the casket up

Floatin’ down by his feet was the letter from his sister

Second grade handwriting simply read, “I miss ya”

Suit jacket pocket held his baby daughter’s picture

Right next to it, one of his mans stuck a Swisher

He had a notion as he laid there soakin’ He saw that the latch was broken, he kicked his casket open And he…

As a lyricist, and writer Lupe’s style is dense, chocked full with layered and veiled meanings, allusions and allegory.

Lupe’s resurrected corpse carries all the stereotypes of a nameless, faceless hood character, complete with blunt, fly threads and chains, plus a bottle of henny for his transition. The hook itself provides the lesson of the parable:

This life goes passing you by

It might go fast if you lie

You born, you live then you die

Oh oh oh oh

If life goes passing you by Don’t cry

If you’re breaking the rules, making your moves

Paying your dues, chasing the cool

Over the next two verses, we

watch as our hustler rises from the dead, and returns home, back to the very corner he was shot at, back into the path of the actual dealers who shot him the first time. gettin’ back in his lane

Doin’ his thang, first he had to find something to slang

Next stop was his block, it had the same cops Walked right past the same spot where he was shot

Shocked that some lil’ niggas tried to sell him rocks

It just felt weird, being on the opposite

They figured that he wasn’t from there so they pulled out

And robbed him with the same gun they shot him with

Put it to his head and said, “You’re scared, ain’t ya?”

He said, “Hustler for death, no heaven for a gangsta”

Lupe’s tale also symbolizes the cycle of violence that exists within the confines of the community. Upon his return, “the cool” doesn’t reflect or pause to consider how he died, what that means, and why. The character almost acts as if nothing happens, his death a matter of circumstance and only a delay before he returns to his pursuits of the fast life. He’s so consumed by the hustle, not realizing he’s a corpse until in front of a mirror (as if tunneling out of a casket, and imbibing liquor that simply pours through him aren’t already dead giveaways) even after that realization he continues on his mission like a zombie possessed. These images draw us again back to Ayesha’s descriptions of the figures in front of the Food & Liquor wrapped up in their vices, spiraling towards an unseen end. Both of these songs, “the cool” and “he say/she say”, are cautionary tales, with the latter foreshadowing what’s to come in the former. Lupe’s subtle reference of “the cool” serving as a breadcrumb to follow.

The Cool 20 07

One year later and one album in, Lupe, by his own admission, is already pondering retirement. Considering in that year-span, he lost two of his greatest supporters and muses; his father transitioned due to succumbing to type II Diabetes, and his main partner and collaborator Charles “Chilly” Patton (an executive producer on Food and Liquor and long-time friend and confidant) to a 44 year jail sentence for alleged drug trafficking, it shouldn’t be surprising. Good friend, Stack Bundles also passed and with the behind-the-scenes shuffling within the industry—by this point, he’d signed deals with Epic, Arista and then Atlantic while also starting his own imprint with Chilly, 1st & 15th— Lupe had been through a lifetime of struggle in a short span. Having already given the world an amazing debut, his second album would almost double down on the morality tales he first penned on “Food & Liquor”.

Lupe said as much claiming this next record was conceptual in nature expanding the story of the young man from “He Say/ She” we now know is named Michael Young History and who would become “the cool”. The allegory extends with two new characters, “The Streets” and “The Game” forming an intimate partnership of convenience and business that Lupe remarks represent who raises the young man (and youth in real life) in

the absence of positive role models and a solid familial structure. The album loosely carries out the story of these characters but Lupe’s larger tropes of good and evil are maintained throughout. Songs, such as “Gotta Eat”, that personify fast food as a mobster, and “Put You On Game”, that also gives voice to the evils of the world, continue Lupe’s observations on the ramifications of participating

in them. Other songs highlight both personal struggles with vanity (“Superstar”) and larger global issues such as gun violence and how it affects youth in various ways (“Little Weapons”). All of these subjects point to the ills Lupe witnesses or experiences, and his songs are the vehicle he uses to address them.

“The Coolest” is actually where Michael Young History (pronounced “My-Cool”) begins his story, the song is the prequel before he becomes “The Cool” (the corpse that comes back to life on Food & Liquor). The first person narrative relays Michael discussing his relationship to the streets, personified as an irresistible woman, and how she feeds his desire for power, wealth and respect.

I love the seas, and I love the shore

No love for no beach; baby, that’s law

But she doesn’t see, therefore I spoil I trick, I fall, run up in raw

I love her with all my heart

Every vein, every vessel, every bullet lodged With every flower that I ever took apart

She said that she would give me greatness, status

Placement above the others

My face would grace covers of the magazines

of the hustlers

Paper, the likes of which that I had never seen Her eyes glow green with the logo of our dreams

The purpose of our scene, an obscene obsession for the bling She would be my queen, I could be her king, together She would make me cool, and we would both rule, forever

In the second verse we meet the game, personified but also symbolized as drugs (Lupe’s biblical play on the name of the forsaken brother Caine adds another layer of symbolism around the ills of the game). The verse is steeped in drug slang to discuss how the cool is running the streets through “flooding” it with cocaine. The metaphors of rain, and storms refer to pushing the product of cocaine, and as the “rain pours” Michael only grows more into the cool.

And so began our reign

The Trinity: Her and I, Caine

No weatherman could ever stand when her and I came Hella hard; umbrella, whatever, put plywood over Pella panes

And pray to God that the flood subside

‘Cause you gon’ need a sub ‘til he does reply

And not one of Jared’s, you think it’s all arid

And everyt’ing’s irie, another supply

That means another July inside my endless summer

That was just the eye of the Unger—Felix

‘Cause he is the cleanest amongst the Younger outstanding achieving up-andcomers

The ones that had deadbeat daddies and well-to-do mommas

But not well enough to keep ‘em from us

The ones that were fighting in class, who

might not pass

Rap record-pressured to laugh at a life not fast

“Can you feel it?” That’s what I got asked

“Do I love her?” Said, “I don’t know”

Streets got my heart, game got my soul

One time missing

sunshine will never hurt your soul

Towards the end we also get allusions to Michael’s descent, referencing back to the argument between his mother and father on “He Say/ She Say” when she discusses him beginning to fail in school. The second voice is that of the game, asking his new mentee if he’s fallen for his new love, the Streets. The allure of material desire and of power and prestige are too much for him as he admits the Streets have his heart and the game his soul. Lupe’s story of addiction, lust for power and craving for respect gives us the answer to how we found Michael on the first record, undead, lost to the hustle unable to rest in peace and forced to carry on searching in vain to maintain and keep the worldly power and opulence he craved in life, his own personal hell.

“Put you on Game” is where we meet our final character. Lupe has him autobiographical style explain his origins, his reasons for being and the many forms he takes,

Don’t you know that I run this place

And I’ve begun this race, must I rerun this pace

I’m the reason it’s become this way And their love for it is the reason I have become this praised (Let me put you on game)

They love my darkness, I make them heartless

And in return they have become my martyrs

I’ve been in the poem of many a poet

And I reside in the art of many a artist

(Let me put you on game)

Some of your smartest have tried to articulate

My whole part in this, but they’re fruitless in their harvest

The dro grows from my footsteps

I’m the one that they follow, I am the one that they march with (Let me put you on game)

Through the back alleys and the black markets

The Oval offices, crackhouses, and apartments

Through the mazes of the queens

The pages of the sages and the chambers of the kings

(Let me put you on game)

Through the veins of the fiends

A paper chaser’s pager, yo, I’m famous on the scene

One of the oldest, most ancientest things

Speak every single language on the planet, y’all mean?

(Let me put you on game)

As he continues, he lays claims to historical events and traumas, as well as the very ideology and beliefs that create so many of the ills Lupe discusses widely throughout the entire album.

I am the American dream

The rape of Africa, the undying machine

The overpriced medicine, the murderous regime

The tough guy’s front and the one behind the scenes

(Let me put you on game)

I am the blood of this city, its gas, water, and electricity

I’m its gym, and its math, and its history

The gunshots in the class

And you can’t pass if you’re missin’, G I taught them better than that

I taught them aim for the head and hope they never come back

I’m glad your daddy’s gone, baby, hope he never comes back

I hope he’s with your mother with my hustlers high in my traps

(Let me put you on game)

I hope you die in his trash

The game discusses his followers, and those who have been afflicted by his power and influence. As in the “Coolest”, when Michael is describing who the Streets are, Lupe gives the game a space to tell his own tale and speak of his own legend:

I can’t help it, all I hear when you’re crying is laughs

I’m sure somebody find you tied up in this bag

Behind the hospital, little baby crack addicts had

(Let me put you on game)

Then maybe you can grow up to be a stripper

A welfare-receiving prostitute and gold digger

You can watch on TV how they should properly depict you The rivers shall flow with liquor, quench your thirst on my elixirs

(Let me put you on game)

I am the safe haven for the rebel runaway and the resistor

The trusted misleader, the number one defender

And from a throne of their bones I rule These fools are my fuel,

so I make them cool (Let me put you on game)

Baptize them in the water out of Scarface pool

And feed them from the table that held Corleone’s food

If you die, tell them that you played my game I hope your bullet holes become mouths that say my name Cause I’m the-[gunshot]

Lupe remarks, in an interview in Pitchfork, how he was searching for ways to tackle big and important ideas in a way that would get people to listen. The idea of the proverbial “pill inside the food” comes to mind when listening to The Cool. Steeped in allegory and metaphor, his goal to bring truth to life and in living color is achieved.

Lasers

20 11

Lupe’s third album might be his most controversial; mostly due to events directly and indirectly associated with its creation. With two critically acclaimed (and relatively commercially successful) albums, Lupe had established himself within the Hip-Hop sphere. His stature as a statesman had begun to grow as the world came to know more about his eclectic taste and strong stances both on and off record. In the four years since “The Cool”, Lupe had become even more entrenched (and disenfranchised) with the music business, and media as a whole. He courted controversy at the VH1 awards with his flub of two lines on Electric Relaxation. His subsequent interviews at the time, by some, felt dismissive (claiming to not have listened to Tribe coming up). On closer examination, Lupe’s assertions showed the complexity of who he was. A young Chicagoan as much attached to the streets, as he was to abstract philosophy and anime. Hindsight shows a misread on many people’s parts because of his style, and ultimately it became much ado about nothing.

The real controversies stemmed around his music. While rappers claiming retirement is as common as them asking an audience to throw their hands in the air, Lupe was serious. His original plans were to release a final triple album, then what would ultimately become Food & Liquor II (which did end up being his fourth album).

Atlantic had different plans. By this point, Lupe was their hottest commodity, and despite this they still felt there was more commercial potential untapped. Behind the scenes a battle of wills as to the direction of Lasers ensued. Ultimately, it was the pressure of fans that ultimately saw “Lasers” released. By his own admission it’s one of his least

favorite records he’s released, which might largely stem from it’s probably his most straight ahead record. While lyrically, there is no let up, the format and guests felt more like a pop record. Ultimately, fans are mixed, but to date it is Lupe’s most commercially successful album.

“Words I Never Said” could be Lupe’s most straightforward political song. Having created music post 9-11 and during a decade plus of the Iraq War, the housing crisis and the first Black president to name a few, more than ever Lupe’s personal crusade to open minds seemed more urgent.

I really think the War on Terror is a bunch of bullshit

Just a poor excuse for you to use up all your bullets

How much money does it take to really make a full clip?

9/11, building 7, did they really pull it?

Uh, and a bunch of other coverups

Your child’s future was the first to go with budget cuts

His disillusionment with the government, the media and America is palpable in the final four lines of the first verse:

Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist

Gaza Strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit

That’s why I ain’t vote for him, next one either I’m a part of the problem, my problem is I’m peaceful And I believe in the people, yeah

In the second verse might be one of his most direct statements he’s made as he directly confronts Islamophobia, while also critiquing his community

Jihad is not holy war, where’s that in the worship?

Murdering is not Islam, and you are not observant

And you are not a Muslim Israel don’t take my side ‘cause look how far you’ve pushed them Walk with me into the ghetto, this where all the kush went Complain about the liquor store, but what you drinking liquor for? Complain about the gloom, but when’d you pick a broom up? Just listening to Pac ain’t gon’ make it stop A rebel in your thoughts ain’t gon’ make it halt

If you don’t become a actor, you’ll never be a factor

He continues his critique, not only of his community, but the toxicity of western culture, and our dependence on pharmaceuticals, our poor diet and predatory financial system.

Pills with million side effects, take ‘em when the pain’s felt Wash ‘em down with

diet

soda, killing off your brain cells

Crooked banks around the world would gladly give a loan today

So if you ever miss a payment, they can take your home away

The final verse concludes as a personal manifesto. To rise above the fear and isolation that modern society has created. Considering the personal challenges and suffering he’d face leading up to the battle to release Lasers, it’s no wonder he felt the need to call himself out as much as everyone else.

Fear is such a weak emotion, that’s why I despise it

We scared of almost everything, afraid to even tell the truth

So scared of what you think of me, I’m scared of even telling you

Sometimes I’m like the only person I feel safe to tell it to

I’m locked inside a cell in me, I know that there’s a jail in you

At the same time, his message was for his fans as well. The irony of Lasers is it’s Lupe’s least favorite record, yet it is the one that galvanized his fans in a way that he’d never seen before. His bond with them was elevated in this moment and unlike before possibly he felt more connected to them then ever, so ultimately this manifesto was also for them.

Consider

There have been moments where it has seemed either Lupe was ahead of his time or at least prophetic.

“All Black Everything” feels as if it arrived a few years early, a song that in tone and content sounds like it was forged during the time of the Black Lives Matter Movement and the revival of AfroFuturism. It also feels closer to what we’d heard from Lupe pre-lasers. Conceptual, layered meanings with strong word play and story-telling. Like Wakanda before him, Lupe imagined a world where black people were not chattel, and our land not touched by colonial powers. He imagines a what if and the possibilities of a free black people.

Uh, and we ain’t get exploited White man ain’t fear it so he did not destroy it We ain’t work for free, see they had to employ it

Built it up together so we equally appointed First 400 years, see we actually enjoyed it Constitution written by W.E.B. Du Bois Were no reconstructions, civil war got avoided

In this reality foes are friends and the constructs that were created to oppress black people are literally turned inside out.

Extra extra on the newsstands

Black woman voted head of Ku Klux Klan Malcolm Little dies as an old man

Martin Luther King read the eulogy for him

Followed by Bill

O’Reilly who read from the Qu’ran

President Bush sends condolences from Iran

Where Fox News reports live

That Ahmadinejad wins the Mandela Peace Prize

this your bailing out, so take a breath, inhale a few

My screams is finally getting free, My thoughts is finally yelling through

In the following verse, his alternate universe means that the very inspirations and tropes of commercial rap don’t even exist.

Uh, and it ain’t no projects

Keepin’ it real is not an understood concept

Yeah, complexion’s not a contest

‘Cause racism has no context

Hip-hop ain’t got a section called “Conscious”

Everybody rappin’ like crack never happened Crips never occurred nor Bloods to attack them

Matter of fact, no hood to attack in Somalia is a great place to relax in Fred Astaire was the first to do a backspin

The Rat Pack was a cool group of black men

That inspired five white guys called The Jacksons

A subtle message Lupe conveys is showing how the world is built on artificial constructs of identity. So much of our culture and understanding is filtered through identities that are artificial and superficial. What if we removed them? What would change if the constructs never existed? Everything.

I cordially invite you to ask why can’t it be

Now we can do nothing about the past

But we can do something about the future that we have

We can make it fast or we can make it last

Every woman queen and every man a king and When those color lines come we can’t see between We just close our eyes ‘til its all black every-thing

In the larger scheme of Lupe’s career, Lasers is a turning point in a sense. A cynicism arises from the battles fought and won by him during this time. The fight for his professional freedom, the struggles to overcome the personal tragedies of the recent past. Instead of being a breaking point, it ultimately proved to be a launching pad for Lupe to go deeper and even further than he had before to express himself.

Food & Liquor II the Great American Rap Record

Food & Liquor II, in some ways, feels more like a Lasers pt. 2 or a Lupe’s Lost Tapes with much of this album actually written during the time of Lasers studio sessions (in fact, several of the records were meant for that album). While not as completely straightforward as Lasers, it retains much of the more directness in style, but truer to Lupe still plays with more abstract concepts. The cynicism of this record also is very strong as Lupe becomes even sharper in his critiques of social Ills and norms.

Despite spending his entire career addressing racism, misogyny, environmental issues, corrupt governments, war and violence in his music, this was the record that was overtly considered “a conscious rap” record. Numerous commercial successes and industry acknowledgements (by this point he’d been nominated thirteen times for Grammys having won for best alternative performance with

Jill Scott for DayDreaming) now saw Lupe arguably at or close to his peak in influence. And with that influence, he only doubled down in addressing what he felt were the issues of the day, and the contradictions they created.

Most heavy on his mind throughout this record is the increasing divide between the haves and have nots. Lupe re-tells and reimagines

American history and continues to critique the state of current events as he sees them. He takes time for introspection on songs such as “Ital” and “Battle Scars”. He also indicts himself in the crimes of mass consumption as well (“BraveHeart”).

The song “Around my Way” is another example of Lupe’s uncompromising critique of the state of the world, and the oppressive history of the country he lives in. He opens the first verse recounting the genocide of the indigenous people in the Americas and then quickly moves to observations around negative body stereotypes for women, mass incarceration and hyper capitalism.

First off, say “Peace” to Pine Ridge

Shame at all the damage that the white man wine did

Ghost Dance, Trail of Tears, five million beers a year

And all that other crime did

More peace to the teachers of blind kids

To rebels in small cells keeping their mind big

Say everything’s hostile Suicide bombers and prosperity gospels, emaciated models

With cocaine and blood pouring out their nostrils, they got to Just to stay awake on the catwalk of life where

everybody watch you

Straight hair, high heels and a handbag

Crucifixes, racism and a land grab

Katrina, FEMA trailers, human body sandbags

A peace sign and a pants sag

A money toss cause a nine stripper mad dash

A friend request following a hashtag

Now everybody want it like the last laugh

A Michael Jackson jacket or a Daft mask

Purple Jordans or the mixed girl in your math class

He saves the most scathing lines for the end, alluding to the Iraq War being more about securing American opulence than it was to establish freedom and democracy in Baghdad.

Stable is when the Ba’ath had Baghdad

But corporate jets really had to have that gas bad War and they hope they all fall from the ratatat Cause that’s just more

dinosaur for their Cadillacs

Continuing into the second verse, the condemnation of western sensibilities and habits continues.

And we marvel at the state of Ottoman

Then turn around and treat Ghana like a garbage can America’s a big motherfuckin’ garbageman

If you ain’t know, you’re part and parcel of the problem

You say no you ain’t, and I say yes you is Soon as you find out what planned obsolescence is

You say no they didn’t, and I say yes they did The definition of unnecessary-ness Manifested

Calling out the U.S. using an African country as a garbage dump, with the cause coming from mass consumption and pointing his finger squarely at the listener are further examples of Lupe’s rising cynicism. He also rebukes the methods and strategies employed to fight it.

Say that we should protest just to get arrested

That goes against all my hustling ethics

A bunch of jail niggas say it’s highly ineffective Depart from Martin, connect on Malcolm X tip

Insert Baldwin to similar the separate

To me, the truth is more fulfilling than a meth hit

Consistently Lupe has namechecked Malcolm X and other radical thinkers and activists such as Baldwin, in his music, and he again lays it plain what he believes is the wrong strategy. As he moves to the third verse, his contempt for capitalism is fully laid bare.

An all-white Los Angeles, the dream of Mr. Chandler Hope and pray they take Columbus Day up off the calendar South Central an example of God’s gifts So shout to all the mothers raising babies in SPA 6

The projects of Oakland city, Detroit ghost towns Monopolies on poverty where D-boy coke bound It’s parts of Manila like the video for “Thriller”

But the US Embassy is reminiscent of a villa

If poverty is chocolate and privilege vanilla

Then what’s the flavor of the Sunday preacher’s pedophilia?

Cash rules everything around these niggas

As classrooms everywhere around me wither

Hither you can be Mr. Burns or Mr. Smithers

The tyrant or the slave, but nowhere in the middle

Of the extremes of America’s dream Freud fighting Neo, Freddy Krueger refereeing, now…

Gentrification, redlining and the massive wealth gap are the roots of the evil that Lupe sees. It’s what drives anti-intellectualism, the destruction of the planet, and for Lupe, the very degradation of our souls. For him in “Around My Way" the cause and the effect is crystal clear.

Similarly, "Unforgivable Youth" continues his critique of America. The opening verse recounts the “founding” of the Americas by Christopher Columbus. An idea that has become antiquated and even has entered our lexicon as a derogatory term to describe someone who steals a preexisting idea of creation (“Columbusing”).

With land on the horizon and passion in their eyes and What they think are islands are much more in their size and Bountiful and plentiful and resource to provide them

Supplies slim, morale once so heavily inside them

Now steadily declining Return is not an option as necessity denies them

With this they choose to dive in Now along the shore and so aware of their arriving

Are the children of this land prepared to share in their surviving

A pageantry of feathers stands his majesty with treasure

Not the material things of kings that could never last forever

But secrets of the spirit world and how to live in harmony together

Unbeknownst to him his head would be the first that they would sever And stuck up on a pike up along the beach

Kept up as a warning to the rest to turn away from their beliefs

And so began it here, and for five hundred years

Torture, terror, fear ‘til they nearly disappear

Lupe succinctly tells the story of colonization of the Americas. The simplicity and subtlety in how he does it underscores the devastation of its reality. It’s a story that in modernity is well documented but doesn’t hit any less harder when you hear the last lines, “And so began it here and for five hundred years, Torture terror, fear til they nearly disappear”.

The second verse finds chattel slavery discussed in a similarly measured fashion,

Ways and means from the trade of human beings

A slave labor force provides wealth to the machine

And helps the new regime establish and expand

Using manifest destiny to siphon off the land

From native caretakers who can barely understand

How can land be owned by another man?

Lupe highlights the differences in beliefs and values between the oppressed and oppressor. Those indigenous to the land and who come from the land are in service and connected to it. Those who are not only see it as a means to an end to exploit for personal and material gain.

Warns, “One can not steal what was given as a gift;

Is the sky owned by birds and the rivers owned by fish?”

But the lesson went unheeded, for the sake of what’s not needed

You kill but do not eat it

The excessive and elitists don’t repair it when they leave it

The forests’s were cleared, the factories were built

And all mistakes will be repeated

By your future generations doomed to pay for your mistreatments

Foolishness and flaws, greed and needs and disagreement

And in your rush to have the most, from the day you left your boats

You’ll starve but never die in a world of hungry ghosts

True to Lupe, the twist of the song comes in the third verse, where he begins imagining a far off future, where our descendants uncover the artifacts from our time.

As archaeologists dig in the deserts of the east

A pit a hundred meters wide and a hundred meters deep

They discover ancient cars on even older streets

And a city well preserved and most likely at its peak

A culture so advanced, and by condition of the teeth

They can tell that they were civil, not barbaric in the least

A society at peace. With liberty and justice for all

Neatly carved in what seems to be a wall

They would doubt that there was any starvation at all

That they pretty much had the poverty problem all solved

From the sheer amount of paper, most likely used for trade

Everything’s so organized. They had to be well behaved

Assumed they had clean energy, little to no enemies

Very honest leaders with overwhelming sympathies

Religions kinda complex. Kinda hard to figure out

But this must be the temple

This White House

Lupe’s third act on this song sees the future have an incomplete and total misread of history. What they find has them conclude that in the twentieth century, poverty and starvation didn’t exist, and that society was highly advanced. The underlying idea in each verse of how history is misunderstood is laid out in this verse. The way in which Lupe ends this song is again representative of the skepticism that wrongs will never be righted. When the documentation of history is misread how can justice be done?

Tetsuo & Youth

One of the most significant facts about Lupe’s fifth album is that it would be his final on Atlantic Records. By this stage, Lupe also has distanced himself from traditional and popular media, more and more utilizing social media platforms such as Twitter and directly communicating to and with fans through his website and blogs as a means to continue his dialogue and discourse when off-record. The tone and feel of the album also harkens to some of the more abstract leanings of earlier Lupe records. The epic “Murals” stands as an opus and one of the most overt examples of the deft lyricism and abilities of Lupe as a writer. Clocking in at almost eight minutes, with no hook and a rousing orchestral beat behind him, Lupe delivers entendre after entendre, pun after pun, and speeding through a myriad of topics like a drunken driver through traffic lights. The album features four instrumental interludes named after the seasons, which loosely gives the feel of the changing of the mood of the records that precede and succeed each. Lupe’s typical topics are on display and, as in the postLasers era, features various guests and a subtle pop aesthetic. To his credit, Lupe doesn’t sacrifice his own dexterity for the sake of style, but without question this record very much pulls from the formula that created Lasers.

From the very beginning Lupe’s biggest concerns, harshest critique and deepest appreciations have been saved for black people and the community he grew up in. In classic Lupe fashion, the song concept serves as a metaphor to highlight the disparities between those in the hood and everyone else.

The first verse uses repetition and remarks on the general state of “the ghetto”, (Pow)

30-something shots from the ghetto gun

All in the ears of the ghetto young

Some ghetto girls, some ghetto sons

Throwing rocks at the bus and other ghetto fun

I always wondered where the ghetto from Cause I’m from the ghetto, the never ghetto come

Buzz you in if the bell of my ghetto rung

And if the ghetto lose, that mean a ghetto won That’s how they do the ghetto, that’s how the ghetto done

They keep it, they never bring the ghetto none

What make the ghetto tick, make the ghetto run

What make the ghetto sick, make the ghetto dumb

These niggas off that ghetto beer and that ghetto rum

And that ghetto bass with my ghetto drums

And my ghetto words and these ghetto problems get ghetto sums That’s why...

As he lays out the conditions of “the hood” in this verse, the hook gives us the consequences

The pizza man don’t come here no more

Too much dope, too many niggas on the porch

So the pizza man don’t approach (no, no, no)

Pizza man don’t come here no more

Too many niggas on the block, too many niggas getting shot

So the pizza man don’t stop (pow, pow, pow)

The pizza man don’t come here no more

Too many niggas getting robbed, niggas don’t wanna starve

But “Niggas ain’t got no jobs, blah blah blah”

The pizza man don’t

come here no more Deliver, deliver, deliver

Lupe starts the second verse asking the question “Is it cause they’re selling nicks out there all day/Cause a prostitute sucking dick in the hallway?” He then proceeds to name check pizza chains that won’t come to the hood. It’s here where he goes into more details about why the hood exists and whose it for.

Little Caesar’s never sending pizza out y’all way

Papa Johns never get delivered where y’all stayed

The ghetto was a physical manifestation

Of hate in a place where ethnicity determines your placement

A place that defines your station

Remind you niggas your place is the basement White people in the attic

Niggas selling dope, White people is the addicts

White folks act like they ain’t show us how to traffic

All that dope to China, you don’t call that trappin’?

Breaking Bad, learned that from a TV

So don’t say it’s politics when you see me

When you gon’ apologize for your CD Nigga, that don’t match red and black to a GD

His third verse is where he puts the moral and his hopes. These are the types of verses that, for some, have given Lupe the reputation of being preachy, but there is a deeper idea at play. He again imagines an alternative way of being and thinking despite the conditions that he and his people were placed in,

Can I get delivered from the sin?

Get a little slice of Heaven, I can enter in again

Or maybe just imagine that I’m living in a mansion

Or a palace and my pizza gets delivered in a Benz

Make a savior out of savage like they made it out of magic

So it take a nigga havoc and it make it into friends

An interesting juxtaposition, as the song continues, is Lupe’s use of the slang for money (“Salad”) implies that the pursuit of money, and material goods is the root of the problem and the solution.

You don’t even need a salad, it don’t make a nigga fatter

Actually take a nigga backwards and make a nigga thin

That’s a deep dish, Chicago style get the peace stick

Home run hitter, I be drilling on the weak pitch

Pay into the plate then I put it in your face

I’m a man, never biting on the hands that I eat with No Giordano or DiGiorno

Homemade Bull City bring it to him like a toro

This leaves us to ponder (as maybe Lupe is) how does his hood get delivered from the low place that it is in? The open endedness of the song suggests, not an artist on a soapbox in the pulpit, but a thinker asking questions and presenting what he observes. The power of Lupe is creating the conversation through the use of something as mundane and common as take out delivery that also highlights the inhumanity that exists within his community.

We get a quintessential song from Lupe with “Prisoner 1 & 2”. The extensive metaphor of prison both speaks to the unjust prison system, but also the unjust music industry. Both are bad business, and

both typically trap young black people with little way out. The song opens with a skit depicting a collect call to an undisclosed prison, then shifts to a clip of Fela Kuti discussing the power of music. The song begins as we meet “Prisoner 1”. In the first verse Lupe slowly unfurls a cloaked account of someone who is sent to prison, Lupe makes allusions to different types of crimes, and hints at the injustice of pedophiles and protesters finding more justice than a hustler from the streets.

Best laid plan, make a mess, made Damnation, let’s play hands, sans spades That’s without, a boycott and a sit-out

Afro-Black pick in with a fist out

From the “Welcome Home” to the kick out Reach into a rabbit, pull a trick out

Preacher preaching to a faggot with his dick out Hard times call for armed time, hmm

Sick, sick, sick eyes from the nose pressure

The second verse continues describing the inhumane conditions of a traditional prison. The loss of privacy and personal freedom, the rigidity of schedule and the constant threat of violence by C-O and inmates alike.

Getting slammed from the protest, no food Force fed him like OB with a nose tube

Visions say consult the yogi with the gold shoes With the Rollie going bowling for the old school

(Yeah) I need more for the Michaels

That’s a loss for the class and a score for the rifles

Three hots and a cot and some cops

Trying to find dinosaurs in the Bible

It’s all quiet in the jailhouse

Then they ride in to find the empty cells out

They was looking for the swords

They was looking for the swords

The verse’s narrative shifts then to the protagonist’s survival. Fighting to retain that humanity amidst the horrible conditions. They seek man’s law, then God’s law, to confront the evils around them. Lupe’s depiction highlights the almost impossible position one is

left when locked in a cage surrounded by evil.

Looking in the library, looking at the law

10 years deep, now I’m looking at the bar

Claim sovereignty cause I’m bunkin’ with the Moors

They degenerate, they ain’t looking at the game They just looking at the scores, they be putting on my books

Cause I’m looking at the stars, trade a shank for some crank

Now I’m looking at a war, BGF got the yard

AB got the kitchen, snitches on PC M&M on a mission but C.O.’s got the prison God got us all, God set us free

God is the key, but the guards got the doors

The initials in this final verse refer to the Black Guerilla Family, Aryan Brotherhood, Protective Custody, Mexican Mafia and Corrections Officers. Four of those five represent some of the traditional gangs and power brokers inside of prison. The end of the verse simply underlines that significance of danger and despair that one faces in prison.

Verse three continues to underline the conditions and describes more of the horrific conditions and circumstances the nameless protagonists face. Lupe’s long form third person narrative builds on itself to give us a full picture of the true cost of prison. From being under constant threat of being attacked and being placed in solitary confinement

Punching on the glass

Scared that some killer might fuck him in the ass

Staff getting rigid, wasn’t gon’ take away the visits

Segregate niggas by theyself and make ‘em stay with it

Wicked, swung the shank around on a mop string

They had to pull him out the cell with a SWAT team

That’s a cop team

To the realities of life with no parole, the death penalty and the psychological effects of that reality.

They made electric chairs for his dying days

Last meals, no appeals for him to try and stay

On Death Row like Suge and the late Pac

Maybe he could dig a tunnel outta A Block

And wear gloves for the razor-wired gate top Scared thugs going crazy in a caged box

Looking at the world through the TV

And they gone, rapping over beats from the tabletops

Ay! That’s how it is in a police state

When your life is just a number and release date

When you’re rehabilitated so correctly

And let’s hope that’s how you’re living when you’re set free

It’s at this point, we again here the skit depicting the collect call to the prisoner, and immediately after Ayesha, Lupe’s sister, who's featured previously on his albums, delivers a spoken word piece to set up “Prisoner 2”

The orange wings of the new Jim Crow

Are dyed Klansman sheets and court papers

Dreadlocks nooses hang from his neck as the new Jim Crow

Corporations feed him seeds yet unborn He’ll be captured by Maya in a rubyencrusted cage

I see the light at the end of the tunnel

And answers that I leave in empty pages to be written

Where is your pen? The new Jim Crow

(The new Jim Crow, the new Jim Crow, Crow, Crow, Crow, Crow)

Lupe’s verse reveals that in fact it is the CO that is the “other” prisoner. Ayesha’s allusion to a new Jim Crow highlights the prison industrial complex, with its dyed Klansman sheets and court papers. Lupe opens telling us how the officers “sell their souls and themselves” and laments.

You a prisoner too, you living here too

You just like us, til’ your shift get through You could look like us, you know shit get through

You should be in cuffs like us, you should get strike two

You should get like life, you should get like woo! You should get that twice, you should get refused

The open road, that’s no parole, and no control

Over your own soul, so control

Your own remote control that your folks can hold

For Lupe, their crime is participating in this unjust and racist system, and their sentence should be served in the same manner as the “prisoners” they guard. The final verse goes on to describe the backstory of the anonymous C.O. drawing parallels between his small town upbringing in a lower income environment that presses him into his profession, as a “prison” in and of itself.

5th year with the DOC

Do you see what’s the C.O. see?

Robocop opt to his C-O-P

Three hots and a C-O-T

Lived in a small town, his whole life

Never left like soundin’

like the hole, right?

Either working at the prison, or it’s no lights

In the system working with the police

In the prison stripping niggas phone rights

Got a malice, on the other side of the bars

Watching niggas get smart, watching niggas get strong

Watching niggas get home, he jail us

But deep down he jealous

Lupe’s ability to draw connections and show the dimensions and layers of inhumanity that exist in the prison structure in this song is evident in the time he takes to address the primary players within that system (guard and prisoner). The song clocks in at almost nine minutes, and it is what we’ve seen and expected of Lupe for much of his career. Storytelling in long form, filled with allusions, irony and metaphor. Whenever possible Lupe forgoes traditional formats (this song not only boasts five verses, but a bridge and two separate hooks along the way) when he wishes to tackle a topic in depth. Overall, his swan song with Atlantic records in a sense feels like a renaissance to the Lupe of his beginnings. Experimental, uncompromising and completely unconventional.

Drogas Light

Very few artists, let alone Hip-Hop artists, make it through three major label switches to six albums, but that is precisely what Lupe had done by 2017. For his sixth album, Lupe released on Thirty Tigers and again announced a trilogy of records beginning with a “prequel” Drogas Light. By his own admission, this album is largely built on songs from his archive and, for him, a refinement of “Lasers”. At this stage, Lupe almost exclusively has communicated through social media via Twitter mostly. On February 10th, he offered up his own review and critique of himself creatively, as well as the impetus behind the record.

Over my commercial career, there naturally started to develop two Lupes, a very conceptually and lyrical dense Lupe and a “light” Lupe. Champagne versus Moonshine is probably the best analogy. And they each had a rather good output of material, albeit for two very different audiences. And when I say audience, I literally mean the audiences at live concerts, which has always been the main focus.

Straight up Moonshine Lupe live performances are decent at best. At worst, they become too heady and unentertaining. However, Champagne Lupe performances are super lit!

So, it’s finding a balance between the two, but sometimes it’s not about trying to balance at all, but letting one just take over completely. And since I don’t have the label or personal pressures to “please everyone repeatedly” on my back, I felt it’s best to distill the best works from each side separately, as opposed to trying to clumsily blend them

You can almost feel this push/pull of the two Lupes since Lasers, in both style and his approach to the content. Now, for the first time in almost six years Lupe feels the freedom fully to create. Even with “Champagne” Lupe appearing on Drogas, the core of his concerns topically remain. Songs like "Tranquillo" bring introspection and "Made in the U.S.A". a scathing critique of the many vices, and injustices that are found throughout American culture (gun lust, violence, racism etc.), all done with booming trap back drops and, in the case of "Tranquillo" a guest appearance from Rick Ross to add even more authenticity to that Champagne feel.

“City Of The Year’ might be one of the best encapsulations of the “two Lupes” in one record. The song itself was commercially used by ESPN and serves as a loose ode to his upbringing.

Ayy, born in the middle of the West

Lil’ nigga, livin’ in the middle of death

Raised ‘round killers, that’s why little impress

Niggas raised in the projects, now they gon’ need a palace

Niggas want JJ’s, don’t eat salads

Fourteen with a AK, and he’ll let a nigga have it (raaah raaah)

Fireworks in K-Town, man it’s so tragic

Fireworks on the lakefront, shit look like Magic

I’m sorry white folks, if it sound I’m a little oppressed

And I’m sorry, my niggas, but I think you the best You don’t need no Khaled, ‘cause that’s on me, valid Let me push my brother, we don’t need no malice

The song continues into the second verse with some biographical accounts with references to his mother’s neighborhood and his long time friend and mentor, Chilly Patton.

My city look pretty in the summer 6th grade, moved out to the hundreds Prolly wouldn’t have made it hangin’ ‘round my mama’s Harvey World where I made my comeup

Bishop was a BD, Dope claimed Lord Cliqued all up, put it all on CD Neutron don, but I prolly been a GD God knows best, so he put me where he need me

Puttin’ truth in all these rhymes

State tried to shut a nigga down, gave my nigga Chilly all that time People think it came out of nowhere, it’s all by design

They took away the chiefs and the streets lost their minds

In the song Lupe highlights as well the plight and circumstances of Chicago, discussing the gang life and its structures within the song. Even when he looks to entertain and has an eye to the live audience, he brings a degree of social commentary to the song.

Ultimately, Drogas Light gives us a pure Lupe, an artist informed by the streets, by his own analysis of injustice, and his constant battle with his own contradictions and dichotomies. He’s the social justice book nerd, with hustlers for friends, raised on the southside of Chicago. As comfortable on an academic panel as he is hanging on the block in his hood with the pushers and the killers. His literal release from Atlantic had given him that license to be.

Drogas Wave

Lupe’s seventh studio album, Drogas Wave, serves as the second record in the “Drogas” trilogy. In some ways, this record represents “peak” Lupe. In several interviews in 2018, Lupe describes a conceptual record that discusses a group of mythical African slaves who are thrown overboard during the middle passage, but do not drown. These subsequent survivors become a supernatural force that sinks slave ships. To an extent, as the larger themes of the record emerge, conceptually Lupe is not only telling a literal tale of what he calls “The Long Chains”, it is also a metaphor to think about the surviving descendants of those Africans (in no way, to be clear, am I implying he is aligning with the ADOS or FBA movements). Recurring themes of black excellence and plight are throughout the record and experiential storytelling and parables exist.

Regardless of where Lupe may be in his career or interests at any given moment, what continually shows up and remains is his concern and love of Black people and his community. He often serves his sharpest words, both in

craft and rebuke for these subjects. Be it about violence self-inflicted and structurally, or about habits and behaviors, Lupe’s social critique often is around the historical social conditions of black people. It's no surprise that in the current

political climate of defunding the police, the rise of white supremacy via the Trump years and the ongoing trauma of dealing with state violence via the police that Lupe would draw so much focus to the subject.

The overarching narrative of the “Long Chains” can be heard on "Wav Files" and "Down" respectively. Songs such as “Gold vs. The Right Thing to Do”, and "Manilla" directly attack the morality of slavery through first and third person storytelling respectively. Similar to "Tetsuo & Youth" the interludes are used to almost signal “acts” in the record bookending a suite of songs with similar themes. Drogas Wave moves to personal narratives and broader social critique in the second and third acts with songs such as "King Nas" (a song dedicated to his Nephews) and “Jonylah Forever ‘’ and “Alan forever”.

In particular, "Jonylah" and "Alan Forever" work in several ways. Both songs refer to young children that die at the hands of violence.

Jonylah, by a stray bullet meant for her father, due to him allegedly being involved in a home theft, and Alan, a young boy who died during the immigration crisis that occurred in Europe during 2015. Lupe takes the license of imagining what it would mean if both children didn’t have an untimely demise, describing what their lives and by extension, the world might have looked like had they survived.

“Alan” begins with him telling us, that he was just:

holding my breath

Blue shorts, red shirt, how I’m dressed

I look fresh, and I feel

Bleeeeeeeeeeessed

Then proceeds to humble brag about his swimming prowess, the irony that the “real” Alan died escaping from Syria hoping to reach Turkey via the Mediterranean. By the second verse, he’s grown to be an Olympic-level swimmer and in a twist, ends up saving a young boy from drowning at the beach.

Now entering that Canadian Olympic swimming team

And those medals are just glistening, so gold

So cold, yeah

And Alan did the most, all those world records he broke

That’s why his nickname is the lifeguard and my God is he dope

Michael Phelps cannot believe it even though he is his coach

He might be the next Steve Zissou, or maybe Jacques Cousteau

Where he saw that little boy, go and fall off of that boat

So he jumped off in that water swam him right back to the shore

Now ain’t that wild, crowd goes wild Little boy scared so the child won’t smile

So Alan get a towel to dry him off and wipe him down

Put an ice cream out, that’s more his style

Father runs down that beach

Sees his son just playin’ in the sand

Hugs Alan who says he’s a brave little man

Walk away little boy, turns around and waves his hand

Call Jonylah say, “Guess what I did today?

Got my rescue on saved a kid today

Had my wet suit on and my fins today

Even taught him next time how to swim away”

You should really feel good that you gave your help

Might get you into heaven, might raise your health

Might get a lot of blessings, might

In this revised history of Alan’s life, not only is he a hero and an Olympian, but he and Jonylah are even connected and happy. The final line of the song “Bet you ain’t even know that you saved yourself” creates a sad irony as a what if.

On “Jonylah” we have Lupe as the narrator of this alternative timeline of her life.

How ‘bout them bullets ain’t slow you up?

You ain’t really died and we watched you grow up

At 12 months you took your first steps

Awkwardly across the kitchen floor to your best

Your first breaths that we can call words

Were in your father’s lap on November 23rd

And they were, “Live for me”, and he did for you

Flipped to Neutron and stayed inside the crib for you

And this commitment from your father

Imparted a deep sense of value you forever harbor

We were all so proud as we seen you getting smarter

And the bond grow deeper between a mother and a daughter

Cause you were not a martyr

(You live)

Lupe even includes her father “staying inside” to “live for her”. This implication that had the father of Jonylah not been in the streets committing petty thefts and he also being the victim of revenge she might have lived and this being one of the possible outcomes of it.

The second and third verse has Lupe recounting her progress, year by year, grade by grade, with her father a strong influence and supporter the entire way. Her life is a fulfilling one as she becomes a scholar living a happy life. Similar to Alan, her living results in her becoming a heroine saving a young child that is a victim of a stray bullet outside of the free clinic she runs (after refusing to work a high paying medical job away from the community she grew up in).

Because of her medical expertise her direct intervention in this tragedy resulted in saving the baby’s life. As in "Alan" the final line gives the clue that in Lupe’s reality the child that both Alan and Jonylah are saving are themselves. For Lupe, both deaths were senseless, and maybe if the world was different could’ve been avoided, he uses his imagination to give us the possibility of what that would have been like.

"Drogas Light" as a concept speaks to the power of resilience and survival. As always, Lupe’s songs offer alternative views and perspectives on issues that he feels are deeply important and critical to the people he loves and what he himself struggles with.

What has contributed to Lupe’s longevity and cult-like fandom is that he does so while musically showing a wide range of influence, and, since Lasers, cultivating a very direct connection to his audience. Considering seven albums and counting, not to mention several mixtapes and various guest appearances, Lupe is the rare artist that has forged a career long enough to experiment, thrive, and fulfill the promise of his immense talent.

And saw a man and a van and a bleeding baby in his hands

Fading

Did everything you could to keep this girl alive

Stabilized until the ambulance arrived

And in that moment, where you gave your help

I

From his introduction, through to the present, what Lupe has represented is an artist who sees the world differently than his peers and has been unafraid and unrelenting in fighting to speak to the world on his terms. As he’s grown, so have the ideas and circumstances that inspire him to create, but none of those things stray far from his blackness, his Chicagoan roots or his ongoing crusade to balance the Food & Liquor that we all partake in.

Accepted by every medical school you applied

But the coolest thing is when they offered you that high paying slot, you replied

“They need me in the hood,” and that’s where you reside

Free clinic, nobody denied And that’s where you heard the shots and quickly ran outside

fast, but you knew she could survive

bet you didn’t know that you saved yourself

Drill Music in Zion

It has been four years since Drogas Wave and as usual, Lupe has been busy. In the years since his seventh album, he has had a well-publicized feud with one time “friend” and collaborator, Royce Da 5’9 whom he started a podcast with, began an academy around emceeing, focused on his own research and then recently was named as part of the faculty at MIT. All the while, making appearances and collaborative projects (such as “Home” with Virgil Abloh) while steadily connecting with his fans via social media expounding on topics as far ranging as the COVID pandemic to home fitness. In late summer of 2021, Lupe began teasing through his usual medium on social media, Twitter, of a new album that would be his “Illmatic”. The record that would become to be known as “Drill Music in Zion” also was set to be written, recorded and produced in 24 hours. Fast forward to spring 2022 and “Drill” arrived in typical Lupe fashion, critically acclaimed, highly anticipated and well received from his fans, even if not moving the larger mainstream needle. Ultimately, according to Lupe, the record ended up taking 72, instead of 24 hours, largely due to “having to eat, sleep, and rest his voice”. What might end up being factual from his original assertions is this being his Illmatic. Both in terms of it being tight and concise (10 songs clocking at under 41 minutes), lyrically and musically. Lupe’s penchant for triple entendres, extended metaphors and layered meanings is still true, right down to the name of the album.

Regardless of where Lupe may be in his career or interests at any given moment, what continually shows up and remains is his concern and love of Black people and his community. He often serves his sharpest words, both in

craft and rebuke for these subjects. Be it about violence self-inflicted and structurally, or about habits and behaviors, Lupe’s social critique often is around the historical social conditions of black people, so it’s no surprise that in the

current political climate of defunding the police, the rise of white supremacy via the Trump years and the ongoing trauma of dealing with state violence via the police that Lupe would draw so much focus to the subject.

Yeah, it’s not meant to be a “drill music” album. In some cases, it’s not even an album about drill music. There’s songs on the album that reference drill music in a certain direct way, but the album was never meant to mislead people into thinking that it was an album of either me doing drill music or an album about drill music. I actually pulled it from The Matrix Reloaded, so it started out as referencing that scene where the robots drill down into Zion. The last place where humanity can live and survive in the Matrix world, they call it Zion. I think my sister does a better job than me [of] explaining it..

Lupe continues what he has done throughout his career and that is to contemplate various realities and topics and present his view. What is slightly different on “Drill” is the more mature assuredness to his stances. As has been a consistent trope, his sister, Ayesha Jaco opens the album giving us the overview of the theme on Lions Deen. As Ayesha uses various plays on the words “Drill” and “Zion” she lays out what Lupe will discuss and contemplate over the course of the album, the state of humanity (Zion) and its propensity for violence and the growing disconnection from one another. Community violence, state violence and spiritual violence hover over much of Lupe’s work and it’s no different with this record. On "Kiosk", the metaphor of a jewelry salesperson at a kiosk in the mall gives Lupe the backdrop to call out materialism and the hypocrisy of capitalism.

In the first verse and chorus, Lupe portrays the owner enticing you to purchase the shiny baubles in his kiosk.

Hey, you looking over there

I got something to show you if you got the time to spare

The quality’s the highest and the price is very fair

It’s honestly the nicest thing that I have ever shared

You look like the type that likes a diamond in his ear

To walk around the town and be so shiny and revered

Come across his boss and be so timely and prepared

Look like a million dollars off of signing with the Bears

I don’t mean to be so deeply inside of your affairs

But if I liked getting ripped off, then I’d be over there

But that’s why I’m over here, with that you should beware

I’m only saying this because I really, really care

I think it’s more a temple, not a stall

But, no, not a religion, not at all

I know it’s kind of simple and it’s small

But that’s ‘cause it’s the middle of the mall

If you wanna show off and just ball

Or your intention is the drawers

We got credentials for it all

Welcome to the middle of the mall

For the second verse and chorus, he continues the metaphor, discussing how the appearance of wealth, even if “you don’t got a budget for these nuggets,” will attract many things, people’s adulation, but also violence and ridicule,

You ain’t got a budget for these nuggets

You can keep it Plain Jane or blow out they brains when you in public

The matching ring, chain gon’ look insane when you untuck it

They’ll never know the difference, even if you let ‘em touch it

Now if you are a rapper or a trapper on the job

It don’t really matter if you get jacked or you get robbed

You can go on, let ‘em have it, it’s not a factor or a prob’

Only thing that’s gonna happen, you gon’ get attacked by all the blogs

But to regular people you gon’ be sharp

And you gon’ be so attractive on the block

Now, it might make you a magnet for the cops

But please don’t let them haters try and drag you from the top

You ain’t gotta be a criminal involved

Know how to rap or knack for dribbling the ball

Or be a prince or an emperor at all

Everybody’s equal in the middle of the mall

We are not the center of applause

Lupe breaks character in verse three to address the superficial nature of material wears, and also the hypocrisy and dangers of its distractions, before returning to the metaphor in the chorus to try and “close” the sale. Here he actually is responding to the “salesmen” in verses one and two as himself.

But secretly the center of the cause

This is where the finishers evolve

In the middle of the malls

Diamonds only worth what you are willing to pay

A deceptive game you are killing to play

Now I have diamonds, it’s odd feeling this way

But when they start to sparkle that star-glittering glaze

It sways, takes your mind off todays

Where preachers can praise AIDS as God killing the gays

What a fucking phrase, never ceases to amaze

But when he dies from cancer, that’s God’s mysterious ways

Jesus saves African sold slaves

Gabriel’s in Afghanistan passing out AKs

It’s a rage

The diamond sometimes are suedes while putting ‘em to the blade

I have hesitations

There, I’ve put it all on the table, I have my reservations

Besides, we’ll find something else useless to put our faith in

You won’t finish this here, we’ll pick up after meditation, uh-huh

Uh-huh

It’s this type of character roleplay, storytelling and wordplay that are signatures to who Lupe is as a lyricist. His unconventional style, to clearly express his opinion and experiences on topics that could be boring or lost if simply tackled straightforwardly.

Lupe re-visits multiple concepts and topics on "Ms. Mural". Firstly, the song is the last of his trilogy of “Mural” tracks serving as the final canvas for the concepts. The song is an extended metaphor of a painter talking with the patron of his work. Lupe’s conversation details the difference in perceived value of the work by the patron and the painter, highlighted in the final third of the second verse.

The current art world is just competitively opaque

It never ceases to amaze, my mouth is medically agape

One day its raising up the brand, the next it’s shredding it to flakes

And the velocity of trends is what referees the pace

Professionally accept what ethically I hate

So in all of my work, you see this wrestling with fate

Deceiving in the brushstrokes how aggressively I strafe

Less like putting on some makeup, more like severing a face”

The final song, On Faux Nem might be the best embodiment of Lupe not just on this record but of much of his career. The song is both a rant, a lament and a cautionary tale in one song. He weaves subtle wordplay and devices into a straight ahead message. On Faux Nem what is credited as the first verse is a mere two bars of rap, that is more just a statement.

Lupe has often been at odds with his label and critics as to what is the purpose and meaning behind his work, and this song shows his creativity in how he tackles it.

Which follows a chorus.

I wish that you were lying to me, oh, oh, oh Yes, I do

I wish that you were lying to me I hope none of that comes true

“Wow,” said the patron with a smile

“That’s the most interesting diatribe I’ve heard in a while

How you articulated the nature and put it all on trial

Took it up to Heaven, then put it on the ground”

“Rappers die too much. That’s it, that’s the verse”

Both the chorus and first verse are a foreshadowing to the tragedy and violent realities he outlines in the successive verses,

Yeah, silent reflection was the first verse’s mission

I ain’t want to water it down with a whole bunch of conditions

Just give it to you raw how a nigga really feelin’

“Rappers get shot too much” probably has a lot more precision

But that was the decision, and with that, I’ma stick

I don’t really support niggas ‘cause the shit be making me sick

Look at what we say in this bitch just to get rich

Shoot a nigga right in the head, don’t even flinch

He doubles down in the interlude with a directness and focus around the state of rap and the communities that he is a part of.

“Nah, nah we can’t, we can’t talk about that

We gotta talk about something else

I mean, because it’s hypocritical, nigga, you got guns

You surrounded by gangsters and killers, all your niggas

Like, the fuck is you talkin’ about?

Nigga, talk about something else, talk about something else

Nigga, talk about something else”

The imagery and juxtaposition in the third verse, of flying in the sky above a prison that is next to the launch pad of his plane, creates a high/low contrast that continues the theme of the song,

I’ve admired many cities through the

windows of hotels

From the window of a plane, I’ve seen the window of a cell

The plane started to fly, the rain started to fell

That’s LaGuardia and Rikers, an airport next to a jail

I took a picture looked like my window was crying

‘Cause it was sad that all they saw every day was somebody flying

And they was trapped, this shit is wack

Lupe’s direct lament continues.

How does that transpire

To be so damned by God, you want your friends to be goddamned liars?

All we talk about are our goddamned priors

Shiny metal boxes on top of goddamned tires

I’m goddamned tired

If I say I didn’t indulge, my pants would be on goddamn fire

‘Cause I’m a part of the problem

Sometimes the P-, sometimes the -roblem

Fame, all in the name of martyrdom (Yeah)

I wish that you were lying

What’s the difference between a posthumous album

And a life insurance policy?

Spotify

A dollar’s worth what a dollar buy, go monetize

For the majority of the song, to this point, he’s laid out his feelings on what the rap industry and the conditions inside the hood has done to his people, and as has been consistent throughout his albums, he doesn’t leave himself blameless in the chaos. The fourth and final verses again reference him breaking the fourth wall in his two bar opening verse, and thinks about his mortality and his legacy.

Giving you a fourth, wanna make up for the first

Only ‘cause I know that you can take another verse

Want the Quran to be a lie ‘cause Hell sounds like it hurts

Also want it to be real ‘cause Heaven sounds like it’s turnt

Wear my conscience like a condom

‘cause I don’t wanna be burnt

Wear my dharma like its armor ‘cause I don’t wanna return

To the wheel of the quivering meat conception

Sometimes I hide inside Kerouac for protection

From the Thanksgiving where bears attacking the dressing

Like Tekken, just lean back and tear into that refreshment

Sometimes real life parallaxes in depression

Even when Lupe zags, twists, turns and warps language, leaving easter eggs and bread crumbs to deeper truths, he maintains a directness and a grounding that sometimes leads to more straight ahead songs like "On Faux Nem", but Drill Music in Zion in some ways does feels like his opus, as he combines many of the aesthetics and techniques that he’s used throughout his catalog onto “Drill” that feels both cohesive and fluid at the same time. Rap, that is more just a statement.

mikal amin lee

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