Lupe Fiasco - Anakin Skywalker of Hip Hop

Interview By: John Burnett

Artistically, Hip Hop was in a major slump but when Wasalu Jaco emerged onto the scene the Hip Hop community had a reason to rejoice. Fans were set to anoint Lupe Fiasco as the chosen one; the one who would propel Hip Hop out of creative stagnancy and back into artistic prominence. But, the tide quickly changed when he flubbed a line or two at the VH1 Hip Hop Honors during the A Tribe Called Quest tribute. Lupe found himself in a media firestorm over some comments of his that implied that his musical taste—at least while he was growing up—was more Spice 1 than A Tribe Called Quest. It seemed that that quick fan’s high hopes had been dashed to pieces. So much was expected of the Hip Hop wunderkind, but was he ready to accept the heavy burden?

Nobodysmiling.com : Fans have larger than life expectations of you. Does it ever bother you that they’ve chosen you to be the savior of Hip Hop?

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Lupe Fiasco : No, I always shun it. I never really fall into it, but I definitely understand the position I have with certain people and the way that they look at me. It’s more so them painting me as what they want me to be…for them. I had a kid come up to me yesterday like “yo, I don’t even listen to rap but I listen to you” which is big. I’m gaining new fans of Hip Hop, period.

Nobodysmiling.com : Wow. Jay-Z blessed you with a seal of approval awhile back, which means a lot to say the least. Do you ever feel any pressure to live up to that approval?

Lupe Fiasco : Naw, naw. I been knowing Jay for awhile; about 6 years now. Before knowing Kanye, before [I had] any type of notoriety in the game. Jay has always respected me as an artist; respected my writing, my mind and things of that nature. Like for me, it’s not even pressure. It’s like he’s one of my biggest fans. I take it as support pushing me to do more as opposed to pressure keeping me down. It (the seal of approval) is keeping me on edge to please. I feel comfortable with what I’m doing.

Nobodysmiling.com : You lost your father, your aunt and your close friend, Stack Bundles. Your business partner, Charles “Chilly” Patton, got arrested. It’s been a tumultuous year for you. How are you coping with such devastating loss and did any of that effect the making of The Cool?

Lupe Fiasco : Um…technically, it did. He was my musical ear. I would always beat myself up on a record until he was like, “yo, it’s good; leave it alone.” Now that he’s gone, I lost my creative wall. He was the guy who I would throw everything against to see if it would stick. That [loss] was like……damn. But with everything else, I don’t know how to articulate what I felt when I lost my pops or my aunty. With Stack Bundles I know how I felt. With Stack, I felt really, really, really like damn, that’s fucked up.

But, the essence of The Cool is a guy coming back to life. It was like that idea of knowing that one day I’m going to see all of those people once again in one place or another that helped me through. You know it (the music) kind of kept me stable; the music kept me working, especially, with my pops. I’m comfortable with death. I know death comes to everybody and I’m cool with it, but I definitely was in a dark, dark place for the album. The album is mad dark. The subject matter is really dark. The album cover is dark. Everything’s dark. It’s a reflection of the mood I was in; the mood I’m still in.

Nobodysmiling.com : So, tell me more about the concept behind The Cool.

Lupe Fiasco : The Cool follows [the track] “The Cool” from the first album where a hustler comes back to life. He climbs out of his old grave and goes back to his old neighborhood. There, he gets robbed by these two kids with the same gun that he got killed with. And they ask him a question. They say “are you scared to die” and he responds “hustler to death; no heaven for a gangster.” So, on this album I took that story and expounded upon it. [I also] brought in characters from other songs. For instance, the freestyle on B.E.T. I had with Styles P, I was talking about the Game, a character who has blunts for fingers and hollow tips for teeth. I brought that character and I brought another character called the Streets.

I took the storyline from “He Say She Say.” The Cool (the character) is actually the little boy from “He Say She Say.” On the first album, he was a kid brought up in a single parent home by his mother. So, he kind of grows up and becomes the Cool. He grows up with no father figure; no guidance. He goes off and becomes a hustler and gets killed. So I spread that out on this album, but only on like four or five records. The rest of the album is the current events that are going on in my life.

Nobodysmiling.com : What about the album cover? The art contains three symbols. What’s the symbolism behind the artwork?

Lupe Fiasco : For the album artwork, each one of those symbols represents something. The skeleton hand represents the Cool. He (the Cool) looks normal except for his right hand which has rotted away. It represents his righteousness. There’s another logo that’s a locket on fire. That represents the Streets. The Streets is a female and he (The Cool) falls in love with her. And they have this type of love affair and, as a gift, she gives him this key. It’s like the key to the Streets. The other one is the skull with smoke coming out of his head and dice for eyes. That represents the Game.

And that’s what the Game would look like; the hustler’s game; the pimp’s game; the mack’s game. To me, he would have dice for eyes and crack pipes for lungs and rap music for heartbeats. And I put the symbols around me, the Lupe Fiasco logo. It’s kind of like my dark muses. Those things inspired him and those things have inspired me as well, along with skateboarding and robots and Japanese animation and all that shit. Like also, there’s my street side; where I come from, Westside Chicago. I think everybody is surrounded by the call of streets and the ups and downs of being in the game; no matter what game they play. It’s dark and cryptic and it’s as deep as that and it’s as simple as it represents the characters [in my story].

Nobodysmiling.com : Earlier you mentioned some of your tracks on The Cool deal with current events in your life. Which events did you deal with on the album?

Lupe Fiasco : I touch on the Tribe (A Tribe Called Quest) situation. I touched on the situation with my partner getting locked up. I touched on my father passing. I presented tracks that are anti-fame with “Superstar.” You got your successes and your fame and then you have your tragedy and misery and it’s all together. It’s all mixed in together. And it’s like I’m still leading a personal life but it’s kind of magnified because I’m leading this super life; this celebrity life. It’s just kind of weird how those things play off each other where it’s like damn I can’t really morn for my father, because I got to go do a show. It’s not scheduled to morn, which is some wild shit that hit me like a couple of month ago.

Nobodysmiling.com : So, “Superstar” is based off of your personal experience with the industry?

Lupe Fiasco : “Superstar” is inspired by this guy named Tom Waits. Waits is like an actor/performer that specializes in old fashion songs. They’re new recordings but they’re in that old type of style. Some records he’ll just go in and wander [on a track]. He’ll just pull shit from everywhere; the first thing off the top of his head he’ll just write it down. But, [“Superstar”] has to do with fame and fans and people who were once your supporters. They wait, because they get just as much joy watching you perform and entertain them as they do bringing you down. Some times I compare it to being at an execution. Like you got to an execution and you see mad people outside with signs like “kill em’” or “fry his ass.” It’s like you go to a show and you see the same thing. They have signs like “yay, we love you.” So, it’s just odd to see that. I love putting little things that don’t match together and finding ways to make them match. So, some of its personal and some of it is me wandering off.

Nobodysmiling.com : Tell me about “Dumb it Down” and how the concept for that track came about. Was it a response to the criticism you received for Food and Liquor?

Lupe Fiasco : When I originally wrote it, it was the first record I had written in like 6 months after coming off tour and it was like mad metaphors. I didn’t even care if people got it. It was for me. I just like to sit back and smile when I do a verse and be like “oh shit, that’s dope.” The whole thing for “Dumb it Down” was that the record was so deep, [my friends were like] you need to make the hook mad simple and the simplest shit you could say is dumb that shit down. So we just started coming up with different anecdotes when we were in the studio and we were coming up with stuff that people would actually say.

People would be like “yo, Lupe you putting me to sleep.” That’s real shit. [People would say] “your shit is boring; it’s too complex and niggas ain’t getting that shit. The second hook is like “the funny white guy” who’s more so saying the behind the scenes kind of shit that actually comes out at these record labels. It’s like [they say] don’t make the music too smart because niggas won’t get it; not because niggas won’t get it but [if they do] get it, that’s more of a danger than anything. Fuck niggas not getting it or not selling any records, but if niggas actually get what Dead Prez is saying or what Immortal Technique is saying, then them niggas gon’ have problems. Because fans are going to be like “oh, shit I never knew that” and it’s going to start opening up people’s minds.

And then, there’s my other fans who love me; who love that they have to listen to a Lupe record 19 times before they get it or it’s a year later and they still don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. They like that. That’s why I love Hip Hop. That’s why I love Jay-Z, Nas, Canibus, MF Doom, Chino XL because they were so deep and the metaphors…you had to listen to the records again to catch it. And you’re like “oh man what did he say?” If you get it the first time out, what’s the challenge? What’s the fun in it?

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Nobodysmiling.com : Why do you think artists stopped challenging their fans? Did the labels push for this change or was it a drop off in artistry?

Lupe Fiasco : Naw, ni**as started getting rich making dumb ass music! At the end of the day, it’s about money. 50 is smart as hell. The ni**a’s a genius. And you’ll hear him talk on the radio and you’re more interested in what he’s saying on the radio than what he’s saying in his music. It’s like damn, why don’t you say that shit in your music? On the radio, he’s breaking down the industry; breaking down getting money and all that really, really smart shit that ni**as really need to hear, but you listen to his records and that shit is wild dumb. Why, because the people that he’s selling records to want to hear that.

So, if people going to the club they don’t want to hear mad encyclopedia shit. They don’t want to hear Talib Kweli or mad shit where ni**as is going over their head. Ni**as just want to dance. They want enough words to get them to dance. It’s a dance club. You don’t go to learn. You go to dance. If you look at it like that it all makes sense. Ni**as made money selling a bunch of dumb ass dance records. That’s cool because artists can still make money, and I put myself on that platform, doing what we do. Success comes in many lights, many different flavors; not just a Bentley or a Phantom, which I could afford if I wanted, and gold chains, which I had when I was 19.

There’s other success [out there] like let’s go see the world. Let’s go travel the world or perform in front of 20,000 people. Let’s be able to take care of our mothers. If I want to wild out and go buy a bunch of fucking Goyard bags, I can do that. I mean success comes in a bunch of formats. And if you look at Lupe Fiasco selling 300,000 records, three-time Grammy nominated and every award you can think of, that’s pretty successful. I was GQ Man of the Year in 2006; accolade upon accolade; 6 world tours and all this dough in one year. You start putting that all together for a dude who made records about skateboarding and robots. That just shows you to not limit yourself. If you want to be a rapper, don’t think you have to come in the game doing this or that, because you can have success and be in the limelight and do more impressive things just doing smart records.

Nobodysmiling.com : You’ve said in the past, you’re only doing three albums and then getting out the game. Is that true and if it is, why?

Lupe Fiasco : Yeah, like three. I’m under contract to do five [albums] but you know, everything is under renegotiation. To me, I’ve been in the music business for so long…Everybody’s been in the music business for a long time; from Hurricane Chris to Soulja Boy to Rakim. Everybody before they got on was in it for a long time. Sometimes the fame is just the tip of the iceberg. I was going around for years. I was in New York in the [record label] offices, at Jay-Z’s house, here, there etc. I was at Baseline [Studios] and watched Jay-Z put the whole Blueprint together. I came back and watched him put the Black Album together.

I’ve had Grammys that were outside of the Grammy nominations, [I received for Food and Liquor] like actual Grammys for production we’ve done for other people. So, I’ve been in the music industry for a long time. I’ve seen scandal. I’ve seen people pilfered and taken from. I had the ups and downs and you get to a point where you want to do something else. It’s the same thing if you’re working a job. No one wants to be in one job forever. You might love it at first, but then you’re like “you know what I want to do something else.” To me the music business is such a public business that it kind of eats away at you. Look at Britney Spears. I don’t want to turn out like Britney Spears; not that I’m saying that that would happen [to me] but you’re vulnerable [in this business]. That shit will kill you; like people have actually killed themselves playing around with fame and trying to walk that line and sometimes it’s not worth walking.

I love my fans and I will still be performing, but recording music is something else. Performing, being in a cipher, a freestyle…that’s the stuff you love to do. But recording music and dealing with radio stations and dealing with the politics and your label…that shit eats at you. And you look at it and you’re like “damn, I made more money off one show than I did my whole first album.” The reality of that...it, it’s like that’s fucked up and not even because it’s 300,000 albums because that’s still paper, but that’s just the way the music business works. It’s professional reasons, personal reasons but at the end of the days it’s not because I’m this cocky ass arrogant lil’ ni**a full of myself. If I really told ni**as like half of the shit that people tell me about ni**as in this industry…It’s just time for me to walk away.

Nobodysmiling.com : At the end of the day what do you want people to take away from this album?

Lupe Fiasco : I don’t know (laughs). It was such a heavy duty project and all the work that went into the project; I guess I didn’t really think about it. I just want them to have fun. I want my hardcore fans that have been rocking with me since day one to know that they’re going to get another album that’s going to be ridiculous. This album is for them. The world might hate it but for those who are really rocking with Fiasco, it’s going to be another joint they can rock to or brag about to other people. I just hope it doesn’t lead them astray; like I say with everything I do. I just hope the example I put out there doesn’t lead them astray and as long as that’s in place, I’m cool. I’m happy.

Nobodysmiling.com : Ideally, how would you envision your music career ending?

Lupe Fiasco : Ending on a good album. In between, "The Cool" and the last album, "LupEnd", hopefully, there will be the CRS (Child Rebel Soldier) project with me, Pharrell and Kanye. The project is coming sloooow. Everybody’s on tour. I’m on a promo tour. Kanye’s in the midst of his world tour and P (Pharrell) is just finishing the N.E.R.D. album. We’re just waiting until our schedules are right, but hopefully in 08.

We talk about it like every other day and throw ideas around. Hopefully, we’ll take a few weeks out of next year and we’ll get together and knock it out. Besides that, I was talking to a few people about doing some straight up concept albums. I don’t know. I’d like to end by just like having fun, doing shit that sets an example; not even to sell records, just to set a precedent. So, hopefully [I’ll go out] on a good note. I don’t want to be that guy 12 years from now putting out mediocre albums. Everybody can’t be like Jay where you keep on coming out and improving and improving. It (the music business) wears on you and you feel like damn, I’m getting kind of weak and it’s good to identify that and be able to step to the side before that happens.

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