In 2006 Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, recording under the name Lupe Fiasco, released one of the year’s freshest and most promising hip-hop records, Food and Liquor. While the album had its rough moments, as a freshmen effort by the then 24 year old rapper it was indicative of a deep well of talent from an intelligent and immensely talented up-and-coming MC. After a mere 15 months Jaco returned the scene dropping his second album, The Cool, last month to almost universal acclaim. The record showcases not only his sharp wit and clever lyricism, but also his versatility, his quirky personality, and his dedication to producing hip-hop with not only slick production and hot beats but also deep meaning and a strong social conscience.
Over the course of the album’s nineteen tracks Lupe Fiasco explores a range of different themes using a range of different styles. “Go Go Gadget Flow” is an ode to his home town of Chicago and utilizes a rapid-fire delivery that is completely striking and while he’s still not quite Busta Rhymes this song shows that he’s well on his way to a similar level of mastery.
Skipping ahead a few tracks, Jaco seems to have completely switched gears with the steadier, methodic “Gold Watch.” The song is his statement refuting the stereotypical ideas of what rappers should be, how they should act, and it all but rejects the superficial norms of hip-hop culture:
And my most coveted thing is my high self-esteem
And the low tolerance for them tellin me how to lean
See the most important parts are the ones that are unseen
See the wings don’t make you fly and the crown don’t make you king
He builds into the song a long litany of his interests, rapping about how he might like gold watches, gold chains and fancy cars, but he also skateboards, reads comic books and still can’t get enough of Street Fighter 2.
Directly following this song is one of the most outstanding pieces on an album filled with stand out tracks. “Hip-Hop Saved My Life” is the earnest and straightforward tale of a young M.C. and how he used it to secure a better life away from violence.
He said I write what I see
Write to make it right
Don’t like where I beI like to make it like
The sights on TV
Quite the great life
So nice and easySee now you can still die from that
But it’s better than not being alive from straps
Hip-hop is an avenue down which he must travel for the sake of not only his future but also his family’s.
He turns down the beat writers block impedes
Crying from the next room a baby in need
Of some pampers and some food and a place to sleep
That plus a black Cadillac on D’sIs what keep him on track to be a great MC
When the young rapper becomes rich and famous he repays money and kindness to those that helped him, gives back to his community and schools, but always remembers in the back of his head that it’s very possible to still lose it all and be back in the dangerous, crime-ridden neighborhood in which he started.
Keeping with headier topics, the album examines youth violence in “Little Weapon.” Juxtaposing urban crime with radical foreign terrorists and American school violence Lupe Fiasco laments the needless death facing the young in the world. Killing is senseless and lamentable whether in the inner cities and suburbs of America or on far away battlefields in third world countries.
Now here comes the march of the boy brigade
A macabre parade of the toys he made
it’s your mobs and shades who look hard for his age
About half the size of the flags they wavedAnd Camouflage suits that are made to fit youths
Cause the ones of the dead soldiers hang a little loose
And AK-47’s that they shootin into heaven
Like they tryin to kill the Jetson’s
They struggle lil recruitsCute smileless, heartless, violent, childhood destroyed, voided of all childish ways,
Can’t write their own names, or read the words that are on their own graves
Think you gangsta, popped a few rounds,
These kids will step in and murder a whole town,
Then sit back and smoke and watch it burn down,
The grave gets deeper the further we go down
Set to the beat of a marching drum the song is an elegy for lost children and destroyed childhoods.
Moving from murder to music, “Dumb it Down” critiques the mainstream hip-hop industry and its race toward the lowest common denominator. Amid his verses are blurbs from people telling him to simplify his lyrics to sell more records. Thugs advise him to rhyme about money and girls while record company executives warn him that his listeners are beginning to think for themselves and strive to better their conditions. He rejects pleas to change his ways, however, and ends the song defiantly stating:
They told me I should come down cousin, but I flatly refuse, I ain’t dumbed down nothing
Lighter tracks like the Snoop Dogg-featured “High Definition” and swing-heavy “Go Baby” provide breaks from the heavier themes of the record like quick breathes of air before once again diving into deeper topics.
While Lu displays an ability to paint startling images in single tracks on the songs mentioned so far, the most interesting aspect of this album is that it’s a quasi-concept album. Three recurring characters pop up in various songs to tell a wider story of hope, temptation, corruption, and ultimately death. It’s based on the song “The Cool” from his first album.
The Streets is a female. She’s like the action personification of the streets, the street life, the call of the streets. The Game is the same way. The Game is the personification of the game. The pimp’s game, the hustler’s game, the con man’s game, whatever. Then they’ve got supernatural characteristics. Like the Cool, his right hand is rotted away. The only thing that rotted away was his right hand. It represents the rotting away of his righteousness, of his good. And the Streets and the Cool kind of have a love affair going on. So she’s represented by this locket. And the locket has a key and it’s on fire. And as a gift to the Cool on his rise to fame, she gave him the key. And the key represents the key to the Streets. So she wears a locket around her neck at all times. And the way the story goes, she has given that key to tons of people throughout time. Al Capone, Alexander the Great, whatever. She’s giving them the key to the Streets. Fame and fortune — but also the prices. The Game, he’s represented by a stripped-down skull, a skull with dice in his eyes and smoke coming out of his mouth. The billowing smoke is actually crack smoke.
As the story goes, a little boy is raised in a single parent household. Eventually he leaves his mother’s care and is raised by The Game. Living a hustler’s life he soon comes into contact with The Streets and falls in love with her. She gives him success and he becomes rich and powerful, but he is eventually set up and killed. He then claws himself out of his grave and rises as Lupe Fiasco’s third evil muse, the desire for peer acceptance and quick and easy fame, The Cool.
“The Coolest” establishes the protagonist as he outlines meeting The Streets and how she granted him money and success. He proclaims that The Streets holds his heart but he can’t love her because his soul is held by his adoptive father, The Game.
In “Streets on Fire” we get a good look at The Streets and are immediately told to beware because “Death is on the tip of her tongue and danger’s at the tip of her fingers.” The song is ostensibly about a disease and the mass hysteria surrounding the outbreak. The disease is actually temptation and, though nobody knows it and everybody blames everybody else, The Streets spreads it throughout history leading to the downfall of many, including the boy who would become The Cool.
“Gotta Eat” similarly functions on a couple of different levels. The lyrics simultaneously reveal how the burgeoning criminal is having second thoughts about his life of crime and exist as a warning on the health hazards of fast food. As his profession pollutes the city and the community, so does unhealthy food pollute and weaken the body.
As the story unfolds it is shown that the young man did not give up his illicit activities and he finally reaps what he sows in “The Die” as the track follows both those conspiring to kill him and his arrogant denials that anybody would dare try. As the title implies, the plot goes forward and he does not survive.
Closing out the tale (at least on this album) is The Game’s monologue “Put You on Game.” In it the entity proclaims how he has used people throughout history to spread darkness and violence across the globe. He sees these people as mere tools and while they revere him he doesn’t think twice about them.
Jaco has stated a desire to retell this story as both a comic book and a serialized radio program and the mythology he’s created seems incredibly suited to both mediums.
With his sophomore (and possibly penultimate) release, Lupe Fiasco trods many paths in many different ways. He shows a startling ability to craft allegories, cleverly wrap them around addictive melodies and spit them out in tight, effortless rhymes. He’s built on his first record’s success in both theme and execution and while there are still uneven bits here and there the end product is one of the best hip-hop albums of 2007. He takes the listener to many disparate destinations and ultimately the sum of The Cool’s myriad parts lies in the album’s first track through Iesha Jaco’s poignant spoken word:
They thought it was cool to burn crosses in your front lawn as they hung you from trees in your backyard.
They thought it was cool to leave you thirsty and stranded (Katrina).
He thought it was cool to carry a gun in his classroom and open fire (Virginia-Tech-Columbine-Stop-the-violence.)
They thought it was cool to tear down the projects and put up million dollar condos (Gentrification.)
They think its cool to stand on the block hiding products in their socks making quick dime bag dollars.
They think its cool to to ride down on you in blue and white unmarked cars, bustin you upside yo head.Freeze.
Cause the problem is we think its cool too.
Check your ingredients, before you overdose, on the cool.
Tracklist:
1. Baba Says Cool For Thought
2. Free Chilly
3. Go Go Gadget Flow
4. The Coolest
5. Superstar
6. Paris, Tokyo
7. Hi-Definition
8. Gold Watch
9. Hip-Hop Saved My Life
10. Intruder Alert
11. Streets On Fire
12. Little Weapon
13. Gotta Eat
14. Dumb It Down
15. Hello/Goodbye (Uncool)
16. The Die
17. Put You On Game
18. Fighters
19. Go Baby
© Eric Atienza 2008 for Listen In. Some rights reserved.
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
You must log in to post a comment.