Lupe Fiasco debut a disappointment
Published Sept. 22, 2006
I was rooting for Lupe Fiasco; I really was.
Rarely does someone steal the spotlight from Kanye West, but on "Touch the Sky," off of West's 2005 release Late Registration, the then relatively unknown Chicago emcee nearly did. West, both on the mic and off, is easily pop's most bombastic personality.
But when bathed by the track's regal horns, Lupe sounded just as much at home.
I tried to keep my eye on him, just off that one revelatory verse, but until February, Lupe was relatively unheard from.
That's when his first single, "Kick, Push" unceremoniously worked its way onto file-sharing networks.
The track loops a thick violin line over stock snare hits and an occasional fluttering piano.
It works an extended skateboard metaphor and tells the story of how Lupe's childhood was affected by skating.
Among the "Laffy Taffys" of the world, the song is noteworthy both for its quality and its freshness, dismissing popular rap trends.
This dismissal, coupled with the fact that he actually skateboards, puts a target the size of his hometown on Lupe's back.
Food & Liquor, in instrumentation, theme and ambition, clearly resembles West's Late Registration.
As Late Registration sounded almost like the work of an orchestra, with lush elaborate string parts and sky-high horns, Food & Liquor pulls from all over the musical spectrum as well.
Unfortunately for Lupe, his debut falters when his ambition swallows up his story.
Heavy electric guitar samples and grandiose trumpet stabs punctuate tracks like the Jay-Z-assisted "Pressure" (Jay's verse is lackluster, don't bother) and "Real."
"Pressure" loses any momentum that it gathers throughout the song at its chorus.
The drums rumble, the guitar fights for space, the chorus reaches nauseating heights, and the sound of an eagle comes out of nowhere. "Real" never picks up any rhythm in the first place.
The guitar, horn and drum punches stutter Lupe's flow and suffocate his vocals.
Like West's, Lupe's lyrics are for the most part based on detailed personal history.
Extremely gifted in their wordplay, Lupe and West eschew the dope boy ethos that dominates popular hip-hop.
But where West uses his punch lines at the most opportune times and to staggering results, Lupe too often loses his pace and the meaning of his songs in confusing, jumbled prose.
To wit: "CCF sponsorin'/world conquerin'/telephone monitorin'/Louie Vuitton modelin'/pornographic actress honorin'/string theory ponderin'/bulimic vomitin'."
This isn't to say that Lupe doesn't spit some eye-opening lines (check the whole first verse of "I Gotcha"), it's just that his stories come across infinitely more compelling when they are told straightforwardly.
"Kick, Push" doesn't have one real quotable couplet among its three verses, but Lupe rides its beat like a seasoned vet and rhymes in the most basic sense of the word.
The result is an enlightening look at his youth — a story that rightfully is thrust to the forefront of the song.
The same goes for "The Cool," in which Lupe tells the story of a man who gets shot and nearly killed in his old neighborhood and eventually returns only to get robbed by the same men who shot him.
Those four minutes might be Food & Liquor's most engrossing, a short story set to a dark, spacey, mood-reflective beat.
Food & Liquor presents an interesting paradox.
Although Lupe's wide ambition pushes popular hip-hop forward, it's ultimately a detriment to his own work.
When the Windy City hotshot finds the best of both worlds, he'll rightfully deliver his opus.
Artist: Lupe Fiasco
Album: Food & Liquor
Genre: Hip-hop
Record Label: Atlantic Records
Release Date: Sept. 19
Most Listenworthy Track: 'Kick, Push'
Reviewer's Rating: 3 out of 5 Ms