Artist: Lupe Fiasco

The Cool
Atlantic Records
5/5

Words by Emmanuel J. Ezugwu

In 2003, the Grammy Award winning country group, the Dixie Chicks went from being America’s darlings to unpatriotic defectors in one fail swoop following an ill fated critique of George Bush made at one of their concerts. And in some ways the rise and subsequent fall from grace of Lupe Fiasco can be seen in the same way as what befell the country trio.

His came following an appearance on October’s VH1 Hip Hop Honours where he was to perform ‘Electric Relaxation‘ as a tribute to A Tribe Called Quest and fluffed the lyrics. To be fair the major repercussion the rap newcomer faced was in the Internet world where his forgetting the words was seen as a blatant disrespect to one of Hip Hops pioneers especially seeing as he was personally asked to perform the track by Q-Tip himself. Places like XXL reprimanded him as a “fruit” who didn’t care enough to learn four bars and in the aftermath, relationships between him and various US media sources remain strained (following some disparaging remarks, it’s said that Fiasco refuses to talk with AllHipHop.com)

Given the chance, you could easily imagine that the release of his latest LP would slip under the hip hop radar but Lupe’s lyrical clout alone makes this one of the most essentials albums of the year (or next year when it’s released in the UK).

Conceptually, ‘The Cool’ expands upon the first CD over 18 nail biting tracks sparked by Lupe’s comic book obsession. Packed full of characters, alter-egos and split personalities that at best, make ‘TI vs. T.I.P’ seem embarrassingly mild, Fiasco raises the rap bar to newer altitudes. For example ‘Gotta Eat’ sees Lupe rhyme from the perspective of a cheeseburger “fishing for chips”.

Kept under lock and key in the Atlantic Records Headquarters to avoid the many leaks that saw ‘Food and Liquor’ chart at a disappointing 8 in the Billboard charts and 31 in the UK charts, the album opens up with his sisters spoken word. “They thought it was cool to burn crosses on the lawn” she says, explicitly setting the tone for the rest of the LP.

Fiasco begins properly with ‘Go Gadget‘, where he compares his lyrical flow to the 80’s cartoon detective over subtle electric guitar and string productions. Having birthed the talents of Kanye West, Common and Rhymefest, Chi-Town has a definite affinity for the discernable rapper so when he ends the tracks by bigging up Chicago and the mid-west as the “best city in the whole wide world“ you realise that the Muslim rap star isn’t just saying it for bravado.

Lyrically, ‘Intruder Alert’ is the most superior track on the album though. It has a deft outspokenness to it that gives him and Kanye West a similarity more then their same area code and Lupe spits consciously about issues from homeless drug addicts to the devastating floods in New Orleans. There’s hardly any let up in this thought-provoking assault with the next track ‘Streets on Fire’ featuring Matthew Santos. “some call it a prevention// some call it a cure” begins a riled up Fiasco on the track about HIV that addresses the various misconceptions about the virus.

However the subject matter is not all dreary, ‘High Definition’ featuring Snoop Dogg and Pooh Bear is unlike the previous singles and injects some much needed funk into the record. “I don‘t need no intermission// my life‘s in high definition” swoons Snoop on this sure to-be-a-single-release. ‘Paris Toyko’ also provides a swift departure from Lupe’s rap signature and sees him name checking everything such as the iPhone with charismatic flair, half singing the chorus “lets go to Paris and wake up in Tokyo// Have a dream in New Orleans and fall in Love in Chicago”.

Musically, ‘The Cool’ allows Lupe to have his cake and eat it and aptly demonstrates his gifted story-telling abilities like that of a young Bob Dylan. The various alter-egos he displays allows him to rap about the kind of clichéd materialistic subject matter of money, guns and women without it being a detriment to his well earned backpack rapper status. It also allows for him to highlight America’s social unrest, touching on subjects such as Hurricane Katrina and the HIV epidemic with a brutal honesty.

Overall, the album makes no qualms in shattering the illusion that life is anything but rosy and it’s genius is in treading the fine line between being thought-provoking and purely sensational. I'm sure the resurgence in popularity of the Dixie Chic whose latest album went in at No 1 in the billboard charts means Lupe can look forward to being an unappreciated maverick for not too long now.

‘The Cool’ is out now in the US

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