Lupe Fiasco, hailing from West Side Chicago, is illuminating social critic that possesses rhyming abilities of the highest quality. If Lupe Fiasco was actually Wiz Khalifa or Machine Gun Kelly, he can totally rap over those type of beats and produce mediocre, but catchy, hit singles. Especially the poppy, radio-friendly filth with the aforementioned indistinguishable white guy on hook duty.
It’s another, unforgivable thing to rap over shitty imitations of popular instrumentals from five years prior. It’s one thing to rap over mainstream, trendy beats. At worst, like on Lasers or his puzzling Friend of the People mixtape, they make his songs nearly unlistenable. At best, like on Testuo & Youth and Food and Liquor, they give tracks a charming and innocent quality that exemplifies Lupe’s optimism.
These issues-of having outdated and beginner-sounding beats-have plagued Lupe’s discography since his debut album. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lupe discovered this beat in a Youtube video titled “DOPE TRAP BEAT HIP HOP RAP MADE FOR THE STREETS.” While “Jump” contains an alien abduction story that is somewhat interesting, the bass-heavy beat is basically a shittier “A Milli.” And “Promise,” Lupe’s snarky response to the “mumble-rap” trend, fails to deliver because the amateurish production distracts from the rapper’s message. Befitting the Rick Ross feature, “Tranquillo” sounds like a Maybach Music throwaway made before our country had its first African-American president.
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“In the backseat or the backyard/Feeling like we got no problems at all/I’m so happy when I’m with you, with you,” croons Jake Torrey on the bridge, who has the golden combination of passable singing, unoffending beard stubble, and pale skin to one day provide the soundtrack to a chick flick that has a twenty percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.Įven the more hard-hitting songs, such as “Tranquillo” and “Promise,” have major flaws in the production. More gut-wrenching is “Wild Child,” another song featuring some barely talented white guy singing an ambiguous, feel-good hook. “Pick Up the Phone,” with its “Call Me Maybe” string arrangement and disgustingly sugary chorus, makes me want to pick up a sharp object and direct it towards a main artery. Unfortunately, Lupe abandons this claim in the latter half of the album, stacking bullshit on top of more bullshit. On “Dopamine Lit (Intro),” the leadoff to the record, Lupe brings forth bars of a highly flammable nature, rapping “This one ain’t for Billbo’/You can stream the album on Silk Road/Drug rings for more dough/So they baggin’ like Bilbo.” References to Lord of the Rings and drug trafficking are combined to disclose a simple message: this ain’t no mainstream bullshit.
He points out that while we pride ourselves on “made in the U.S.A.” products, we neglect to mention that gun violence, systematic racism, and mainstream ignorance are all products of this country as well. The recurrent chorus in “Made in the U.S.A.” develops new interpretations as Lupe queues up subsequent verses. For the majority of the track list, Lupe displays the witty punchlines, mind-bending rhyme schemes, and invigorating storytelling that attracted hip-hop fans since the Fahrenheit 1/15 mixtapes. But first, the good things about this album. So now we must find out whether DROGAS Light bucks this erratic trend. However, the ensuing album, Testuo & Youth, saw the Chicago rapper returning to his prolific beginnings. His first two albums are widely considered classics of the genre the two that followed are of the same quality as my morning shits. With every new Lupe Fiasco release, two things may happen: either he drips soul-drenching honey into your eardrums, or he stabs you repeatedly with a rusty knife.