MUSIC REVIEWS
Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor
David Allun Jones
Lupe Fiasco carries the calming poise of someone who’s been doing it for a long time and while 2006 can be marked as his breakout year, a closer look at his resume would prove he’s been on the verge of success for a long time coming. Surviving two failed record deals before becoming an underground phenomenon on the mixtape circuit, Fiasco’s first taste of mainstream success arrived with an attention-grabbing appearance on Kanye West’s “Touch The Sky”. It was his official solo intro “Kick, Push” that really got everybody talking of him like he was the Second Coming. It’s touching snapshot of skateboarders with vivid storytelling over a wispy sample sounded like a lost gem from the previous decade, leading to whispers that a new “nerdy Nas” was upon us. On his studio debut, Food & Liquor, Fiasco remarkably lives up to the hype by dropping a concrete first disc that critics and hip hop heads will be referring to for ages. Too bad it’s lack of big-budget flashiness, wordy wisdom and low-key ambience will keep his appeal under-the-radar, with no threat at all to steal some spotlight from fellow emcee geeks, and lesser lyrical talents, Kanye and Pharrell.
A proud Muslim who doesn’t smoke or drink and admits to having an inner conflict with most of hip hop (boycotting Jay Z ”’cause he said that he never prayed to God, he prayed to Gotti”), Fiasco builds enough of a brick wall to make most listeners quickly turn away. But those bemoaning his lack of trap concern aren’t who his elegiac words speak to anyway. Falling somewhere between glazy eyed backpacker and assured militant, Food & Liquor finds new and creative ways to center on the issues that are conveniently swept under the rug by most in favor of strip club anthems and gritty hood tales. We look at the horrors of city life through the eyes of a dead drug dealer (“The Cool”) and King Kong-sized robot (“Daydreamin’”); listen to the agitated finger-wagging of a mother and son to an absentee father (“He Say, She Say”); and on the controversial “American Terrorist” he pinpoints the real Axis of Evil right here in the United States of America. If that wasn’t enough to swallow, the misleadingly titled “The Instrumental” spits an ambiguous message about “boxes” that’s so universal you’ll find new meaning in it with each spin, while “Kick Push II” digs deeper into the lives of the sk8r clique with the script talents of a primetime TV writer creating the fall’s hottest new show.
Lingering blaxploitation productions that sway more than they knock and hooks that dissipate without leaving much of a memorable stamp may bear the work of an artist demanding to be taken seriously but it also fractures the influential reach he could have otherwise. Still, not all great hip hop albums carry much of an initial commercial presence despite their incredible capacity (Nas’ classic Illmatic took seven years to hit platinum) and though Food & Liquor may never earn the Soundscan numbers to match the talent presented, those who truly understand hip hop will bow to it’s supremacy.
