Guess Who’s On Third

Lupe Fiasco: Get Down, Switch, Much More
from Fahrenheit 1-15 vol. 2/3 (2006)

West Side Chicago’s Lupe Fiasco is fighting an uphill battle. Rap’s landscape seems to have an open position for an emcee with Native Tounges style appeal, and Lupe seems to be making a bid to fill it. Walking the line between “conscious” rap and street rap has been attempted countless times, and with very few exceptions the music sounds more like a job application cover letter than a rap tape (“Other rappers say this, but I say that,” “I’m going to change the game, I’m going to do such and such and such” etc.). Other rappers have the skill and exuberance but are so squeeky clean you almost can’t call it rap music (ask yourself, would my mom hate this?). If anything, Lupe Fiasco tends towards the latter pitfall on his second mixtape, the next in the Fahrenheit 1/15 series. Luckily Lupe has the good sense to keep the subject matter a bit sticky and use a couple red flag words. Throw in a couple Paul Wall beats and you can safely keep this tape out of the mini-van.

And the rhymes are hot. Lupe can ride a beat with the best of them, and he sounds more comfortable than Kanye (to whom comparisons will be inevitable, not just due to the Chi-town connection, or the fact that Fiasco’s highest profile appearance has been on a West track) expounding on the Jigga cadence that is the sound of current rap. Lupe runs rhyme circles over Nas’ “Get Down,” and gets even more dexterous over “Still Tippin.” Check the second verse where he goes from switching rhyme styles every four bars to switching subject matter (a trick which demands multiple rewinds).

So the question is, will Fiasco’s music be something rap kids are embarrased to like a couple years down the road? It will probably take a full album to tell, though the bright-as-Sunny-Delight debut single “Kick Push” doesn’t bode too well for longevity. Hopefully Fiasco has enough finesse to keep things a bit dirty without sacrificing his aesthetic.