Fighter: Lupe Fiasco
Trainers: Lupe Fiasco, Charles “Chilly” Patton, Darrale Jones
Cut Men: Charles “Chilly” Patton, Darrale Jones, 1500 or Nothin’, The Audibles, B-Side, DJ Simonsayz, Soundtrakk
Weight Class: Lyrical Heavyweight/Conscious Rapper
Notable Fire: Strange Fruition (Feat. Casey Benjamin), Audubon Ballroom, ITAL (Roses), Brave Heart
Notable Trash: How Dare You (Feat. Bilal)
Tale of the Tape: The Chicago MC’s fourth solo album was possibly the most highly anticipated project of the summer by hip-hop heads. Never one to shy away from controversy, it’s always fascinating to see where Lu is going to take each of his works from a conceptual standpoint. In a recent interview, Lupe stated that the concept of Food and Liquor 2 was, “America”. He certainty wasted no time punching listeners in the eardrum with an insightful poem at the top of the record delivered by his sister Ayesha (who also appeared on The Cool), and the biographical “Strange Fruition” to kick off the album. F&L2 is loaded with songs just like these; highlighting the historical atrocities that America was founded on, while simultaneously calling attention to the human condition of Blacks in America. The opening line of the album: “Now I can’t pledge allegiance to your flag/Cuz I can’t find no reconciliation with your past/When there was nothing equal for my people in your math/You forced us in the ghetto, and then you took our dads”.
However, Lupe does not absolve African-Americans of their own role in their current standing in this society. He takes a considerable amount of time discussing how black people, particularly those that identify with hip-hop culture, are way too focused on materialism. Lupe takes it a step further by holding hip-hop largely accountable for this state of mind and asks for a ceasefire on “ITAL (Roses)”, “Can we get a lil break, from the cocaine and the kilos?/Alright nigga, we know/Alright nigga, we know/Can we get a break, from the strippers on the p-ole?/Alright nigga, we know/Okay nigga, we know”. Lupe then steps to the lectern and addresses the youth, “Hey shorty, ain’t no future in no gang bang/And ain’t no manhood in no bang-bang/Ain’t no honor cleaning interstates inside a chain gang/Know some rap niggas put that shit inside your mainframe”.
While Lupe uses F&L2 as his vehicle to tackle the aforementioned issues and many others (including poverty, sloth, misogyny, love, pain, death, racism, crime, planned obsolescence, history, corruption, slavery, civil rights, religion, political unrest in the Middle East, alcoholism, gluttony, rape/pedophilia, education and the destruction of the black family to name a few), the one topic that endears this album to this listener is the general apathy, if not unhappiness of young (black) Americans. I personally am of the belief that this genre of music is largely responsible for the this current state of affairs.
Lupe best describes it when he says of hip-hop, “I can’t listen if you ain’t sayin shit/And recognize all this emptiness is dangerous/Ain’t building up their confidence, we’re teaching them that they ain’t shit/If they ain’t got the latest that they saw on someone famous”. For all of the ballin and boisterous bragger-rap we all love to hear (myself included), our culture is overloaded with this narrative. Given the fact that the economy is still in the toilet, there is virtually nobody is living this lifestyle (not even most of the rappers themselves) and the result is a nation full of people down on themselves because they’re not living out this unrealistic dream. The result? People go to extreme lengths to attain this dream (dope dealing for instance), or they become stuck in a perpetual state of misery, with no middle ground. Nobody has had the insight to bring this issue to the forefront until now. Luckily, Lupe offers up a remedy for this at the end of “Strange Fruition” and emphasizes the resiliency of black people in this country on the outro, “Hood Now“.
Fight Night: Seventh round TKO
While the production (which was decent, Pete Rock beef notwithstanding) doesn’t allow for many tracks that can be bumped in the whip, F&L2 has all of the content and underground feel any Lasers critic could handle. And though some are put off by Lu’s preachy disposition, he addressed those individuals as well, “I know you sayin, ‘Lupe rapping bout the same shit’/Well, that’s cuz ain’t shit changed bitch”. This is who Lupe Fiasco is; this is what he raps about and it’s unlikely he will switch it up unless we see some drastic changes in our society. It harkens back to the days of PE, BDP, Ice Cube and Tupac Shakur, when hip-hop was more than just pyrex pots, gunplay and party records.
This album is heavier on social content than any project since Nas & Damian Marley’s Distant Relatives in 2010 (arguably the best album to drop that year). The breadth of topics that Lu wrestles with on this record serves as a reflection of how far we still have to go within the scope of hip-hop, Black America and America as a whole. Despite occasionally reaching with some of the wordplay, Lupe is on top of his lyrical game as well (e.g. “Put Em Up”). Remember that this is only part 1, as Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 2 is next up. If you listened to this album, you should have learned something from it; F&L2 serves as dinner for the famished rap community, now let’s try to keep the “liquor” to a minimum.