Lupe Fiasco seemed to erupt out of nowhere with the explosive one-two punch of "Touch The Sky"—his smash-hit collaboration with his friend Kanye West—and the infectious skateboarding anthem "Kick, Push." But Fiasco endured a pair of major-label deals gone awry—one as part of a pre-fab rap group called Da Pak, the other a solo deal—before hooking up with Atlantic to release Food & Liquor, one of the decade's most audacious, original hip-hop debuts. Between busted deals, Fiasco generated a steady underground buzz with well-received mix-tapes highlighted by versions of West's "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" and "Jesus Walks."
Fiasco's debut, Food & Liquor, executive-produced by Jay-Z, reflects Fiasco's devout Muslim faith and eclectic interests in skateboarding, giant robots, science fiction, and trippy Technicolor storytelling. The A.V. Club recently spoke with Fiasco about bootlegging, skateboarding, reconciling his values with his passion for hip-hop, and preferring Nas to Jay-Z.
The A.V Club: You were a special guest during Kanye West's set at Lollapalooza. What did it feel like to be performing in front of a hundred thousand people against the Chicago skyline?
Lupe Fiasco: Cool. It's not like I was underimpressed. It was just cool. [Laughs.]
AVC: It wasn't a life-changing moment?
LF: Nah. Those experiences have come and gone. That wasn't even the most insane show thing that could happen. We've done shows—we'll be in Dublin, and it will be nonstop pandemonium to the point where you think the crowd is going to implode, because they're making so much noise and they're so excited. So when you get that reaction, it's cool, when people are loud and like [mimics screaming], but we get the shows where it's absolute mayhem.
AVC: Do you get jaded the more you experience that?
LF: Not really jaded. You just get used to it. I don't think it's as extreme as being jaded. It's more like "Eh, all right. Another show."
AVC: Do you think that was a big moment for Chicago hip-hop in particular? Having you and Twista and Common and Kanye all there at the same time?
LF: I don't know. I'm kinda out of touch with Chicago, to tell you the truth. I haven't been there in so long to see the effects. I've been working this whole time. Even the time when Kanye came out and was smashing and smashing, and when Common came back out and Rhymefest and me, I hadn't even been in the city to experience what impact it has, because I've been all around the world working just as much as they have. I don't think even Kanye has been back to see exactly what effect he's had on the city.
AVC: Do you think Kanye has opened doors for Chicago rappers? Made it easier to be a little different from the norm?
LF: I think that's overall. I don't think that he's made it easier for just Chicago rappers.
AVC: A lot of people think you came out of nowhere, but you've been around for years. Your first deal, you had a group called Da Pak, right?
LF: Da Pak was a group out of Chicago. It was a put-together group. We actually met for the first time at this showcase. They were like "Yo, you should do a song together." So we did. It just so happened that the name of the song was "Wolf Pak." They said, "Y'all should be a group called Da Pak, and here's a record deal."
AVC: What was that like, having that dangled in front of you?
LF: It was cool. It wasn't what you expected. You expect certain things. You build up in your mind how it's supposed to go down. When you get a record deal, you think you're supposed to get X, Y, and Z. It doesn't happen like that. You're like "Oh, this isn't as exciting as I thought it was going to be." But it was cool. It was really weird, because we didn't know each other.
AVC: Why did they think you guys would work well together?
LF: I guess because they felt like if we were all good solo MCs, then we would make a great group.
AVC: So what happened with that? Did you start to record an album?
LF: We did about 50 songs, something like that. We pulled together an album, and then it was like we didn't have any creative control, so the songs were wack. The first single was kinda wack. I hated it. Then you get that "I hate this song. They hate this song. We don't want to rap like this. We want to rap like that." But you have no creative control. So people weren't really happy with the project. And then the A&R got fired. We were signed to Epic Records, but then the A&R was let go. So when they fired him, they dropped all the groups he had signed.
AVC: What was the single you hated? What kind of songs were they?
LF: Some super-violent, club, status-quo songs. There were a few songs, since it was a group, you could play around with certain things. So there were certain concepts that were kind of cool, but the overall theme was this super-violent group of kids from the hood.
AVC: Was it devastating to have a major deal and not really get anything out of it? To just get dropped?
LF: You got experience. My victories are small. The things that I wanted out of it were pretty small. So just to go to New York was dope for me. Being able to go out on tour and perform and meet certain people who I was fans of, and they would be on the same stage as we were, it was cool. We got money. We got paid a little bit, so it wasn't all, all bad. It was just that I wanted to go out and do my music and express myself, and I couldn't, and that was wack.
AVC: What was the first album that really made an impression on you?
LF: Probably [Jay-Z's] Reasonable Doubt. No, actually, it was prior to that. I want to say NWA. It was a mash-up of certain albums. It would be a Spice 1 album, but I wouldn't know the name of the album, and it wouldn't be the whole album. It would probably be side A, because we were still on tapes. So it would be a Spice 1 album I didn't know the name of, I'd be rocking with that. Or, it'd be an 8Ball & MJG album. I remember "Space Age Pimpin'" was my joint.
AVC: On "Hurt Me Soul," you rap about trying to reconcile your values with your love of hip-hop. Was that something you wrestled with from the beginning?
LF: Early on, it was like, "Whatever, I don't like hip-hop." And then as I got into it, it went to the back burner. And then when I started making my own music, I was more about recreating what I was hearing. And then it got to the point where I was like "Hold on." I noticed that I had some control over what I was saying, and the effects that it's going to have on people. I wanted to focus more on the positive side of things, which are more in tune with my morals and ethics.
AVC: What about Reasonable Doubt really spoke to you?
LF: "Friend Or Foe": that song in particular. Then as I really got more into it, there were other songs like "Politics As Usual." Then my morals started to kick in, and I started going through the lyrics of like, "D'Evils" and I was like, "Whoa, I can't listen to this." Even to this day, I don't listen to Biggie. And I was a huge Biggie fan. I will not play a Biggie album. It's just so violent. And his earlier stuff was so over the top. And I was like "Nah, I can't listen to this."
AVC: What about Tupac? Is that the same thing?
LF: I like Tupac. The only album of Tupac's I really, really got into was All Eyez On Me. That was my Tupac album that I really liked. As an MC, he's just all right to me. He makes more of an impression as just the figure that he was. He was the James Dean-type individual, where his persona is what really appealed to people. His music—I'm comparing it to Jay-Z, and he's certainly not better as a lyricist than Jay-Z. That's what we were on, lyricism, so it was Jay-Z, Nas, Pharoahe Monch, and Wu-Tang Clan, different people where it was straight, straight lyrics. This was when we were 15, 16, 17, and if you wanted lyrics, then Tupac was just whatever.
AVC: You've also said that your favorite album was Nas' It Was Written.
LF: It was mostly the timing when I got into it. The music is great. Even though it was super-violent, it was the timing that hit me. I was 16, 17, and I was like "This album is fresh." The whole album is dope. It hit me at the most impressionable time. I started to define myself along those lines. You know how people are searching for who they want to be, or how they want to act in their teenage years. That album hit me right then. It was like, "Aw yeah. This is how it's going to be." I was impressed that he would have these violent songs and stories, and then he would do a song like "Black Girl Lost," which would make up for at least half of it. Even today, that's probably one of my favorite hip-hop albums. I probably bought that, like, six times.
AVC: Two of your favorite rappers are Nas and Jay-Z. If you had to choose between them, who would you pick?
LF: Nas. Me and my friends always say this: If we were stuck on a desert island, and you could take one hip-hop artist's catalog with you, who would it be? And I always say Nas. Illmatic all the way up to, what was his last one? God's Son. For me, what he represents is a little bit more in tune with the things that I'd like to represent or have represented, or that I can relate to a little more. I can't relate to the hustler lifestyle that intensely. But I can relate to some of the things Nas talks about. His aspirations.
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