"Come In, Hip-Hop, We've Come To Resurrect You"

Over the past couple of weeks, I've spent a lot of time listening to Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor. I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to hip-hop over the past decade or so, but I like what I've been hearing from some of the bigger Chicago MCs lately--Kanye West, Common, and, especially, Rhymefest. But Lupe Fiasco is another thing all together. It's a very different sounding record. At first I thought it sounded overproduced, but I'm starting to like the sound of it--lots of keyboard, string and horn sounds, very lush compared to most hip-hop. But where Lupe really stands out is in his lyrics. They're brilliant.

I would call Food & Liquor almost a "concept album". In the opening track ("Intro"), after a woman recites a poem, Lupe issues his proclamation: "I've got this philosphy, right? I think the world and everything in it is made up of a mix of two things: You got your good, y'know, and your bad. You got your food, and your liquor." This album is meant to be food for thought, compared to the "liquor" of what he refers to throughout the record as "The Game", meaning thug life, the drug trade, gangsta rap. In the second track (and one of the best on the record), "Real", he announces his intention to provide something "real", as opposed to what people get from gangsta rap.

The Game is not to give 'em nothing real,
Nothing they could use, nothing that they could feel.
Give 'em a bunch of lies and teach 'em that it's real,
So that's all that they know,
That's all that they feel.

He seems to blame quite a few ills on gangsta rap, most explicitly in the track "Hurt Me Soul":

Now I ain't trying to be the greatest:
I used to hate hip-hop,
Yep, because the women degraded.
But Too Short made me laugh--
Like a hypocrite I played it,
A hypocrite, I stated.
Though I only recited half,
Omitting the word "bitch". Cursing, I wouldn't say it.
Man, dawg couldn't relate to the bitch I dated!
(Forgive my favorite word for hers and hers alike,
But I heard it from a song I heard and sorta liked.)

Note that I'm pretty sure this is the only time the word "bitch" is used on the whole record, and it's used to make a point about how popular culture can affect its consumers' attitudes--even if it's only a song someone "sorta" likes. He continues, though, to say that some hip-hop inspired him to "tap the world and listen" and write down what he heard:

My mom can't feed me.
My boyfriend beats me.
I have sex for money.
The hood don't love me.
The cops wanna kill me.
This nonsense built me--
And I got no place to go.

They bombed my village.
They call us killers.
Took me off they welfare.
Can't afford they healthcare.
My teacher won't teach me.
My master beats me--
And it hurts me soul.

Here Lupe is stepping into the shoes of a number of other people--displaying an empathy that most hip-hop isn't exactly famous for. He continues his critique of The Game on "The Emperor's Soundtrack":

Ever since The Game trained us,
We came up like worms in the rain.

And on the track "Pressure", he further indicates why he wants to provide "food" rather than "liquor":

Giving 'em The Game, that's like giving chocolate to the fat--
Look, how you think I got here?
That's the same Game that came through where I lived as a kid
In the bad-luck truck, and threw boxes off the back.

Maybe the funniest and best jab he takes at The Game is in the track "Daydreamin'", in which he makes fun of every bad rap video ever:

Now come on everybody, let's make cocaine cool!
We need a few more half-naked women up in the pool.
And hold this MAC-10 that's all covered in jewels.
And can you please put your titties closer to the 22s?
And where's the champagne? We need champagne!
Now look as hard as you can with this blunt in your hand.
And now hold up your chain slow-motion through the flames.
Now cue the smoke machines and the simulated rain!
(But not too loud, 'cause the baby's sleeping...
I wonder if it knows what the world is keeping
Up both sleeves while he lay there dreaming...?)

In one of the most touching tracks on the record, "He Say She Say", the first verse is a long plaint by a mother to her son's father to be involved in the boy's life:

She said to him:
"I want you to be a father.
He's your little boy and you don't even bother.
...
You see what his problem is?
He don't know where his poppa is.
No positive male role model
To play football and build railroad models.
It's making a hole and you've been digging it,
'Cause you ain't been kicking it
Since he was old enough to hold bottles!
Wasn't supposed to get introduced to that.
He don't deserve to get used to that."

With the title "He Say She Say", Lupe sets up an expectation that the next verse will be a response from the father. Instead, it's the exact same verse, except from the point of view of the boy:

So he said to him:
"I want you to be a father.
I'm your little boy and you don't even bother.
...
You see what my problem is?
That I don't know where my poppa is.
No positive male role model
To play football and build railroad models.
It's making a hole and you've been digging it,
'Cause you ain't been kicking it
Since I was old enough to hold bottles!
Wasn't supposed to get introduced to that.
I don't deserve to get used to that."

The repetition and change of viewpoint deepens the song. He uses a similar technique between the tracks "Kick, Push" (the album's first single) and "Kick, Push II". "Kick, Push" is a love song about a skateboarder who falls in love with another skater:

He said, "I would marry you, but I'm engaged to these aerials and varials,
And I don't think this board is strong enough to carry two."
She said, "Bow--I weigh 120 pounds! Now,
Lemme make one thing clear:
I don't need to ride yours, I got mine right here."

The whole song is about the joy and sense of freedom they get from riding their boards ("Let's kick, and push... and coast!"). But then in the extraordinary "Kick, Push II", he goes deeper, and explains why skating means so much to them (read "kunk-a-kunk-a-kunk" as the sound a board makes rolling on a sidewalk):

Well, the cops didn't fine him for grinding, though
They kinda blew the vibe. Figured it was time to go.
Plus, he had to be at home a long time ago,
And he had made like ten dollars off the sign he wrote.
It read: "A little hungry, and need a little money, it's for my little sister, and her little tummy."
Wasn't lying, though: he didn't go buy hydro.
Went to the restaurant and bought two gyros,
'Cause he knew they wasn't cooking where he lived.
The "kunk-a-kunk-a-kunks" now took him to the crib,
A little hurt from the rail he took into the ribs,
Right past the pushers who couldn't "underdig":
"What's the use of pushing if you ain't pushing none of this?"
"If I kick with y'all, I'm just pushing for a bid."
But what was on his mind had pushed him to the lid:
Their best customer wasn't cooking for her kids.

The narrator's mother (he goes on to explain) is a crackhead. His father is absent. His white girlfriend's parents are together, but her father is abusive and has contracted HIV, which he has passed to her mother:

And that's why she skates with he:
Someone to feel her pain, and a place to be.

They find solace and community in skating with "a travelling band of misfits and outcasts":

A lot of scars, they did this without pads.
A lot of hearts who did this without dads.
One's father was fithy rich, two was middle class, and one was homeless.
Add in a paralyzed girl in a wheelchair who just liked to watch, and that was the whole clique.

So, though the story of "Kick, Push II" has a happy ending (it ends with Lupe having put out a video for the first "Kick, Push"), the chorus leaves the sense of just-barely transcended miseries:

You kick, push--
Over your shoulders you swore you'd never look.
'Cause wasn't nothing back there but the blackness,
And life wasn't too attractive.

The album sort of unfortunately ends with TWELVE MINUTES of shout-outs. But by that time, I guess Lupe has earned it. The records as a whole is the best hip-hop record I've heard in many years, one of the best I've ever heard. I think he points a way forward for a genre that has been in something of a rut (at least from what I've been hearing). He has a lot to say, a unique point of view, and the skill to get it across. Food & Liquor is a great album and I'm looking forward to hearing what more food Lupe Fiasco has to offer.