Lupe Fiasco Interview, GOOD SHIT Options

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At this point, simply saying Lupe Fiasco is “nice” would be a gross understatement. In his native Chicago, the proper word for him would be “cold,” but even that doesn’t sound right. The fact is, dude is so cold that Roc-A-Fella head honcho Jay-Z dubbed him “a breath of fresh air,” and long-time buddy Kanye West has him featured on his upcoming album Late Registration . Quite a good look for a newcomer in the game.

But don’t confuse Lupe with just any new jack. In the past few years alone he has jumped from Epic, to Arista, almost signed to the Roc, before finally landing at Atlantic Records. In the lab he’s all about lyrics and rhyme schemes, but outside the studio he’s also the co-owner of the self-founded 1st & 15th Entertainment. Industry insiders are already buzzing, and as far as Lupe’s concerned: “All I need to do now is put out an album.”

As he puts the finishing touches on his solo debut Food & Liquor , slated for a fall release, the Chi-town native caught up with NobodySmiling to discuss the delicate balance between being lyrical and “dumbing down,” and the truth behind the Kanye West/” Conflict Diamonds ” hoopla.

NobodySmiling.com : Not too long ago Jay-Z bigged you up in The Source, calling you “a breath of fresh air” in the rap game. Where’d that comment come from, and what was your reaction to that?

Lupe Fiasco : I’ve been knowing Jay-Z since the period after Epic, before going into Arista. We [Lupe and partner Chilly] were kinda shopping a little bit for a label deal, and we was getting a lot of looks from the buzz we had built up in the industry. So, one of the looks was Jay. He came to Chicago one day -- it was him and [Kareem] “Biggs” Burke -- and my man Chuck was like, “Yo’, I want you to go up there and rhyme for Jay.” So we went to the hotel, rhymed for him, did the whole thing, and then they was like, “Yo’ come to New York, come to Roc-A-Fella.” So we got that whole experience, out of town, meeting all the different cats, stuff like that. And for me, on the real, it was crazy just as a fan. But then at the same time it’s like, “Dude wants to sign you,” and it’s a business decision because at that point we had started 1st & 15th. I was the vice president, co-owner of the whole shebang. So it’s like, okay, now we gotta look at the business decision side of it. As far as me signing to Roc-A-Fella? It just never panned out, it just never came to fruition. Like, maybe three months after that, we did the deal with Arista.

But me and him just kept in contact. Like I was there when he did The Blueprint, then I came back when he did The Black Album. So like, just being around him, he would school me to different stuff in the game. And what happened was my partner Chilly got locked up, maybe four months before the album was coming out. As a matter of fact, right around the time that interview came out in The Source. So Jay came to Arista for me and stepped in as executive producer. He said, “Yo, I’ma fill Chilly’s shoes until everything gets situated, so I’ma come in as executive producer.” So he came in, had a meeting with L.A. Reid, did the whole thing, and was going through the motions. And I was like, “Damn!” So he really took a liking to me, as far as being an MC and respecting what I do. It was real. We’d be at Bassline [Studios] kicking it, or go out somewhere and kick it or whatever and just chill. He was like, “This little nigga’s nice; I mess with him.” He would school me. We would sit down and talk for like hours. He was like, “Yo’, this is the game. This is what you should do, what you shouldn’t do, blahzay, blahzay, blah.” So you know, that relationship got solid for a minute. He still is executive producer through Arista and carrying over to the Atlantic situation. So he’s still executively producing the album.

Nobodysmiling.com : It’s been said that MCs like yourself are bringing lyricism back into the game, almost like a throwback to the mid-90s when lyrics actually made you think. How would you describe your style?

Lupe Fiasco : I like to call it “simple complexity.” I’m a big jazz fan, and the one thing I like about jazz is it’s simple -- every song may sound the same to the untrained ear, but if you really get to appreciate it, you’ll see that it’s complex. You might have the same three instruments but the beats, the rhythms, and everything they’re doing is really, really complex. So I always take that approach when I make rap records. I always want it to seem simple on the surface, but if you listen or try to listen -- which most cats don’t do -- but if you really listen, you'll see it’s like, “Damn, he just ran the same metaphor for like twenty-seven bars! Damn, ain’t nobody did that since 1995!” So it’s like I always try to keep it on some retro stuff, too. I think some of the best flows and rhyme schemes came with like Eazy-E, and from the South, Eightball & MJG and stuff like that. So I’m like, okay, let me take that kinda simplicity with the rhyme scheme, and do it how Jay did with his lyrics, or Nas did it, or Biggie did it -- the straight metaphors and the crazy shit. We blend it altogether and see what comes out.

I don’t get caught up in the stuff where nobody can understand me. Sometimes I just make “dumb” records, because it’s better to have a record where you’re just telling a story, just describing a situation. You ain’t trying to put in crazy metaphors, trying to be the punch-line king every two bars. It’s like, I actually go in and let the record direct it. A lot of times, the beat directs what I’ma write to it. It might be some complex lyrical junk, it might be a regular story record. It might be some dumbed down, whatever, you see what I’m saying? But I always try to change up on every jump, every record, every flow, everything. Like today, I’m on my way to the studio now to do a mash-up with the Gorillaz, you know what I’m saying? I’ma take the whole Gorillaz album and just flip it. Just to do something different, something creative, and come from the left. So I always try to be simple, but at the same time complex. People are really starting to get it now. Cats are like, “Yo’, that’s crazy! It ain’t seem like it was crazy, but if you really listen, like damn, he just ran that for about seven bars! That’s crazy!”

Nobodysmiling.com : A couple of years ago MCs like Ras Kass and Canibus -- you know, the real super lyrical cats -- they were predicted to be the next big thing. But then before you know it, they never really blew up because listeners flipped it and said, “Nah, they’re too complex; or they’re beats ain’t good enough.” Have you ever found yourself dumbing down your content to appease listeners?

Lupe Fiasco : Like Jay-Z told me – and Jay-Z told me! Jay-Z told me! He was like, don’t sacrifice your art for some fame. You ain’t gotta dumb down; you ain’t always gotta do that. Don’t chase radio. That’s one thing that always stuck: “Don’t chase radio.” Eazy-E didn’t chase radio, them niggas didn’t chase radio, and they was still legends and big at the same time, too. As far as the “dumb down,” and why I think certain cats are super lyrical and never really get on? They might be the best MCs in the world and never really latch on to commercial success, because it’s more than music. It’s more than just sixteen on a beat and then that’s it, like, “Oh, we got a crazy sixteen!” I put so much into my music, then turn around and put so much into everything that surrounds my music. I try to make it make sense on every level. Even if you don’t get a record, if you see the video you’re gonna be like, “Okay, I get it.” You see the marketing plan, you see these little schemes around the record, presentation of the mixtapes -- some cats just be bugging off the cover of the mixtape, you see what I’m saying? It’s like, “Okay I kinda get it.” There’s other ways to rock with it. For me, for real, for real? It’s like 10 percent music and 90 percent everything else. I take a lot more steps other than, “I’m gonna go record a record, or jump in a cipher.” That’s why I try to take myself away from the Canibus’s, the Ras Kass’s, the Chino XL’s. They’re ridiculously dope MCs, you know what I’m saying, but they never really made that move to the side where they’re commercially acceptable. So it’s like, I think I got it -- we won’t know until this fall -- but I think I found a formula that works for me. I don’t have to sacrifice my art and still have commercial success at the same time, too. It’s like, we’ll see what happens.

Nobodysmiling.com : Now there’s something I have to address. There’s a lot of rumors surrounding Kanye West’s latest single, “Diamonds (From Sierra Leone).” Some people are saying that he initially heard a song you did called “ Conflict Diamonds ” and he bit the concept. Others say you freestyled over his original record “Diamonds,” then his remix with Jay was sort of a response to your version. What’s the true story behind all of that?

Lupe Fiasco : All right, so this is the story, officially for NobodySmiling.com. Okay. I heard “Diamonds,” right? I heard the beat and it was f**king ridiculous. Kanye ripped it apart with the whole “Yves St. Laurent, Vegas on acid” shit -- we was bugging on that. When I heard “Diamonds” I was like, I always try to take records and flip it. Because I knew I couldn’t use it for my album, so it’s like okay, how can I take this record and flip it? Like a graffiti artist bombing the trains or something, it’s like, “How can I flip it?” So I said okay, I’ma do “Conflict Diamonds.” I ain’t never really heard anybody talking about conflict diamonds. I know people have done records prior, probably on the underground, but I ain’t never heard it. And then it seemed like a match, like okay we’re both Chicago, “Diamonds” is popping right now, I know I could do “Conflict Diamonds.” I know I’ma get at least one spin on the radio, so it’s like okay, let me do it. What happened was my man sent me the instrumental, and John Monopoly was there -- of course you know, John Monopoly’s part of G.O.O.D. Music and the whole Kanye situation -- I told John Monopoly, “Yo’, I’ma flip ‘Diamonds.’” I had to tell him that, because we had a situation kinda before where I wanted to flip “Jesus Walks” when it first came out, and I did a record called “Muhammad Walks” because I’m a Muslim, so I flipped it from a Muslim perspective. I hit John Monopoly and told him, “I wanna flip ‘Jesus Walks.’” So it’s just like me telling them, “Yo’, I’m finna’ do this.”

So I had the beat for “ Conflict Diamonds ,” went back to the crib, recorded it, sent it to radio here in Chicago, and they burned it the next day. I sent it to a link overseas I run mixtapes to, he sent it to like China. f**king Greece. Uzbekistan. All over the place! And so it wasn’t really popping here because I was still unknown. It was like, “Okay, somebody did ‘Conflict Diamonds.’ Hoo hoo, ha ha, whatever.” But anyway weeks passed, weeks passed, and I get a call -- me and Kanye’s A&R is real cool -- so we get a call like, “Yo’ I just heard your ‘Conflict Diamonds’ record, yo’ that shit is crazy. Kanye wants you to come out to L.A. to jump on his album.” So this is how I know there ain’t no foul play, just to get it out in the air. He [Kanye] was like, “Yo’, it’s funny that you did ‘Conflict Diamonds’ like that, because that’s the theme to my video!” And I knew he wasn’t lying or fronting because he had to go to Prague the next day and shoot the video. So you know him and Hype [Williams] had already storyboarded it up. “It’s funny how you got the song ‘cause that’s my video.” So I’m like, all right, cool. So me and him did a record, blahzay blahzay blah.

Weeks after that, I hear that there’s a remix to “Diamonds,” but I hadn’t heard it. I hear Jay’s on it, I’m like all right, cool. So then they posted the remix on HipHopGame.com, I’m listening to it and I’m like, damn! I hit Kanye’s A&R and I’m like, “Hmmm, wow! So, what’s up!?” And what really did it was people who heard my “Conflict Diamonds” version before, they were like, “Yo’, ain’t that Lupe’s record!?” This was like people on the Internet and fans who had heard my version in Chicago, because it was on the radio here in Chicago. So people who had heard it, there was a backlash like, “Yo’, how you gonna -- it's the same record!” And it’s like, I can’t say nothing. Me and him had the discussion about it before so I know it’s no jack move, it’s just the timing that he did it was odd. I wasn’t expecting people to come back like that, but they were like, “Did he jack it, did he jack it?” And HipHopGame really set it off because they wrote right next to it, “Did Kanye jack his verse?” So, boom boom boom. But he cleared it up on 106 & Park. Whether it was his inspiration or not, he let it be known: “Okay I heard Lupe’s version, me and him cool, blahzay blah.” So it’s not like a jack move, it ain’t bad blood, it ain’t no foul play. To me, it was just the timing that was off, for it to be already popping, and him to come back with the same record? But you know, you can only talk about the same subject in so many different ways. It’s dope. As long as people know about “blood diamonds” and “conflict diamonds” -- you know, kids getting their hands chopped off and the whole thing. There ain’t too many ways you can flip that subject. So it is what it is.

Nobodysmiling.com : But you’ve known Kanye for a while before this song even came out, right?

Lupe Fiasco : Me and him? I’ve been known Kanye for years. I knew Kanye when he first started really going hard with the rapping, as far as, “I’m finna go out, get a deal, and do an album,” because he was rapping a long time before. We rode around New York one day listening to his whole album. Prior to him having his first album [The College Dropout], he had another album before. We was trying to get him signed up at Arista. Matter of fact, when I did my showcase for Arista, Kanye was there, he was sitting on the couch. So, me and him go back for a minute. So it’s like, “Okay, Fiasco is bubbling now, so I can help him out; let me throw him on a record.” He was saying, “The only rapper that I know that’s better than me to jump on this beat is Fiasco.” He had the record sitting for a minute. But it was cool, it was a good look. I didn’t charge for it or nothing like that. It was like, yo’ we’re family, let’s go.

Nobodysmiling.com : Now let’s talk about your album, because it has an interesting title to it…

Lupe Fiasco : Lupe Fiasco’s “Food & Liquor,” all right? I got a lot of flack for this from Atlantic and the public, ‘cause everybody kept relating it to Ludacris’ “Chicken & Beer.” Normally that’s what people say: “Chicken & Beer, Chicken & Beer.” I’m like, whatever. In Chicago most of the stores, bodegas, and corner stores are called “Food & Liquors.” It might be Mike’s Food & Liquors, or Jimmy’s Food & Liquors, or whatever. This is Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. So, food and liquor is everywhere. To me as a shorty, I always felt like wherever I grew up there was always a store. I was always getting money from my moms to go to the store, or I’d go to the store for somebody. That’s where everything was at, at the store. That’s where the winos was at begging for change, you had prostitutes up there, niggas was actually standing outside of the store, you know how it is. That’s where the news of the ‘hood goes down. The store is like the social club almost. It may be weird, but the store was like a big influence on me as a shorty. I got hit by a car going to the store, little dramatic events like that from f**king with the store. From that end, it’s a subtle history of Chicago as far Food & Liquors that I don’t think anybody ever focused on like that. Like, don’t you know damn near all the stores in Chicago are called Food & Liquors for some reason?

There’s also another part to it. To me, it’s good and bad. I don’t drink alcohol ‘cause of the Muslim side of me, so I never drank alcohol before and I never smoked weed. So, alcohol was always a bad thing to me. I always seen what it did to people. All my friends who’d be alcoholics, I always seen what it did to people, and it was always f**ked up! Niggas would get drunk, crash their car into a wall. Niggas would get drunk, start a fight. Niggas would get drunk, have a shootout. All types of wild shit. There was always a bad connotation with alcohol to me. Yet, food is good, you know? You eat food, you grow, you live. So what I started seeing in the ‘hood, niggas would get their money and they would go get alcohol or a fifth before they would get some food. You got niggas who get drunk before they would even eat, and then it’s to the point they get so drunk that they can’t eat, they’re throwing up. So there was always that balance between the good and the bad, and I think it made up me. Because I’m not a hundred percent straight Muslim-conscious-nigga, you know? I did my thing, running around or whatever. So, I always thought that was a part of me: I have some food in me, and I’m also capable of having some liquor in me. It gets explained on the album so that people can really digest it and understand it.

Nobodysmiling.com : Now you obviously have a lot of close connects in the rap game, earlier you mentioned Jay-Z and Kanye West , for example. Many up-and-coming MCs when they record an album, normally the first thing they want to do is get somebody popular to drop a verse or a beat on their record. But with Food & Liquor it seems you aren’t going that route.

Lupe Fiasco : Well, I always want to do something different. At the same time too, I’m still a businessman. I’m still a VP, I still understand smart business decisions. I understand when a producer can be saturated and it would do you no good. It would hurt you more than it would help you. You know, you would get a look, but there’s other ways to get those same looks as opposed to getting a producer who has fifteen songs on the radio, where it ain’t going to mean nothing if you get a record from him. You can get that look another way. I’m gonna stay away from these batch of cats who think I’m going to automatically get a record from an individual over here. I’m like, you know what? Nah. Let me get a record from Three 6 Mafia, they’re on the album. Let me get a record from Mike Shinoda, from Linkin Park. Let me get those looks, you see what I’m saying, so I could freak it a different way. Chicago’s a quasi-country city, so I got country records on my album, you know -- but they’re smart country records. But I always want to do something different, do something from the left, and then turn around and say: okay, how can I put myself in a position, business-wise, where I can get those kinds of looks just from the music? Business-wise, how can we go over here and get a sponsorship on TRL? Let’s get BET and urban radio, but how come we can’t get K-Rock? How come we can’t get on CMT, Country Music Television? What can we do to get on there, how can we get that look? I got a chance to get a Just Blaze record and a Battlecat record; it’s like okay, I can do more with a Battlecat record. I know I can go to California and go, “Yo’, I got a Battlecat record,” and cats will go, “How this nigga in Chicago get a Battlecat record!?”