Lupe Fiasco: Too Cool To Dumb Down

“…they told me I should come down cousin/but I flatly refused I ain’t dumb down nothin.”
(Lupe Fiasco, Ignorant Freestyle)

As far as lyricism goes, Lupe Fiasco is on a level all his own. It is, without a doubt, a gift and a curse. His flow is fluid, his rhyme scheme is superior and he has metaphors for days that he can carry through entire tracks with ease. He had hip-hop e-heads by the brain with his Fahrenheit 1/15 mixtape series and has a catalogue of unlimited quotables. It’s no surprise that he was hailed as the “savior of hip hop” two years ago before his debut album Food & Liquor came out in 2006. But something went wrong.

The original LP leaked months before the due date, which put Lupe in limbo, trying to figure out how to rebound. By the time the real album dropped, despite its critical acclaim and the Grammy nominations it would get later, Food & Liquor didn’t save hip hop like so many thought it would. It had an insane amount of internet hype before it dropped and then seemed to fall into oblivion like the rap version of Snakes on a Plane.

The good thing is -- as you can see in the quote above and the video below – he has stayed true. Jay-Z was among the first to co-sign Lupe as a “breath of fresh air,” which makes the quote even more potent because it flips a line of Jay-Z’s Moment of Clarity track when Boss Hova openly admits that he's had to “dumb down for my audience to double my dollars.” All of this makes me wonder what is to come on Lupe’s second album, The Cool, set to drop in November. (Listen to Lupe Fiasco's first single Superstar here.) In a recent MTV interview, he reflects on his first album:

"I don't think people got it, honestly," he said of his debut. "I still don't think people get it. I think I'm still a little bit too complex, and I still think it goes over their head just a little bit, where it misses a great mass of people. And you got to bring it back down. I think I'm Reasonable Doubt right now; at first Jay-Z was like [he makes the hand motion for out there] and everybody was like, 'Huh?' But it was still ... some of the stuff was still relevant enough to everybody where everybody could relate to it, just because it was a good record, but the actual core was like, 'Yo, this kid is weird,' you know?”

The Cool is supposed to have more storytelling and some “mad poppy beats,” he tells MTV. I’m not really sure what that will be like, but I don't believe he will sell out to sell records. And if Dumb It Down -- with its low electronic growl and comedic hook -- is any reassuring indication, Lupe couldn’t sound ignorant if he tried.

Video: Lupe Fiasco - Dumb It Down

Nelly: A Progress Report

I wasn’t planning on writing about BET’s Hip-Hop vs. America today, but Nelly made me do it. Part 2 of the three-part panel discussion came on last night (see Part 3 at bet.com) and once again, the St. Louis rapper was one big, bull’s-eye. While panelists came and went and topics changed, Nelly stayed on stage the whole time getting boo-booed on by everyone for his Tip Drill video.

It is the video that has tainted his whole career, which is unfortunate considering how big he was in the early 2000s. I mean, this man put St. Louis on the rap map, selling more than 40 million albums worldwide and winning three Grammys and all sorts of other awards for his albums and chart-toppers. He helped start a clothing line, Vokal, sponsored a sports energy drink called Pimp Juice and is part owner of the Charlotte Bobcats. But what is more impressive than any of this to me is the fact that he participated in the Hip-Hop vs. America debate -- even when he said his label didn’t want him to do it.

But back in 2004, he was caught up in controversy when a group from Spelman College invited Nelly, whose sister had leukemia, to perform for a bone marrow awareness campaign. After learning about the Tip Drill video, the group threatened to protest the event because of its vulgar content. Nelly cancelled. Last night, Nelly talked about how he and his sister had been searching for years for a bone marrow donor. They never found one and his sister died in 2005 from complications from leukemia. Nelly has continued related charity work since then. On the show, he criticized the Spelman co-eds for threatening to protest the charitable event rather than pulling him to the side to discuss their issues, noting that they have yet to picket any strip clubs within a 10 block radius of the Atlanta campus.

I agree with him. And hip hop needs more of that parental scolding in general. The sad thing is it’s not like the industry has any noteworthy amount of relevant role models to admire. It’s not like the NBA where the hotshot rookie drafted out of high school can go get some guidance from an old-timer teammate. It’s definitely not like the music label executives are passing out moral compasses with record contracts. For the most part, these boys are left to fend for themselves, using current trends as guiding lights toward platinum glory.

You can tell that Nelly just likes to have fun. With his Midwest twang, he carved his own niche and found broad appeal singing hooks and doing off-kilter collaborations with artists like Tim McGraw. When he made those party records, he was a man in his mid-to-late 20s trying to have a good time. This does not excuse the crudeness, but now that he’s 32, and facing up to his faults, he is already light years beyond where he used to be. I don’t believe he was on BET’s panel for publicity, but that he went to say his piece and to listen and learn. That's a start. I guess we’ll just have to wait to see on Nelly’s upcoming album, Brass Knuckles, whether it was all for show.

From BET's Hip-Hop vs. America

Hip-Hop vs. America: BET At Its Best

First of all, Michael Eric Dyson is the man. If you saw the first of BET’s three-part panel discussion “Hip-Hop vs. America” last night, then you know what I’m talking about. The culture critic was one of five on a panel that in the first half-hour included journalist/filmmaker Nelson George, music critic Stanley Crouch, former Source editor Kim Osorio and rappers T.I. and Nelly. He was quiet at first as the rest of them debated about artistic accountability when it comes to violent and sexist lyrics and images.

For the whole hour, Nelly was on the defensive end as he was hounded for his infamous Tip Drill video, where he slides a credit card down the crack of a black woman’s behind. On the other side T.I. played offensively, claiming his raps as true-to-life “testimonies” and justifying his violent records as tricks to attract a street audience to deeper songs on the album (“I’m taking responsibility by sitting up here”). Truth be told, I didn’t expect much of the special beforehand. I thought the critics and artists would tiptoe around topics and sugarcoat the issues, but the show, hosted by Jeff Johnson and Toure, had more fireworks than not. And the man mostly sparking the flame was Mr. Dyson "from the Westside of Detroit."

The dope thing about Dyson is that when he speaks, he puts cultural ideas into a historical context and mixes it up with popular hip-hop references. During the show he talks about how Nelly’s notorious card-swipe scene correlates to black women being sold on the auction block during slavery, he spits snippets of Biggie verses and he even calls himself a P.I.M.P., a public intellectual with moral principles.

Still, the St. Louis rapper wasn’t feeling him. “I feel like I'm being unjustly judged by something that's four minutes long,” said Nelly, who was quick to hype his nonprofit organization. “I don't feel like Tip Drill was a mistake. It was on an adult program at an adult time.” He goes on to say how it’s funny to him how someone can watch the whole video and then when they get to the card-swipe scene at the end, “that’s when you felt appalled.”

In the wake of the Don Imus controversy and Michael Richards’ rant and Jena Six, it is good to see BET recognizing its responsibility to educating the young, impressionable black minds that watch the station. As for the rappers, it’s going to take some more time. T.I. and Nelly -- although by the end, you could see Nelly dealing with his own internal conflicts -- both kept missing the point. They kept saying how America always blames hip-hop for its own problems when the blame is really poor upbringing and the music labels that control the industry. There’s some truth in that, but clearly, they have yet to recognize their own power. Like Dyson said:

“Not that hip-hop is responsible for educating the world, but it is responsible for educating itself.”

Check for Part 2 on BET tonight at 8 p.m. and Part 3 on bet.com.

IRV GOTTI REALITY SHOW ON VH1

Irv Gotti's Reality Show: All C.R.E.A.M., No Filling

Back in the day, VH1 was all about the lighter side pop, trying to reach that audience between the ages of 18 and 35 while its sister station MTV catered to the teens. In the late 1980s and early 90s, it rarely played rap and hip hop and instead showed artists like Elton John and Anita Baker.

Fast forward to 2003. The reality show is an epidemic and a mixtape rapper named Curtis Jackson from South Jamaica, Queens drops his commercial debut Get Rich or Die Tryin’. Ever since then, the channel has been showcasing these washed-up, once-hit wonders in an uber-popular programming block called Celebreality. Cali G-funk rapper Warren G jogs to lose weight on Celebrity Fit Club. Vanilla Ice sticks a banana down his pants on the Surreal Life. Despite some exceptional programs (I Love the… series, Hip Hop and Rock Honors), VH1 has become a standing pool for hip hop has-beens, a breeding ground for the fall-offs.

Enter Irving Lorenzo a.k.a. Irv Gotti. You might remember him from the late 1990s and early 2000s when his label Murder Inc. was a ubiquitous movement led by the fairy-voiced Ashanti and raspy rapper Ja Rule. By 2004, Gotti’s label was already all but an afterthought, but made headlines when it came under investigation for alleged ties to New York City drug kingpin Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff.

The trailer for Irv Gotti’s new reality show is making internet rounds (see above) and it looks like a whole lot of nothing. They show him in the studio working with Ja, Lloyd (the R&B singer from Omarions-R-Us) and pop singer Vanessa Carlton, whose third album is set to be released next month under Gotti’s label, renamed The Inc. In the trailer, he gets into disputes with friends and females and declares that he could deal if he has to die lonely. But to me, the most foolish part in the whole trailer comes at the end of the clip when he says this as narration:

“In all honesty, I ain't thinking about a relationship, I ain't thinking about none of it, yo. My brain is on getting this money and getting the respect and love of all my peers so at the end of the day when I stop doing it, they're going to say yo, that dude, he was one of the greats."

This quote sums up the problem with the show and with hip hop in general. This is why hip hop got sick in the first place. In the golden age, rappers wore the dookie ropes and spoke about having money, but it was a form of creative expression and not the extent of their identity. After Pac and Biggie passed, we saw the rise of the Cash Money Millionaires from New Orleans and suddenly, money became the driving force of music. It was no longer about the art or the lyricism or the honest tales of soul searching in the streets. Hearts closed, wallets opened, passion was lost and skill didn’t matter if you could shine. “Bling” melted into the mainstream, marking the beginning of hip hop’s slow and agonizing demise.

Irv Gotti is one of the culprits. The same stacks that you climb to reach the top will topple once you get there. Just ask Ja Rule, who was overthrown by 50 Cent, who was overthrown by Kanye West. It’s a cycle that never fails. And why is Irv Gotti still trying to get recognition from his friends? Somebody please tell this man that true greatness comes from within. I remember Lauryn Hill once talked about how she was going crazy trying to live up to an image that others had of her. It’s impossible. So yeah, VH1 you just lost one. If Irv Gotti wasn’t about just trying to impress his peers and making money, maybe, just maybe it might have be worth something.

The Doctor's Final Operation?

Say what you want about Kanye West’s lyrical ability: he’s too arrogant, he forces rhymes, his voice lacks power. But in the end, you can’t deny the fact that he raised the bar for so-called producer-rappers. Even now, despite his crossover, no other producer-rapper can be taken seriously. Take superproducer Timbaland for instance. Without his pop partners-in-crime Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado, Shock Value would be stuck at the bottom of the 99 cent only cardboard bin by now. The same goes for New York producer Swizz Beats, whose album One Man Band came out this summer and sold a measly 45,000 in its first week before falling into the realm of nonexistence.

It’s kind of depressing, actually. Here you have these powerhouse producers from the 1990s who cranked out classics for artists like Missy Elliot, the late Aaliyah and the Ruff Ryders and yet, when it comes to their own projects, you can all but guarantee a large, loud flop. But amid the wasted shelf space of albums by Timbo and Swizzy and the special, flamboyant exception that is Mr. West, you have Dr. Dre, the 42-year-old behind-the-scenes mastermind of some of hip hop’s greatest moments and movements. He has been here through it all, hip hop’s gold and grime and glitz and shine, making scattered appearances in public and movies and rarely doing interviews. Now, he announces to the world that Detox, the long-awaited, almost fabled opus, is finally coming out next year.

But who cares?

In the late 80s, Compton native Dre (Andre Young) with N.W.A. released Straight Outta Compton, the witty and gritty groundbreaker that set the stage for the mainstream arrival of gangsta rap. In 1992, he dropped the definite classic The Chronic, which MTV’s brain trust put as No. 3 behind Eric B. & Rakim’s Paid in Full and Nas’ Illmatic. Spin voted the album’s G-funk classic “Nuthin But A G Thang” as the best single of the decade. That single and the album as a whole worked so well because Dre put key players in the right positions. And especially because he found the perfect swagger to complement his sonic production in the laid-back lyricist known as Snoop Doggy Dogg.

Years passed, hits were put out and Dre kept doing his thing, mainly in the background and yet at the forefront by guiding the domineering industry forces of Eminem and 50 Cent. I'll never forget this XXL cover some years back that had a picture of Eminem, Fitty and Dre with the words “Money, Power and Respect.” It was an iconic image and the phrase fit perfectly. But that was then. Now, Eminem is nowhere in sight, supposedly working with Dre on a new album. Fitty just got spanked by the aforementioned producer-rapper from the Chi. And Dre is talking about Detox? That perpetually postponed album more than seven years in the making?

You can’t say he hasn’t been busy, but I did read somewhere that it has taken long because he hasn’t found a rapper to anchor the project. He hasn’t found his Snoop or his Eminem that would elevate the LP from an album with dope beats to a classic. That says as much to the lyrical climate of hip hop culture as it does to the fact that Dre’s sound might be too dated to have any foothold in the slippery slope of today’s industry. It’s tricky because the best producers have these signature sounds that – both through their own use and imitation -- get played out. The sound that draws listeners in is the same one that repels us later. Think Neptunes circa 2000. The question then is as a producer, do you stick to your trademarks or evolve with the times? Dre, it seems, tries both. I think trying to force his throbbing production and string pulses with Jay-Z’s casual flow is what killed Kingdom Come. But then, on Curtis, the track actually produced by Dre is one of the few that doesn’t sound like a “Dre record.”

I’m not sure what Dre has decided to do for Detox. I don’t know if anyone cares at this point if Detox comes out. It might be better if it remains that elusive classic-that-could-have been album like that Fugees reunion record. But on the flipside, I see 50 Cent as the last general of the gangsta rap era. Now that Kanye, the anti-gangsta rapper, took him down, we will start to see a new fusion of hip hop and pop and electronic and soul, much like what we have seen in his Graduation and other tracks produced by Timbo. So in that regard, I do hope Dre’s alleged final solo project sees the light of day. And I do hope it falls flat. Because what better way to conclude the gangsta rap era than with a man who helped birth it releasing an album called Detox with a large, loud flop.

Mos Def and Cornel West with Bill Maher (9.7.07 part six)

Won't The Real Emcees Please Stand Up?

“To revolutionize make a change nothin's strange/People, people we are the same/No we're not the same/Cause we don't know the game/What we need is awareness, we can't get careless”
(Fight the Power, Public Enemy)

Where my real emcees at? Chuck D has some words for you. Down in Jena, Louisiana yesterday, thousands of demonstrators clad in black and chanting “Free Jena Six” flooded the streets of the small town. They came for justice. They called for change. They banded together in support of the six black teenagers who had been initially charged with attempted murder for beating up a white classmate. The Rev. Al Sharpton said this could be the beginning of the 21st century civil rights movement.

Here’s the cliff noted back story: At the local high school, there is a so-called whites-only tree. When a black student sat beneath the oak tree last year, white students reacted by hanging three nooses from it. Racial tensions boiled over and for months fights broke out. The white students got suspended. The black offenders were expelled, arrested and originally charged with second degree murder and conspiracy.

Mychal Bell is 17 now, the only one of the six to stand trial so far and the only one still in jail. With all of the protesters storming the courthouse yesterday, it looked as if Bell could possibly get out Friday. But the court ruled that Bell is to remain behind bars.

Where my real emcees at? In the space between the movement of the 1960s and today, the hip hop generation was born. In fact, it began as a weapon of choice, a voice for the voiceless. It was Martin Luther King 2.0. But somewhere along the way, revolution got traded in for rims and fist-pumping became chain-hanging – at least as far as mainstream was concerned. Any rapper waxing political got the “backpacker” brand. So-called “conscious” emcees got kicked to the back.

Now it is time to bring them back out, to lift them from the underground to the platform of cultural empowerment. In this Jena 6 case, hip hop should be leading the march, making the moves, rallying the troops. Mos Def, as shown in the clip above, has been doing his thing. And on Sept. 29, Nick Cannon, Lloyd, Baby Boy, Sean P, Twista, Tank, Killer Mike, Jagged Edge, Bobby Brown, DTP’s Small World and Hurricane Chris will perform at the “Jena 6 Empowerment Concert” to raise awareness.

But we need more. Lest we forget, hip hop was made for this.

The Ruler's Back...Again

"But the allure of the game keeps calling your name..."

(Allure, Black Album)

Jay's new joint Blue Magic (radio rip).

The Def Jam president didn't waste no time. The man who just reminded us that "New York is still mine" on the billion-dollar "I Get Money" remix" is set to back up all that talk with a new album this November. It will be called American Gangster and it was inspired by the Ridley Scott film of the same name also coming out in November and starring Denzel, Russell Crowe, Common and 'nem. The film tracks the trials and tragedies and the rise to power of a Harlem drug lord (played by Washington) in 1970s. In this article in the New York Times, Jigga talks about how the film affected him, took him back to his pre-president hustling days in Brooklyn. With this project, word has it he's going back to the roots, back to the hardscrabble hustler's lifestyle that gave him his swagger and made him a star. (Read: more Dead Presidents, less 30 Something).

American Gangster will be his second post-retirement release in less than a year. Kingdom Come was grown-man business Jay-Z, off the block and into the boardroom, where instead of white, he's got "stock brokers that's moving it like white tops." It's suits and ties and expensive bottles. But he lost a lot of listeners. Ever since Reasonable Doubt (his debut and undisputed classic), he has admitted "dumbing down to double his dollars," which meant a slower, more pronounced style replete with pauses for emphasis and more party records. In other words, he didn't want to go over the heads of his audience. But he did it again last year, not in his style, but this time in content. He knows it. He says Kingdom Come was too "sophisticated" for his audience.

And this new album comes at a pivotal point: Jay is still weighing options of his next move after his Def Jam contract ends. He's 37 now and a little too busy to still be beating the block. Album sales are down 9 percent despite the recent Clash of the Titans' heavy numbers. But does he have what it takes to sell an album, especially after Kingdom Come wasn't received that well? Def Jam veterans (LL Cool J, DMX etc.) have scorned him for their blink-and-miss albums, citing a lack of promotion as the problem. But the movie tie-in will be his biggest tool. The album is set to come out around the same time as the film, though not a soundtrack, which gives it some real marketing muscle.

Now is the time. His most recent rivals (ie: Cam'ron, Jimmy) have gone M.I.A. in recent months and New York's bullet-riddled bully was just slayed by Jay's kid brother, Mr. Kanye West. So the field looks wide open right about now. And yet, in this era and at his age, it feels like it might be Boss Hova's last chance to show and prove why New York is still his.

You Can't Tell Him Nothin'

And so it is written. The Louis Vuitton Don has officially crushed the competition in Mr. Curtis Jackson, putting an exclamation point on this historic Battle of the Titans. It's not that hard to believe. In fact, the album cover for Curtis looks like it could have been shot on this very day. Dude looks stressed. But what is hard to believe is that Ye not only blew Fitty out the ozone but by more than half a million, which in this day and age of downloading is definitely insane for any genre -- let alone hip-hop.

Kanye West's "Graduation" (Def Jam) easily leads the star-studded class of Sept. 11 releases, posting The Billboard 200's largest sales total in more than two years. Nielsen SoundScan will show West's album moved 957,000 during its first six days when the tracking service refreshes its charts tomorrow morning (Sept. 19).

Fitty still did his thing. He took the No. 2 slot after moving 691,000 in the first week and with his "I Get Money" Forbes 123 remix ft. Jay and Diddy making heavy rounds all over the web, his second week might have some bulk to it as well. Even so, it probably won't matter to him. In his interviews during the past week, you can see all in his face that he is tired of this game. It's just not in him anymore. He at one point vowed to retire if he lost and then threatened to release material on every major Def Jam artist release date. Who knows what the future is for him or if hip-hop will see first-week sales in this range ever again? But when it's all said and done -- despite early allegations of Def Jam rigging the numbers -- it is good to see that Mr. Cent bowed out gracefully. He released this statement to the Associated Press:

"I am very excited to have participated in one of the biggest album release weeks in the last two years. Collectively, we have sold hundreds of thousands of units in our debut week. This marks a great moment for hip hop music, one that will go down in history."

So that's how an empire falls, that's how a hip-hop general admits defeat. Not with a tantrum or tv station boycott or name-calling or griping on talk shows, but with a salute. Mr. West could something learn from that.