Lupe Fiasco - "Lasers"

I almost don't feel comfortable calling this a Lupe Fiasco album. Instead the album should be called Atlantic Records presents: "Lasers", with a tiny footnote at the bottom that reads "with vocal contributions from Lupe Fiasco". Greed, politics, strong-arming, and autotune have combined to ruin what should have been a lyrical piece of art.

It's been almost two full years since the first single off of Lasers was released. "Shining Down" came out in July of 2009, and poured out as an ode to his father - who had recently passed away due to type II diabetes. In the time that has ticked away since that single was released, we have seen an artist become completely stifled creatively by a label. Something that started off so great, wound up being something so horrible - as many will see this Tuesday, March 8.

Commercialization and accessibility are the name of the game, and, certainly, there is nothing wrong with seeking to profit; unless that profit comes by destroying the creativity of an artist. After listening to Lasers it is easy to see that it was made for the masses. It was not made for fans of hip-hop or of Lupe himself, it was made for the democratic majority. I can see executive conversations going down like, "67% of the masses respond well to autotune, and 48% like Trey Songz, and 81% prefer lyrics that they can understand on the first listen". Coming off of two hugely successful albums that produced, by my estimation, some of the best tracks hip-hop has seen- ever. (See: "Kick, Push"). This was never about creating an album for fans of Lupe Fiasco, this was about exploiting as many people as possible for as much money as possible. All of this is glaringly obvious as Lupe lazily rhymes through mediocre track after track, none of them having the true feel or any resemblance of his previous albums.

As recent interviews would suggest (MTV | Complex) this is an album that Lupe is not totally proud to put his name on. He was often times approached with a track that was pre-written, not to his liking, and told to lay dumbed down lyrics on. He compared his being handcuffed lyrically to Picasso being told to paint poodles, which I thought was a fitting description. At times the album shines, with tracks that were done under the guidance of Lupe ("Words I Never Said", "All Black Everything", "I'm Beamin'", and the previously mentioned "Shining Down"). In "Words I Never Said" he spews an assault of social and political commentary, which seems disjointed until the final verse when he brings it all together. After that, there are eight tracks that mostly feature autotuned hooks, poppy production, and subpar lyrics. The full album ends with "Shining Down". In the track he comments on the autotuned commercialized music being produced around him: "Now if we autotune that shit/ We can hear the songs from that opera-groomed fat bitch/ Tellin' us not to pursue it, just to shoo it like a blacksmith/ We're trapped, and moving round in circles like it's chapstick/ And that's the same encircled way of thinking that we're chapped with/ ... Well I'm not having it now"... a sad contradiction that concludes a sad album.

Support has been pouring in for Lupe as the struggles behind getting this album released have come to light, and more support should come in (Facebook groups like the appeal to Save Lupe Fiasco have already sprung up).

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