Lupe Fiasco

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Biography

Wasalu Muhammad Jaco (born February 16, 1982), better known by his stage name Lupe Fiasco ( ), is an American rapper , record producer , and entrepreneur . He rose to fame in 2006 following the success of his debut album, '' Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor . He also performs as the frontman of Rock music|rock band Japanese Cartoon (band)|Japanese Cartoon under his real name. As an entrepreneur , Fiasco is the chief executive officer of 1st and 15th Entertainment.

Raised in Chicago , Fiasco developed an interest in hip hop music|hip hop after initially disliking the genre for its use of vulgarity . After adopting the name Lupe Fiasco and recording songs in his father's basement, 19-year-old Fiasco joined a group called Da Pak. The group disbanded shortly after its inception, and Fiasco soon met rapper Jay-Z who helped him sign a record deal with Atlantic Records . In 2006, Fiasco released his debut album '' Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor on the label, which received three Grammy Award|Grammy nominations. He released his second album, Lupe Fiasco's The Cool , in December 2007. The lead single " Superstar (Lupe Fiasco song)|Superstar " peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100| Billboard Hot 100 . He released Lasers (album)|Lasers '' on March 8, 2011 after a two-year delay. The album's lead single " The Show Goes On (song)|The Show Goes On " peaked at number 9 on the chart, thus becoming his most successful single since "Superstar".

In addition to music, Fiasco has pursued other business ventures, including fashion. He runs two clothing lines, Righteous Kung-Fu and Trilly & Truly; he has designed sneakers for Reebok . He has been involved with charitable activities, including the Summit on the Summit expedition, and in 2010 he recorded a benefit single for victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake . Fiasco is also noted for his anti-establishment views, which he has expressed in both interviews and his music.

Life and career

1982–98: Early life

Fiasco was born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco on February 16, 1982 in Chicago , Illinois. Born of West African descent, he was one of nine children of Shirley, a gourmet chef , and Gregory, an engineer. His father, a member of the Black Panther Party , was a prolific African drummer, karate teacher, operating plant engineer, and owner of karate schools and army surplus stores."Biography Today", p.58 Fiasco was raised Muslim on the West Side of Chicago on Madison Terrace housing project."Biography Today", p.58 At the age of three, Fiasco began taking martial arts classes. His parents divorced when he was five, and he went on to live with his mother, but his father still remained an important part of his life. He described his father's influence over the family by saying, "After school, my father would come and get us and take us out into the world—one day, we're listening to N.W.A, the next day we're listening to Ravi Shankar, the next day, he's teaching us how to shoot an AK-47, the next day, we're at karate class, the next day, we're in Chinatown...".

In sixth grade , he went to live with his father full-time in Harvey, Illinois ."Biography Today", pp.& nbsp;59–61 His father lived next door to a crack house and taught Fiasco to use guns to defend himself from drug dealers. Despite his unstable upbringing, Fiasco states that he was well-educated as a child, asserting that his parents exposed him to a diverse array of subjects and that reading was highly encouraged in his household. As a teenager, Fiasco participated in Academic Decathlon competitions. His mother described him by saying, "He was a great spirited child. Smart, a bit complex; he kind of was a loner; he didn't hang with a lot of people...He always had the glasses. Always had a book bag over his shoulder and some type of a writing tablet." Fiasco initially disliked hip hop music for its use of vulgarity , and preferred to listen to jazz ; he idolized clarinet player Benny Goodman . His struggle to learn to play an instrument led him to create poetry instead, which led to his interest in the lyrical aspects of music.

He began rapping his poems in the eighth grade, and upon hearing Nas ' 1996 album, It Was Written , began to pursue hip hop. While attending Thornton Township High School , Fiasco met gang member Bishop G. The two became friends due to their shared interest in music. Fiasco's father allowed him and Bishop to make mixtapes in his basement, and the two gained notoriety at the school for their music. However, they were kicked off stage during their first performance because their eclecticism in music|eclectic musical style was not embraced by the hip hop community. Early in his career, he went by stage names Little Lu and Lu tha Underdog."Biography Today", p.61 Growing up, Fiasco was given the nickname "Lu", the last part of his first name, by his mother. "Lupe" is an extension of this nickname, which he borrowed from a friend from high school. "Fiasco" is a reference to The Firm (hip hop group)|The Firm song "Firm Fiasco"; the rapper "liked the way it looked on paper." He also said of his name, "You know how rappers always have names like MC Terrorist—like they're 'terrorizing' other rappers? I knew fiasco meant a great disaster or something like that, but I didn't realize that the person named Fiasco would be the disaster, and that you should be calling other MCs fiascos—not yourself...it kind of humbled me in a sense. It taught me like, 'Yo, stop rushing, or you're going to have some fiascos.'"

1999–2005: Career beginnings

When Fiasco was 17, he began creating music as a solo artist in his father's basement, even though his parents were not keen on having their son be a rapper. He scoured flea markets and secondhand stores, where he was able to find an old mixing board and a record player , stacks of vinyl records , and mic stands. At age 19, Fiasco joined a group called Da Pak, which was influenced by other California gangsta rap pers such as Spice 1 and Ice Cube . Da Pak signed to Epic Records and released one single before splitting up. Fiasco later described the experience, saying "We had a song out about cocaine, guns, and women, and I would go to a record store and look at it and think, 'What are you doing? ' I felt like a hypocrite. I was acting like this rapper who would never be judged, and I had to destroy that guy. Because what Lupe Fiasco says on this microphone is going to come back to Wasalu Jaco. When the music cuts off, you have to go home and live with what you say.""Biography Today", pp.61–62

After turning away from gangsta rap, he developed a greater appreciation of the lyricism of Jay-Z and Nas. His mother also gave him a record of the influential group The Watts Prophets , one of the first bands to use spoken words with music."Biography Today", p.62 Although he was without a group for the first time, Fiasco continued to record music. One of these first self-recorded tracks was "Could Have Been", which described the career options he could have pursued had he not begun rapping. He viewed the song as a turning point in his career that marked a drastic change in the subject matter of his music. "Could Have Been" was released as a demo tape and discovered by MTV despite the fact that no video was created for the song.

Fiasco later signed a solo deal with Arista Records , but was dropped when president and CEO L.A. Reid was fired. During his short tenure at Arista, he met Jay-Z, who was the president of Def Jam Recordings at the time. Jay-Z referred to him as a "breath of fresh air", saying that he reminded him of a younger version of himself. Jay-Z later helped him get a record deal at Atlantic Records . While Fiasco was working on his debut solo album, he released his mixtape series Fahrenheit 1/15 over the internet, which gained notoriety by word-of-mouth. At this time, Fiasco's remix of Kanye West 's " Jesus Walks " entitled "Muhammad Walks", became very popular in the Muslim community."Biography Today", pp.62–63

He remixed another one of West's songs, " Diamonds from Sierra Leone ", and renamed it as "Conflict Diamonds". With this remix, Fiasco wished to raise awareness of the conflict diamond business. This caught West's attention, and he asked Fiasco to perform on his song " Touch the Sky " off his album Late Registration . The song, which sampled Curtis Mayfield 's " Move On Up ", became a hit in the Billboard Hot 100 , peaking at number forty-two. After this success his first single " Kick, Push " was released earlier than expected. The song was a love story about two people sharing a passion for skateboarding , a topic generally not discussed in hip hop. Fiasco explained, " just as deep as hip-hop. I'm not the greatest skateboarder, but I'm a damn good rapper, so I made a damn good skateboarding song." The single, and its accompanying music video, helped Fiasco get attention in the hip-hop community and was later nominated for two 49th Grammy Awards|2007 Grammy Awards ."Biography Today", p.63 During this time, he had guest appearances on singles on Tha' Rayne 's "Kiss Me" and " Didn't You Know " and also K Foxx's 2004 "This Life".

2006–08: ''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor and The Cool

Jay-Z assisted him in the production of what would become his debut album '' Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor ''. The title of the album is a reference to 'Food and Liquor' stores common in Chicago. He explains, "The store is where everything is at...Food to me represents growth and progression. You eat food and you get strength. You need it to live. Liquor is not a necessity; it is a want. It destroys you. It breaks you down. I can see why it's prohibited in Islam...I've always felt like liquor represents the bad, the food represents the good, and everyone is made up of a little of both.""Biography Today", p.64 ''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor'' was officially released on September 19, 2006. The album featured production from Jay-Z, Kanye West, Mike Shinoda , The Neptunes , Prolyfic , among others. The record spawned the singles "Kick, Push," " I Gotcha (Lupe Fiasco song)|I Gotcha " and " Daydreamin' " featuring Jill Scott . The critically lauded album was later nominated for three Grammy Award s including Grammy Award for Best Rap Album|Best Rap Album . Fiasco won "Best Urban/Alternative Performance" for "Daydreamin'". In the same year, he was voted by GQ magazine as the "Breakout Man of the Year." He also received four BET Hip Hop Award nominations, and it made it to number eight on Billboard 200 and number two on Billboard Top R& B/Hip-Hop Albums chart."Biography Today", p.65

In 2007, Fiasco announced his second album, '' Lupe Fiasco's The Cool '', a concept album that expands on the story of the track of the same name on his first album. While recording this album, Fiasco's father died of Diabetes mellitus type 2|type II diabetes and his business partner, Charles "Chilly" Patton, was convicted of attempting to supply heroin to a Organized crime|drug ring and was eventually sentenced to 44 years in a correctional facility. These events greatly affected Fiasco and the subsequent themes discussed on the record. The disc was released in December 2007 in United States while the first single and video from the album, " Superstar (Lupe Fiasco song)|Superstar " featuring Matthew Santos was released the first week of November 2007. ''Lupe Fiasco's The Cool , a concept album that expanded upon recurring themes in Food & Liquor , is about "a hustler who dies and comes back to life, only to get robbed by two little kids with the same gun that killed him." For the record, Fiasco decided not to work with well-known producers as he considered it to be "too expensive", noting the commercial failure of his Pharrell collaboration, "I Gotcha".

''Lupe Fiasco's The Cool was very well received by critics and was referred to as "one of the year’s best hip-hop albums" by The New York Times . " Superstar (Lupe Fiasco song)|Superstar ", a semi-autobiographical account of his rise to fame, was released as the first single from the album, and peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100| Billboard'' Hot 100 . Baseball's Hanley Ramirez , Troy Tulowitzki , Ryan Zimmerman , Gerald Laird and Ryan Braun have used "Superstar" as their at-bat song. The album's second single (released in the UK in April 2008) was " Paris, Tokyo " – a song based around Fiasco's experiences of touring the world between his first and second albums. Moreover, in 2007 it was revealed that Fiasco, Kanye West and Pharrell Williams had formed a group called Child Rebel Soldier . CRS initially released one single, entitled " US Placers " and featuring a Thom Yorke sample. In an interview with The Village Voice , Fiasco revealed that he was writing a novel about a window cleaner|window washer , aptly titled Reflections of a Window Washer . In 2008, Fiasco and his band 1500 or Nothin joined Kanye West's Glow in the Dark Tour which also featured Rihanna and N.E.R.D . The tour stopped in several cities, including his hometown of Chicago . In 2008, MTV named Fiasco the 7th Hottest MC in the Game and announced that he was remixing The Cool with French electro house act Justice (French band)|Justice .

2009–present: Lasers and Food & Liquor 2

At a performance in New Zealand in February 2010, Fiasco performed new material from the then-titled We Are Lasers for the first time. He claimed that the album was complete and waiting for a release date from his label, Atlantic Records . However, Atlantic feared that the record lacked commercial singles, and presented Fiasco with songs the label wanted him to record. Fiasco declined, as he was told he would not have any ownership of the songs. He explained, "I don't think the label cares about an album...People just want their number-one record." For six months, the cause of the album's delay remained unclear to the public. In response, Fiasco's fans created an online petition demanding that Atlantic Records release Lasers (album)|Lasers . The petition garnered considerable attention on hip hop blog sites as well as over 16,000 signatures. Fiasco stated that the petition "brought to tears", and in response to the petition, Fiasco released a song titled "B.M.F-Building Minds Faster" to thank his fans.

While waiting for Lasers to be released, Fiasco completed another album, titled Food and Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album . He is unsure if the Food and Liquor II will ever be released, though he released the song "Go To Sleep" from the record "out of desperation" to put out new music. He also pursued numerous side projects in the midst of the delay. In April 2010, Fiasco formed the hip hop collective All City Chess Club along with Pharrell, Asher Roth , B.o.B. , The Cool Kids , Charles Hamilton (rapper)|Charles Hamilton , Blu (rapper)|Blu , Diggy Simmons , Wale (rapper)|Wale , J. Cole , & Dosage. The group has so far made one song, a remix of Fiasco's "I'm Beamin". Additionally, On July 16, 2010, Fiasco released his Rock music|rock side-project Japanese Cartoon (band)|Japanese Cartoon 's debut Extended play|EP In The Jaws Of The Lords Of Death . Japanese Cartoon was influenced by a variety of musical genres, with Fiasco saying, "I’ve always been a fan of all music...Hip hop is just something I actually know how to do but I always had aspirations to participate in other forms of music. Once I got to create some hip hop, it was like, 'Okay, what am I going to do now? ' So my artistic side was like, 'Yo, let's do some rock music.'"

More than two and a half years after the album's completion, Lasers was released on March 8, 2011. The first single off of the record was " The Show Goes On (song)|The Show Goes On ", which samples " Float On (Modest Mouse song)|Float On " by Modest Mouse . "The Show Goes On" debuted at number 57 on the Billboard Hot 100 . The lead single peaked at number 9 since then. The producers involved on the album include Alex Da Kidd, King David "The Future" and Jerry "Wonda" Duplessis, while featured artists include Skylar Grey , Trey Songz , and John Legend . Upon the album's release, Lasers debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200| Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 204,000 copies. Despite the album's commercial success, Lasers received mixed reviews from most music critic s.. Metacritic . Retrieved on March 20, 2011 Writing for Allmusic , editor Andy Kellman gave the record three out of five stars and criticized its "lumbering, overwrought choruses", writing that "If there is one Emcee (hip hop)|MC whose rhymes should not be dulled for the sake of chasing pop trends, it’s Lupe Fiasco". Lasers , however, was nominated Best Rap Album, with "The Show Goes On" nominated for Best Rap Performance, and Best Rap Song at the 54th Grammy Awards . Lupe Fiasco later involved himself at the Occupy Wall Street movement where he donated tents and released a poem in support of the protesters. He also released his "Friend of the People" mixtape on Thanksgiving Day . Fiasco has since announced the completion of his Food & Liquor 2 album, as well as work being put into a joint album with fellow Child Rebel Soldier & All City Chess Club member Pharrell .

Lyrical style

Fiasco, along with rappers Common (rapper)|Common , Rhymefest , and Talib Kweli , has been credited as a pioneer of the conscious hip hop movement, which focuses on social issues. Subjects touched upon on ''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor'' include Single parent|absent parents , terrorism , Islam and religion , war , and prostitution . Fiasco attributes his interest in social issues to his highly cultured upbringing, as he describes his mother as "very intellectual" and his father as a " Polymath|Renaissance man ". He rejects the misogyny Misogyny in hip hop culture|common in hip hop , which he discusses in the song " Hurt Me Soul ". Despite this, Fiasco is strongly opposed to censorship in music: "If we're going to that are offensive, then we are going to have to blind and deafen everyone. Come on, man. Let's focus on education and literacy and poverty."

Fiasco employs various lyrical techniques in his songwriting. The rapper views hip-hop as a medium conducive to storytelling , a primary element of his lyrics due to his background in theater. He wrote Play (theatre)|plays as a child, which had a strong effect on his songwriting approaches. Fiasco utilizes both metaphor s and literal statements in his work, which he describes as "getting from point A to point B in as few words as possible". His use of metaphors is exemplified by the song "Gotta Eat" from ''Lupe Fiasco's The Cool , which is told from the perspective of a cheeseburger and addresses the poor nutrition in black communities in the United States.

Philanthropy and business ventures

In 2001, Fiasco co-founded 1st & 15th Entertainment with Charles "Chilly" Patton. 1st & 15th is a vanity record label under Atlantic Records|Atlantic named after the traditional twice-monthly paycheck dates. Although Fiasco was initially to serve as vice-president, he became CEO after Patton was convicted on drug charges. Fiasco and singer Matthew Santos were two of the most recognizable signed artists. In November 2009, Fiasco announced he would discontinue the 1st & 15th label: "It was just such a 'this isn't right for you right now. This isn't gonna work for you right now. You need to be focused on you. Do you really want that, do you really have the capacity to do it? '"

In 2005, he founded Righteous Kung-Fu, a company that designs fashions, sneakers, toys, video games, comic books, and graphics for album covers and skateboard decks. Fiasco also runs a fashion line out of Righteous Kung-Fu called Trilly & Truly. He has sponsored a skateboard team and has endorsements from DGK Skateboards ."Biography Today", pp.68–69 In January 2006, Fiasco signed with major footwear and apparel corporation Reebok , becoming part of the "O.G" marketing campaign where rap artists such as Lil Wayne and Mike Jones (rapper)|Mike Jones designed their own personal colorway of the Reebok "O.G" model.

In 2009, Fiasco performed in The People Speak (film)|The People Speak , a documentary feature film that employs musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn 's '' A People's History of the United States ''. On January 7, 2010, Fiasco joined musician Kenna , actress Jessica Biel , and other celebrities and activists for an expedition to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro called Summit on the Summit to raise awareness of the billions of people worldwide who lack access to sanitary drinking water. On January 20, 2010, Fiasco released a track called "Resurrection" with Kenna in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake . The song, part of a compilation released through the charity Music for Relief , aimed to encourage donations for immediate relief and long-term recovery following the disaster.

Political views

Fiasco is noted for his anti-establishment views. In an interview with Stephen Colbert on the satirical news show The Colbert Report , Fiasco stated his credo on political philosophy: "You should criticize power even if you agree with it." In another interview in June 2011 on the CBS program '' What's Trending '', Fiasco discussed the political content of his music, stating, "My fight against terrorism, to me, the biggest terrorist is Barack Obama|Obama and the United States of America. I'm trying to fight the terrorism that's actually causing the other forms of terrorism. You know, the root cause of terrorism is the stuff the U.S. government allows to happen. The foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists." He additionally criticized Obama for his stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict . Despite his strong political opinions, Fiasco does not vote in U.S. elections nor does he involve himself in U.S. politics as he believes they are "meaningless."

Discography

'' Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor (2006)

'' Lupe Fiasco's The Cool (2007)

Lasers (album)|Lasers (2011)

''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album, Part 1 (2012)|

''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album, Part 2 (TBA)

TBA (with Pharrell Williams ) (2012)

Copyright Citations

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Hip Hop/Rap Music Artists