Lupe Fiasco – Food & Liquor

Few debut MCs get the kind of praise that was showered upon Lupe Fiasco in 2006. Music critics couldn’t slurp this guy fast enough. “Here’s a young, talented rapper who’s not rapping about cocaine! Jackpot!” Some of it is warranted. I like that he’s a socially conscious Muslim. I like that he’s literate and articulate. I like that he’s only fleetingly associated with Kanye West (if only to prevent West from cornering the market on socially conscious hip-hop).

But you know what? I didn’t really enjoy the album. It even took me a few listens to like the single, “Kick, Push”. Appreciating this record just seems like work to me, and that’s not what I look for in music. I can tell that Lupe can rap. (He’s much better here than on Kanye West’s “Touch the Sky”, where I hated his verse before I knew who he was.) He creates some complex structure and internal rhymes in his lyrics. He’s definitely skilled. It just isn’t, for lack of a better word, fun.

For example, certain people claim that James Joyce’s Ulysses is a work of staggering genius and possibly the best book ever written. But it’s so appallingly dense and obtuse that only a few people ever read it. What good is it that you wrote the best book ever, if you can only share it with a handful of dorks with the patience and resources to appreciate it?

Now, clearly, Food & Liquor is not Ulysses. It’s not so opaque as to be completely impenetrable, and it’s probably not the best record ever. But the same problem plagues this record. If I need to listen to this record another 4 times, paying strict attention, in order to appreciate it, is it worth it? Maybe I’m lazy, maybe I have a short attention span, maybe I have a philosophical aversion to Great Art, but I say no. For my money, Fishscale was the best hip-hop album of 2006. Even if I’m uncomfortable (and fascinated) by Ghostface Killah’s depictions of violence and drug trafficking, the music is more urgent, organic, and accessible.