Never
underestimate the hurt and the cheated. Lupe
Fiasco, favored son of Chicago
and dedicated son of Allah, received news in April that can make or break even
the strongest of men. His debut album, a work in progress on Atlantic, had been leaked
to the masses. The act was totally incomprehensible to Lupe and the future of the kick
pusher was in limbo. But after a brief spell in no-man’s land, Lupe came back hard and to the point.
Fans who were concerned that the Internet had taken Hip Hop’s breath of fresh
air need not have worried.
His mixtape, Touch the Sky (hosted
by DJ E Nyce),is an impressive display of why this
rare talent was – and still is – so anticipated. With only two tracks from the
leaked version on the album, I had expected to see more on there. But what I
did hear definitely didn’t disappoint. Tracks like “Twilight Zone”
and the Green Lantern-produced
“Gorilla”
have been available to the diehard fan base Lupe has accumulated through downloads of his previous
mixtapes from the internet – but you certainly don’t mind hearing them again on
this collection. It takes a true lyricist and an authentic emcee that has made
his own lane on the Hip Hop highway to be able to take beats from his platinum
contemporaries and equate their rhymes – and in some cases, surpass them. Lupe Fiasco does just that over Kanye’s beat for the controversial
topic on “Conflict Diamonds” and it appears kind of ironic that straight
after that track is his collaboration with Kanye on “Touch the Sky.” It’s like a case
of “let me kill your track but you can have your shine with me on this.” But of
course it really is all love between the Chi-Town boys.
There are just certain beats in Hip Hop that you feel should never be used for
mixtapes for fear of the artist failing dismally to compete with the original.
Yet, only a striving creative persona like Lupe would have the audacity to spit over “Lose
Yourself” and then the legendary “Dead Presidents”
beats and make you forget for a minute that they were Eminems and Jay-Zs to begin with.
The overall effect this mixtape has is you want to hear more and his album is
still as anticipated as it was before the leak. He opts to pretty much ride the
tape solo with the exception of Kanye,
his Fort Minor
collaboration with Linkin Park
frontman Mike Shinoda and Ghostface. However, he does allow
his 1st and 15th Family
some shine on this project with solo joints from Gemini and Shayla G, although both
tracks unfortunately mess with the flow of the mixtape. But of course, the
operative word with mixtapes is ‘promotional’ and that is precisely what he is
doing – promoting.
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Although
it would have been better to stay promoting himself, Lupe just isn’t about hogging the
limelight. Lupe is more
than talented and, really, this mixtape will just flirt with real Hip Hop fans
and encourage increased sales when Food and
Liquor hits shelves.
