Lupe Fiasco - The Cool
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music.guardian.co.uk Rating: 0
It's a state of affairs Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, better known as Lupe Fiasco, knows well. A skateboarding Muslim rapper somewhat in the mould of fellow Chicagoan Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco's career was progressing well, if unspectacularly: his debut album, Food and Liquor, was critically acclaimed and Grammy-nominated, without selling in breathtaking quantities. Then, last October, he succeeded in provoking what MTV dubbed a "hatefest" by simply forgetting two lines of A Tribe Called Quest's 1993 single Electric Relaxation during a televised tribute to the alternative rap pioneers. He rather compounded the situation by unfavourably comparing A Tribe Called Quest's achievements with those of MC Hammer. British producer Mark Ronson colourfully branded Lupe Fiasco "a cockface", but not everyone's response was so equitable.One suspects Lupe Fiasco rather enjoyed his provocateur status, and not merely because it provided publicity for his second album, The Cool. In the past, he has been unstintingly critical of mainstream hip-hop's misogyny and materialism, while making music that aims unashamedly for mass appeal. Dumb It Down, one of The Cool's US singles, is a withering parody of crunk that sets his own adroit lyricism - Jay-Z has called him a "genius writer" - against a chorus of bellowing hip-hop gumbies: "Them big words ain't cool! Pour champagne on the bitches!"He's bracingly unafraid of stirring things up and has a clear grasp of hip-hop's problems, but you do occasionally wonder at the efficacy of Lupe Fiasco's solutions. As The Cool progresses, these are revealed to include concept albums, sanctimonious moralising and - in the shape of protege Matthew Santos - introducing the world to that rarest of musical phenomena, a new artist who sounds like Coldplay.As is traditional with concept albums, the "concept" behind The Cool makes no sense whatsoever when you listen to the album and less when you've read Fiasco's explanation: it involves three supernatural characters, rotting limbs, a skull wreathed in crack smoke, Alexander the Great and ... oh, forget it. Occasionally, the rapper's desire to wag his finger overwhelms his dextrous turn of phrase. At its worst - the unbearably smug introduction Baba Says Cool For Thought and Gotta Eat, which spends three very long minutes using a hamburger as a metaphor for life - The Cool can feel like being imprisoned with a painfully right-on blogger as your cellmate and no prospect of parole.Nevertheless, The Cool is far from the disaster those who have a beef with Fiasco might have hoped for. When it abandons the stuff about rotting limbs and lightens its touch, it's almost as great as its creator thinks it is. The production is hook-laden but adventurous enough to accommodate both Hello Goodbye - a clattering collaboration with UNKLE and Queens of the Stone Age's Josh...
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