Music
“When it came to rap, I was either going to make it or die. For me, rap is personal. Even if I’m talking about something abstract or doing random word flips, that’s the product of dedicating my whole life to the craft. To me, it doesn’t get more personal than that.”
For the better part of two decades, Chi-Town wordsmith Lupe Fiasco has been motivating minds and inciting head bobs, snagging the occasional Grammy Award along the way. Now, on his ninth studio album ‘Samurai’ – the first properly backed by his mentor since 2007’s hit-hound ‘The Cool’ – the lyrical swordsman sits down with CLASH to break down his new record and reflect on his mythic career as we go.
When it comes to Lupe Fiasco, there’s really only one expectation: don’t have any. Born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, the Chicago native is no stranger to abstract topics, nine-minute tracks, and chromed-out robots gaining sentience in his presence. After a jazz-rap gem (2022’s ‘Drill Music In Zion’), a polemic, political epic framed around racial commentary (2018’s ‘Drogas Wave’), and a pop-trap excursion (2017’s ‘Drogas Light’), it was no surprise that we’d be going back to basics for Lupe’s ninth LP.
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‘Samurai’, by all means, is a hip-hop masterclass. “Conceptually, boom bap is something I really like. I’ve done all kinds of records throughout my career, but recently, as I’ve been exploring and experimenting, that boom bap sound has really stuck out to me. That 80 to 95 BPM range with laid-back, jazzy layers is where I’m at,” Lupe says on a cloudless Wednesday afternoon over Zoom.
The snug, 30-minute opus is forged from soulful instrumentation, hare-brained tangents, and ardent flows. Sharp, agile, and elegant like a warrior’s blade, the record spirals into unique patterns of thought and weathered wisdom, akin to an ornate decal wrapped around a blade. Just as a blade’s hilt embodies the legacy of its craftsmanship, Lupe’s raps draw from the deep well of hip-hop’s heritage, reflecting the tools and techniques passed down through the genre’s forefathers.
With the formerly incarcerated Charles ‘Chilly’ Patton back in Lupe’s corner, Patton strips away the expected largesse of lengthy records and replaces it with a concise, eight-track runtime. “The sequence of the record is all Chilly,” he adds. Despite Chilly’s technical absence from most of Lupe’s catalogue, Lupe confidently gives Chilly his flowers. “Even though Chilly wasn’t there in the studio over the years, whenever there was a phone call, he’d hear the music I was working on and give advice,” Lupe affirms.
“As great as Chilly’s feedback was in prison on my previous records, it was limiting. For ‘Samurai’, I mentioned other songs [to Chilly], but he insisted that eight is enough. That’s an executive producer decision. He sequenced and organised it in a way that works and flows. He believed it was deep enough for people to get a full experience and make you want to listen even more. The philosophy of a shorter album has its merits,” Lupe states assertively. “But I still like big-bodied albums with a lot of songs – ones with 20-plus records.”
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The conversation turns to the album’s Amy Winehouse connection, one that flooded Rap Twitter the week of the album’s release. Lupe declares: “When I started ‘Samurai’ back in 2020, it began as this one portrait inspired by an Amy Winehouse quote. Then I thought it was a dope idea to tell the story of Amy Winehouse as a battle rapper. At the time, it was just one song, the title track. Then, the idea evolved, and I started asking myself more questions. How did Amy get her battle rap powers? That became another song. I’d start a new track with each new idea, building out the project. Each record needed a specific vibe and a way of pushing the narrative forward”.
Throughout the project, the narrative often splinters between loving nods to anime like ‘Afro Samurai’, anecdotes on gentrification and the Starship Enterprise (‘No. 1 Headband’), and the plight of fame (‘Palaces’) – muddying the waters between Lupe’s own career and the ascent of the Samurai character.
“The song ‘Palaces’ was the only record I did completely in the studio with Chilly, Soundtrakk, and the crew. I always had the chorus. It was one of those records where I heard the beat, and the chorus came out immediately. The song sat with no verses for four years. I completed ‘Palaces’ when I got into the studio to finalise everything. It was the missing link.”
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As the conversation delves deeper into his creative process, Lupe takes a moment to tip his hat towards a Queensbridge rap legend. “Early on, I kind of wanted and pushed for this project to be a collaboration between Nas and me,” he reveals. The project’s original concept could’ve seen Nas and Lupe teaming up over wax, united by their admiration for Amy across an EP.
Lupe then enthusiastically details a few more concepts – one where he envisioned ‘Samurai’ from the perspective of a female UK rapper, or even a version of the album where he doesn’t rap at all, instead acting as a madcap puppet master behind the boards. It’s mention of this studio alter ego that leads us to discuss the album’s beat-making process. “Soundtrakk [the album’s producer and frequent Lupe Fiasco collaborator] sends me batches of beats all the time. The batches are categorised by sound, production date, and the equipment used. I still have folders of beats from 2012 from Soundtrakk in the vault.”
Lupe briefly pauses, veering the conversation towards his ethos and motivation as a musician. “For me, rap is my life. I decided at 14 or 15 that I wanted to be a rapper. By 16, I said I’m going to be a rapper or nothing,” Lupe utters. “I didn’t look at college courses, do prep exams, SATs, or anything – I burned those bridges.” By the time Lupe reached his late teens, the rapper had joined a rap collective called Da Pak. The group released the single ‘Armpits’ in 2000 before disbanding shortly thereafter, following label drama.
Lupe soon caught the attention of Arista Records, who signed him after hearing his track “Coulda Been” circa 2002 (later featured on a 2003 MTV Music compilation). Around this time, Lupe also released his first mixtape, 2002’s ‘FNF Mixtape Vol. 1’, a project shrouded in mystery – marking the genesis of his prolific output. He briefly joined the group Arista Cats (in tandem with Artista Records) before pursuing solo ventures, eventually leading to a meeting with Jay-Z and a subsequent signing with Atlantic Records.
Impressed by Lupe’s lyrical prowess, Jay-Z took him under his wing during his early years as a solo artist. With mutual respect for one another’s pen, Lupe’s kinship with Jay later led to him recording a verse for his debut, ‘American Terrorist’, which was initially not present on the album’s leaked version.
Infiltrating rap blogs in mid-2006 and laying the groundwork for Lupe’s future cult fanbase – the album leak was later retooled into the rhymer’s classic debut, ‘Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor’. Still, the leaked version of the record retains its place in the wider Lupe Fiasco mythology thanks to the track ‘Pills‘. The song marked the introduction of the rapper’s first character set crafted for his universe, ‘The Streets’ and ‘The Game’, as well as the setup for the protagonist of Lupe’s first few records, the morally torn Michael Young History.
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Pondering the personalities crafted for previous records compared to the Amy character present on ‘Samurai’, Lupe lightly refutes the notion of world-building. “It’s less about creating a character in the vein of Michael Young History and more about this concept I call resurrectives. Even ‘The Cool’ [song] is a resurrective record. It’s about bringing something back from the other side, bringing something back to life. You see that across ‘Drogas Wave’ on ‘Jonylah Forever’ and ‘Alan Forever’.”
“These records try to resurrect things. The ‘Samurai’ project falls into that lane, too. It’s about taking something, bringing it back, and putting it in a new light. It’s more about my focus on bringing things back to life rather than creating a character like in ‘The Cool’, where you can visualise it. So, it’s more about the resurrection concept. To me, it’s less of a world. You had to build a world because you tell the story so that the world will happen regardless. I could have done more detail to flesh the world out, but where we left the album felt right. The resurrective angle is engaging.”
Lupe then divulges his plans for the future. “So, we have projects that are just sitting, things that are in various modes, but then there’s also the possibility to just do something completely new based on either the reaction to ‘Samurai’ or how we want to move from there. I think we’re going to let ‘Samurai’ breathe a little bit, even though I’m still working and have other material in the clip. We’ll just see what’s best for you all,” he states.
Bathing in sprawling ambition, Lupe then throws out a wildcard. “What do you all want to see next? I have a bunch of party records ready to go…”
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‘Samurai’ is out now.
Words: Niall Smith // @niallsmith28
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