Home > Baltimore Music > CD Review > Lupe Fiasco, "The Cool"

Backstory: Regarded for thoughtful storytelling and fresher-than-usual beats, 25-year-old Chicago rapper Fiasco broke onto the scene by appearing on fellow Chicagoan Kanye West's "Touch the Sky" in 2006. Released later that year, Fiasco's debut album, "Food and Liquor," explored the artist's positive (food) and negative (liquor) impulses, and arrived on a wave of hype that eventually led to three Grammy nods, but not the kind of world-conquering popularity that the buzz suggested.

Why you should care: "The Cool" isn't as anticipated as West's "Graduation" or, grumble grumble, 50 Cent's "Curtis," but it's at least big enough to have scored a spot on MTV's "The Leak." Poised as a sequel to the song of the same name on "Food and Liquor," "The Cool" is a semi-concept album, tackling topics including fame, identity and the experiences of a dead hustler who emerges from the grave.

Verdict: More musically challenging than "Food and Liquor," "The Cool" finds Fiasco asserting his ability to chronicle everything from the streets to the red carpet without sounding like he's posing. In "Go Go Gadget Flow," the rapper displays an improved vocal dexterity with perhaps a little too much Midwest boasting, while the Patrick Stump–produced “Little Weapon” showcases Fiasco's knack for assessing violence without glorifying it. He's often serious, often funny and rarely dull, and while "The Cool" might be a track or two too long—we could certainly ditch the climactic pop tune "Go Baby"—it's another compelling trip inside the mind of a rapper who actually takes time to think about what he's saying.

X-Factor: The album's most infectious, club-banging track, "Hi-Definition," proves yet again that while Snoop Dogg can be tiresome on his own, it never hurts to have his laid-back pimp drawl take a verse and hang out on your chorus.

Add a comment