Lupe Fiasco

Wasalu Muhammad Jaco (born February 16, 1982), better known by his stage name Lupe Fiasco ( /ˈluːpeɪ/ LOO-pay), is an American rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur. He rose to fame in 2006 following the success of his debut album, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor. He also performs as the frontman of rock band Japanese Cartoon under his real name. As an entrepreneur, Fiasco is the chief executive officer of 1st and 15th Entertainment.. Fiasco, along with rappers Common, Rhymefest, and Talib Kweli, has been credited as a pioneer of the conscious hip hop movement, which focuses on social issues. Subjects touched upon on Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor include absent parents, terrorism, Islam and religion, war, and prostitution. Fiasco attributes his interest in social issues to his highly cultured upbringing, as he describes his mother as "very intellectual" and his father as a "Renaissance man". He rejects the misogyny common in hip hop, which he discusses in the song "Hurt Me Soul". Despite this, Fiasco is strongly opposed to censorship in music: "If we're going to [censor things] that are offensive, then we are going to have to blind and deafen everyone. Come on, man. Let's focus on education and literacy and poverty.". Fiasco employs various lyrical techniques in his songwriting. The rapper views hip-hop as a medium conducive to storytelling, a primary element of his lyrics due to his background in theater. He wrote plays as a child, which had a strong effect on his songwriting approaches. Fiasco utilizes both metaphors and literal statements in his work, which he describes as "getting from point A to point B in as few words as possible". His use of metaphors is exemplified by the song "Gotta Eat" from Lupe Fiasco's The Cool, which is told from the perspective of a cheeseburger and addresses the poor nutrition in black communities in the United States, while using a continuous metaphor of drug dealing and hustling....
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