Thirty Three Jones | Desktop Site
If you're not up on the mixtape scene and haven't been checking for Kanye West's Touch the Sky video, you may not have heard of a rapper out of Chicago that is being labeled by many as the next great thing: Lupe Fiasco. Recently, Lupe's been in the news after an unfinished version of his Food & Liquor album (due June 27th) was Kick, Pushed out onto the internet. Lupe initially took the news hard, but now seems to be dealing with it better.
To be honest, I don't think this will have too much of an impact on sales for the album. Anyone with as much buzz as he has going for him is going to at least have a good first week of sales, leak or no leak. As disappointing as it must be to have 5 years of your work out there before its ready, he's not the first artist to have an album leaked. And, as he said on his FnF radio show, he still has time to add a few guest appearances (specifically, Kanye, who currently has not been involved at all with the album, as a producer or rapper), add a new track or two, throw in a cheap promo dvd and he'll be good to go by the time June 27th comes around.
This may come as a shock to some of you, but I have not downloaded this album. In fact, I've never downloaded a full album from any artist -- a combination of my conscience and the dangers of spyware/viruses/etc. have kept me from going on a p2p rampage. By all accounts from people who have downloaded the leak, though, Food & Liquor has the potential to be a classic.
In my opinion, the biggest obstacle Lupe needs to overcome is not the leak of his album but his overall image. Lupe has been working hard to cultivate his image as a skateboarder, even before his release of the skateboard-centric Kick, Push video. Kind of like Pharrell a.k.a. Skateboard P without the doubters. There's a fair amount of skaters out on the internet who are willing to cosign on Lupe's album just for the fact that he is a skater. He also is on a bit of a backpacker/Native Tongues vibe, with his rhymes on the opposite end of the spectrum from gangsta rap. It remains to be seen if the majority of hip hop heads, including the all-important "streets", can actually get down with that and buy the album.
Ultimately, I think Lupe will come out o.k. after all of this. As far as his lyrical skills, he can compete with any mainstream rapper out right now. He also has the backing of Jay-Z, who is the executive producer on this album, and his appearance in Kanye's video can't hurt either. As long as the record label doesn't actually pull the album due to the leak, I think his sales will at the very least match Ghostface's, which moved a little over 100,000 the first week.
4/19/2006 10:16:47 AM posted by Fresh