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Calle 13 - La Vuelta Al Mundo [Entre Los Que Quieran, 2010]

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Lupe Fiasco - Lasers / Food & Liquor

One of my favorite rappers has become Lupe Fiasco, but it’s taken me the last decade to really get into his stuff. I’d listened to his music here and there, and I’d pick up his albums, but I never truly got into them, either. I wasn’t much of a rap fan, and I’m still really not, but I’ve gotten into a bit of rap over the years. I just talked about a few albums, actually, but I spent some time last year getting into some early Lupe Fiasco, especially 2007’s The Cool. I found it on eBay for a good deal, and while I ended up selling it and then picking it up again, I still really enjoyed it. That made me want to get into some more albums from this era, including 2006’s debut album, Food & Liquor, and third album, 2011’s Lasers. It’s crazy that there was a four-year break between his second and third albums, but Lasers is his most popular album, also featuring his most popular song. “The Show Must Go On” is his highest charting single, so I wanted to check out the album just for that, as well as listen to his debut album.

After hearing both of these albums, I’ll be honest in that I like Lasers a bit more, even more so than The Cool (which I talked about last year; I really liked the album, but it was a bit too long for my liking, and Lasers is only 48 minutes long. Food & Liquor, however, is around 72 minutes, but the last 12 minutes is the outro, where Fiasco just shouts out people the whole song. These two albums highlight how much Fiasco improved in his sound over the span of five years. Food & Liquor is a really solid album, which shows his impeccable rapping style and his penchant for clever, intelligent, and meaningful songs about real world topics, but it’s a bit rough around the edges. Even on The Cool, his sound is still a bit rough around the edges, plus it’s also just way too long for its own good. Lasers is a lot leaner of an album and more cohesive, plus his flow is a lot tighter, and his sound is a lot catchier and more accessible. Lasers is his foray into pop-rap, at least on a handful of songs, and it’s even more interesting that Lasers was his last mainstream album. He was still a relatively popular artist afterwards, but his star power is not what it was.

It makes sense, because Lasers is a more “mainstream” album, and fans weren’t really into that. Fiasco sounds good on this album, and the hooks are quite slick, but you can tell that it was more of the same label’s intervention than his own creation. I can see people not enjoying Lasers as much, but I like it because it’s shorter and more accessible. They’re all albums worth hearing, though, especially if you want to hear some solid 00s and 2010s blog era rap that was popular in its day. Lupe Fiasco is one of those rappers that rap fans love, but the mainstream remembers for having two popular songs 15 years ago. He’s still been going since, and his last album from 2024 was awesome, but it’s a shame that he disappeared from the limelight, especially when mainstream rap got dumber and more generic during the 2010s, but Lupe Fiasco is a solid artist, and his first few albums are really worth checking out.