Released: March 10, 2006

Songwriter: Lupe Fiasco

Producer: Gorillaz

[Spoken]
Angel nights
Naw, so... so, just listen. All right so, so what you do is, right. You take Lupe Fiasco, right, okay? You take Lupe Fiasco, you know and then you take the Gorillaz, right. You take the Fiasco on Lupe Fiasco, you take the Fiasco off, right. And then you take
The z off, off the Gorillaz—you take, you take that off, and you drop that, and then, like, you put it together. You know, put it together. You got—you made a Gorrila. You know what I'm saying? You got me doing my thing, you know what I'm saying? With the rappin' and stuff I know how to do. Then you got, you got the Gorillaz doin' they thing over here with the beats, you know what I'm saying? You know—you know I rhyme over that, do that; do that. [?] Lupe the Gorilla. I - I thought it was cool. I was thinkin' it was dope (You are now entering the [?]), you know what I'm sayin'? And then I was thinkin', like, you could call it, ya know, A Rhyming Ape.

Lupe Fiasco

The Chicago born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco first tasted success when he featured on Kanye West’s hit “Touch the Sky”, a track that shortly preceded his real breakout, his 2006 debut album Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor, and he never looked back. He has established himself as one of the greatest urban wordsmiths of all time, with Genius even dubbing him the ‘Proust of Rap’.

While he’s now regarded of one of the 21st Century’s Hip-Hop greats, he wasn’t always a fan of the genre, initially disliking it due to the prominence of vulgarity and misogyny within it. In his late teens, he aspired to make it as a lyricist. In his early twenty’s, he met Jay-Z, who helped him sign with Atlantic Records in 2005. The following year, he released his debut album (Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor), which was met with acclaim from fans and critics alike, as did his sophomore effort, Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool.

The following eight years of his career saw far less output than many would’ve anticipated. This can be partly attributed to his struggles with Atlantic Records. The executives wanted him to sign a 360 deal; however, as he refused to do so they instead shelved his already completed 3rd album, Lasers, and wouldn’t promote him as they had previously. The overseers at the label also interfered with his music (as they had tried to do with his fan-favorite track “Dumb it Down”); subsequently effecting the quality and sound of his third and fourth albums.