Songwriter: Needlz Lupe Fiasco

Producer: Needlz

[Lupe talking]
Grew up in Chicago, West side, gang lifestyle, the drug scene, the whole.. it's like one whole universe of insanity

[Verse 1]
Before I start, like to make sure I’m smart
Gather my composure, rather my swagger and my culture
Pivot my fitted, then begin to rivet, with a change of lyric
In other words, I reposition how I sit it
Then make you feel it like I mispronounced "filet"
On second thought, I can't make you fill it
Like you digging your own grave, unless you can Kill Bill it
A night of the living passed away
Can you dig it? Why Emcee? Hey
I do it for my village
The pennin' is John Lennon, the beat is the Beatles
Go together like Lenin and the people
In some fresh linens and some John Lennon’s fresh outta Seagle's
The pen and the needles...

[Writing and mumbling upcoming verse]

[Verse 2]
I'm back at cha, and I Pac like cap backwards
Like a hat's backwards, you know, when the bats backwards
Yeah, like a bat catchers
The law gotta long arm like a back scratcher
But before I leave mine at home
Like a bad catcher, I think about my zone
Where pimps make scratch off the track like a DJ
Easy, that’s my zone rappers
It's my deck
And if I catch u set trippin’ wit my cassette sittin’ in a zone rappers:
It's not a threat
Cuz it'll span ya where I roam rappers, where I hone my skills
They wanna send me back home the devil, is on my heels
The writing is Sting, liken the sequences, the Police, I repeat
We go together like the Beauty and the Beast
Writing is in my veins;
The ink is the diesel, the pen and the needles…

[Writing and mumbling upcoming verse]

The word is mightier than the sword
And my serve is tightier than yours
Like year in St. Louis ya whole flow
I fear I sank through it...
It all became clear
Like a paramedic with an electric chest kit, YEAH
The gravity of the vocabulary is a caliber equal to Excalibur
Swung wit the grace of Agassi in his amateurs, THERE
There was a deeper depth, don't know how I got here
I also had a hole in my flow
It appears I sank to it...
My swing, it couldn’t be seen
I apply some paint to it, the invisible man
Wrapped in bandages, in critical, CLEAR
The scriptin' of Scorsese the score is Count Basie
We go together like, the original and the sequel
This is the end of the trilogy, ya feelin’ me?
The pen and the needles...

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.