Lupe Fiasco

Released: November 24, 2011

Songwriter: Bassnectar Lupe Fiasco Ellie Goulding

Producer: Bassnectar

[Hook: Ellie Goulding]
I had a way then
Losing it all on my own
I had a heart then
But the queen has been overthrown
And I’m not sleeping now
The dark is too hard to beat
And I’m not keeping up
The strength I need to push me
You show the lights that stop me, turn to stone
You shine it when I'm alone
And so I tell myself that I'll be strong
And dreaming when they're gone
Cause they're calling, calling, calling me home
Calling, calling, calling home
You show the lights that stop me, turn to stone
You shine it when I'm alone

[Verse 1: Lupe Fiasco]
So, what are you going to stand for?
Dreads in the sky, I and I, 2 new Vans on a land four
Take that back, make that 2 new shoes on the van floor
Me and my band out on that road
On a never-back-down-from-my-stance tour
Yeah, touch more souls than a dance floor
While they touch less floors than a hand or
Ceiling fan or - wait, let me tell ya slower
Lift my fans up to the ceiling and you'll never touch the floor
Woah, now if Noah need a rower
I'll be there with my oar till we get back to the shore
Dad made me a soldier, GI Joe to these Cobras
Tryna FBI my Panther, CIA my Sankofa
Infiltrate my Carter, illuminate my culture
While they watching through that buckle, but I stay up on my hustle
Turn that belt back on they self, now I watch them scream for help
Like Africa need aid, or black women as maids
Uncover undercovers turn those maids to Bubba's mothers
Take the hero out the Nino, keep it real as trouble-trouble, huh?
Or maybe cartoon Martin on The Boondocks
Flip the script on chicks who think their shit smells like perfume shops
Help them girls find beauty without a magazine or movie
She Delilah with them .45s or Keisha with that Uzi
Now I know that's contradiction, wants and needs in competition
But it's hard to stay on point with such extremes in opposition
While we waiting on that compromise, proceed with that conscious eye
New gang alert: hashtag occupies
Repper 'til the death of me, FnF, what's left of me
All my hate is for the fake recipes for wrestling
Only time I wrestle's when I'm wrestling with settling
Only way I settle if we wrestle over everything
I know that that don't mix like ecstasy and ketamine
Funny how I'm only sick if you never catch a thing
Argue with your friends over what really the record means
Back and forth about its course, with professors refereeing
Why he so rebellious? Up-front with his realness?
They wanna be fiascoes, reproduce his failures
Emperor is his alias, but not Marcus Aurelius
This is more like Sparta: kick you down a well, kid
And on my last check, I copped the NSX, just like Pharrell did
Well did, better doings to come
My only promise is I'll never ruin the young
I'll never human the sung lyrics in a spirit that's
Superhuman to some, keep you pursuing the sum of
Slums, plus, get up out of them, plus, never forget
Just where you from, plus, make sure that you're ballin'
When you come back up in them, plus, we don't die, multiply
Every single come-up, parum-pa-pum-pum, yup

[Hook]

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.

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