I was just writing my friend Kandi this morning that about the only rappers I've bothered to listen to in the past year has been Lupe Fiasco and Kendrick Lamar. I've most likely outgrown the rest (i.e., I'm old).
Then I read about Lupe getting the boot from an Inauguration concert yesterday. From Huff Po:
Lupe Fiasco reportedly created a bit of a row on Sunday by insulting President Obama during an inaugural event.
Although Fiasco was booked as the headliner for the StartUp RockOn concert in celebration of Obama's reelection, the 30-year-old Chicago rapper apparently had no plans to cheer the current administration. Instead, after taking the stage at The Hamilton in Washington, he reportedly announced that he didn't vote for the president in the 2012 election and spent more than 30 minutes performing an anti-war song.
...
This is not the first time the Grammy-nominated artist has criticized the president. Last summer, while doing press for his album "Food & Liquor 2: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1," he described Obama as a child-killer, Complex magazine reported.
"I'm talking about ordering a drone attack," Fiasco said. "Ordering drone attacks that go and kill mothers, innocent bystanders, children. Militants too, but the collateral damage. You're responsible for that, too."
A few thoughts: why the organizers of this concert went with him when he made his views quite clear on Obama is beyond me. It just seemed to be begging for some kind of incident. As for the drone attacks, as unpopular as it made me last fall, I agree with him. I still think a number of my family and friends are holding their ears singing "la la la la" so they don't have to acknowledge that I didn't vote for the Prez this go round. I'm not however, in agreement, with a thirty minute loop of an anti-war song. Actually, who wants a thirty minute loop of any songs? Instead of bring attention to the very real problem of the drone strike civilian casualties, all the headlines are about Lupe being "escorted" off stage to "boos" from disappointed fans. Missed opportunity of sorts.
This dust-up is coming on the heels of news that Lupe is scrapping the second part of "Food & Liquor 2," an album so good that as my homepage lists, I'm still listening to four months after it's release. From Fuse:
When we caught up with Lupe Fiasco at the listening session to Food & Liquor 2: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1, the rapper told us that Food & Liquor 2 was originally intended to be a double album, but Atlantic Records didn’t want to release both albums on the same day. The compromise? Release part one last September and part two sometime this year.
Despite the album allegedly being finished, though, Lupe took to Twitter to announce that, yeah, just kidding about that whole part two thing. "Hello. A decision has been made that the project titled 'F&L2 Part 2' will be summarily cancelled for public release in 2013," Lupe tweeted. "The title/concept for Lupe's 2013 release will be revealed later this year."
The rapper also suspended his Twitter page, deleting all his tweets save this goodbye one:
