The Cool Wiki

"The Cool Wiki" is a video uploaded to American rapper Lupe Fiasco's YouTube channel on May 13, 2020. It was live-streamed, where he discussed the origins and mythology behind The Cool."The Cool Wiki". YouTube. May 13, 2020.
== Caption ==
Details About The Cool Multi-Verse
== Synopsis ==
5 pieces all of which were gifts from various demons. When all 5 pieces (including the heart of the Streets) are joined, they create Big Death who can kill this entire world and create a new one as directed by the person who joined the pieces.
The skull of the game is the strongest piece. It is the most strategic and contains all of the senses. He wears many faces and can speak in many tongues. He plans years and years in advance. (See "Put You on Game")
The left arm belongs to the wild man/woman. It has developed unguided and is therefore extraordinarily reckless and dangerous, destroying everything around it without regard. It is not interested in right or wrong it is just primal. He is the opposite of the cool.
The right arm belongs to the cool. He is being trained and guided by the winemaker so as to have more control over the arm and use it for a higher purpose.
The right leg belongs to the monk. The monk has removed the leg so as to try and regain some of his humanity. He has fashioned the leg into a horn/cane which he keeps with him. The monk is a Tibetan Bonebreaker who carried out Tibetan sky burial funeral rites. He uses a prosthetic leg to walk on. He is very powerful in his intellect rivals The Game. He has a great wealth of knowledge about the human body from having such a close close relationship to him via his job as a bone breaker. The monk awoke during his own cremation and thus it is the reason for his physical disfigurement. He represents a parallel and how Big Death was broken up and the different parts of the body were taken by different demons at the beginning of time.
The left leg belongs to the hacker/tech guy/executive. He has succumbed to the dark forces of the piece and uses it to amass a great worldly fortune through his company Skullnet. He has a massive intelligence/information network and develops weapons systems/technologies for the militaries of the world also has a ton of black market dealings and connections. His footprint is in everything and everywhere. He was cryogenically frozen upon his Little Death and was revived using his technology. He is a Tae Kwon Do master. He has developed algorithm derived from magic spells which can be uploaded remotely into his bionic parts and weapons systems.
The winemaker makes a very rare vintage of wine, among many others, that actually has the power of longevity to a certain degree. However one of the key ingredients is a very rare human blood type that must age first like the grape juice for the wine. To "legally" search for and acquire this rare blood the winemaker is connected to a vast number of funeral homes and mortuaries that send him the blood that is drained from the bodies during the embalming process. He receives a shipment of blood and is please to see that indeed one of the batches is indeed the rare blood type he is looking for and to process and so proceeds to set about aging it. However over the course of weeks he comes back to check on the batch of blood he is shocked to find that it hasn't aged or broken down in any way at all! The winemaker is shocked by this and because his family is deeply rooted in the occult and ancient mythology and alchemy the recipe for wine is an ancient alchemical recipe that only his family knows) he is aware of a legend that talks about "the death of death" and how close to the time of end of the world death in its greatest form (grim reaper) which was broken into pieces and taken into other dimensions by various demons would re-enter the world piece by piece attached to "new borns" and if all the pieces were reassemble then the person would be able to call upon Big Death and either rule the world as a hell of create a heaven for all but would be excluded from it. The winemaker thinks that whoever this blood is from is possibly one of those "new borns" and that maybe if he can find the person he can somehow help him gather the pieces and create a heaven on earth or maybe something else. However the wine maker also knows that the pieces are only gifted to demons. true demons meaning that the people who have them are considered to do the worst of the worst and are more prone to create a hell on earth to ruin them to create a heaven for everyone else from which they would be excluded from and also die.
== Transcript ==
Lupe Fiasco	There we go. Bam. Wait, turn the camera around. Okay, there we go. That's better.
Fiasco 	Hello, hello, YouTube land. Finally. Had a little security, security issue. Um. Uhhhhhhh. Okay, little security issue. So as promised, um. Wanted to have—wanted to drag the conversation that we had at Instagram—over to uh—over here to YouTube. Um, I didn't want to come on YouTube live unless I felt like I had something super interesting and YouTube worthy to talk about for the fans that are over here at YouTube. And I thought it'd be interesting to talk about uh, The Cool. But not just The Cool 'cause it's hands down probably everybody's favorite album. Probably every favorite Lupe album. And something that we... hold on, let me get this stuff together. Okay. And it spans so many different um, albums. So it is kind of like the central theme in a lot of my work and I felt this was a YouTube-worthy kind of conversation. So we'll call it "The Cool Wiki."
Fiasco 	So it's not necessarily about the songs from The Cool. So just do a couple disclaimers. It's not necessarily about the songs on The Cool, it's not about the music, this isn't like a music conversation. This isn't about the inspiration behind songs—it's none of that. What it is about is the story of The Cool and how that story has matured over time. Where did it come from and then what is like the future of The Cool and how it might relate to other projects and not just—and again not the music just, so we're clear. Not the music, the storyline of The Cool and some of the thoughts that go that have went into and some of the things that have been developed behind the scenes with The Cool, right? And so The Cool of course is just as to go way back for people who don't know. The Cool, the first hints or the first, like, pieces that you can get about The Cool or this thing kind of starting was in a song called "The Pills." And "The Pills" was actually on a uh, uh, MTV. Um, I think, My Block. Yeah, it's right here. So this was in 2000... let me see. Actually going YouTube some YouTube so let's see...
Fiasco 	So this got uploaded in 2010. But I feel like this song is much older than that. This particular, um. Yeah, hit the like subscribe button, please, all of that YouTube stuff. This is my first YouTube live. But actually you know what, let me. Should I share this? I mean it doesn't matter, it'll be up, so. Share with your homeboys if you got fans of The Cool who love uh. Who are interested in some nerdy behind-the-scenes Cool Wiki. Call it "The Cool Wiki," right? It kind of be an ongoing series because The Cool is an ongoing kind of storyline. So shout-out to everybody's who checking in and shooting comments. Appreciate it. Make sure you hit the like button and subscribe etc., etc., all that good stuff. So where do we start with this? Maybe if I do an image search, first. Of it. Maybe it'll bring up some interesting stuff. Uh, no not really. The one thing that kind of comes up is this uh this upload that somebody uploaded about My Block. So My Block was this MTV thing they came in Chicago they interviewed me, had a few other people in it, and then they did this you can see asylum Asylum Records right there, which is a label that is—what was within Atlantic Records, um. Kind of like a little sub-label. I think just a few other people saw an Asylum like I think I think Gucci Mane was on Asylum, but I could be you know don't, don't quote me on that. But it's just like a label within a label at Atlantic. More like an indie label. So anyway, they teamed up with MTV called My Block. Now on this soundtrack for My Block, the MTV My Block soundtrack is a song called "The Pills." And "The Pills" is the first—I want to say is the first references of these characters that will be eventually get pulled into The Cool universe. And it was—or the multiverse—and I think it was The Streets and The Game. And I remember somebody did like a crazy... like a fan a long time ago did like this crazy, uh... It's probably long gone. It might've went up on my, when I had my Hypebeast. When I had my Hypebeast blog. I'll try and find this stuff for you. But a fan had did like this crazy artwork of the visualization of that song. He did like a fan art of The Game or something like that or a fan out of The Streets. But anyway, the first time that you see the first record would be "Out There" or "The Pills." Then you would get "The Cool." The actual song "The Cool" from Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor you would get that song, produced by Kanye West, which actually had a different hook on it. I think Sarah did the hook and then I did another hook or something something like that but there's two different hooks for The Cool and that's kind of where it starts and it was it was always about. I wanted to have a song like "Thriller." I'll let that into the world and I was like, 'yo, what's like some big themes that are in the world that like lasts a long time and that constantly stay fresh?' And it was like zombies. And I was like okay, zombies, so I'm gonna make a song about zombies right and it was the references was like "Thriller," like Night of the Living Dead. I think Walking Dead was poppin' at that time. Maybe not, but anyway this, this, like okay I need a song about zombies right and that's why you get "The Cool." You get this interesting story. But if you if you know in "The Cool" you don't have references to The Streets or The Game, right? You only have Michael Young History, The Cool, and I think he's not even Michael Young History at that point. I don't think he becomes Michael Young History until The Cool. And so the second album. And so what happens on the second album is I go and I do—uh, I go and do this, uh, I go see this talk with and uh. Um. Man, he's gonna kill me. Tavis Smiley and um. Uh, uh. What's that—what's his name? He's gonna kill me. I go see this Tavis Smiley talk and um—ah, what's his name? Uh. What's his name. Tavis Smiley and...
Fiasco 	Cornel West. Jeez. And they have this talk in Chicago and they talk about The Cool. They talk about how they have to—in order to make things better in the neighborhood—this is actual talk this actually happened go see this talk—and they're on stage and they talk about how if you want to start seeing change in the world you have to make the things that are cool uncool and make the things that are cool make the things that are uncool cool and so ah album title let's go right. Was that album title present when you had The Cool for Food & Liquor? Right. 'Cause that title became. So when did that title happen? That is—my memory will not allow me to figure that out when "The Cool" actually happened. But it came from the Tavis Smiley and Cornel West talk. And they were talkin' about to make cool things uncool and the cool things cool. Uncool things cool, ah, The Cool, ah. This is The Cool. Now I don't know if The Cool from Food & Liquor is named after that or if it's just a a coincidence, right? That I already had a song called "The Cool" and, y'know, this was that or was that it's all jumbled up and messy together now so it's probably it's probably probably will not be able to untie it. Maybe we can go through the dates of what was released when they had that talk. So I'll leave that up to you all to figure out when Tavis Smiley and Cornel West were in Chicago live on stage and they were having this comment. So I'm sure we could find that out. But it was definitely before the release of the album The Cool because that was a part of the programming for The Cool.
Fiasco 	So anyway, you get "The Cool" on Food & Liquor. You don't have references to The Streets or The Game. The Streets and The Game were built in that song "Pills," "The Pills." So that's when they were built. And then when it comes time to conceptualize the album and like flesh it out and like, you know, create the concepts into everything. Then you get all of these, um. Okay, let me pull this character from this, pull this character from that, put this character in here, and then mix them all together and then you get like this storyline. Which is in The Cool. And if you listen to that album The Cool, the storyline isn't necessarily prevalent, right? It's kind of characters are introduced things kind of happen. In "The Cool" you get The Cool is basically the life of The Cool. His death, or his resu—get his you get his life and his death, you get his resurrection on Food & Liquor, right? And then this is where this this this talk hopefully gets interesting for some of you. I don't know why it's called—somebody just said "Pills" is "Real Recognize Real"—I think that's somebody who took that song and and gave it its own title and uploaded it and put it out to the world. But, um, it was never called "Real Recognize Real." Like I don't think I ever titled it "Real Recognize Real" I think I always titled it "The Pills" or "Out There" because when you listen to the the sample is you'll be out there. But it's "The Pills" and that's why I say it in that the pills you and me say it so "Real Recognize Real" there's some random title that I think some either some fan or some DJ or somebody like attached to it. But that that isn't an official title let's just say that right now this is not an official title. "The Pills" is actually the real title for that song um, I don't think I ever called it "Real Recognize Real." That happened might he put out a mixtape and they didn't know the names of the song so they just started naming them and it was like that wasn't the name of that song. So that's why I think there's in a Lupe universe there's some songs floating around that have two titles and it's like that's not what I that's what—that DJ titled it to put on his mixtape or whatever. So that was the issue.
Fiasco 	So on The Cool album, you don't really get a thorough fleshing out of the storyline. You get an introduction to characters. You get his death in "The Die." There's only so many songs on the album that are actually related to his his uh, to the character and the story. And then you get his resurrection a little bit more of his backstory and Food & Liquor on the song "The Cool." And then it ends, right, with him 'hustle for death, no heaven for gangster.' And the idea is that it would you would get his backstory on the album The Cool. And then what you would have—and this is where it kind of this is where things start to get a little strange and probably interesting for the super fans out there. Is that The Cool... I started to... I don't wanna say I stared to... we went on tour, and then I started to come up with this Cool as an anime, right, or a manga. But it was like okay, let me take these characters. And for y'all—for those who are—who didn't—who don't know and are unaware of The Cool artwork. Just tryna Google it for you all. Images, let's go... here we go. Right. Flip this around, sorry. So we always had those characters right, right? For The Cool and there's The Streets right there you got The Cool Michael Young History right here played by the homie. And then you had The Game right there, right? And so these characters the and Nathan Cabrera shot the nacho who's done a lot of comic book work and worked for like image and like work for all these different crazy people so shout-out to Nathan Cabrera who actually was in charge of doing the art the art direction for these characters. So these are actually real people and there was this great set of commercials that MTV did where they actually brought all of them to life right? But anyway brought all these people to live shot him. I think he's scan and them like head to toe so it was actual like full-body scans of them or whatever. And so Nacho—I call him Nacho—he was in charge of like fully fleshing all these things out taking all of the descriptions from "The Pills." Like the dollar signs and eyes and the tattoos and the 'blunts for fingers and hollow tips for teeth, wiretaps for ears; Nike Airs for feet. Blasphemy for prayers; the system for a heart and rap music for beats.' Um, talking about The Game. So he took those descriptions and like flesh them out or whatever. So there was a there was a uh—there was always this kind of like—this this uh. And so there was always this visual, um. So look up Nathan Cabrera, he's an amazing artist, but he also did a lot of comic book stuff. And so there was always this and he actually—and Nathan actually did all the artwork for the album so he did the cover. Uh, that's Nathan, right there. And of course everybody knows that there's different icons. The lock represents The Streets. That's Michael Young history, the skeletal hand. And then you got the The Game right here. That was kind of his logo and icon. So there was always visual elements to this. Bigger than just like like cinematic elements, bigger than just like music. So there was always a plan always a plan—always—to do more with the characters, right? And it was really just kind of using the album as this, this platform to start to build this story and flesh these characters out. And it went through different imagination so the first kind of imagination was this anime and I'm ever sitting on the bus with Bubby—shout-out to Bubby the Great, the bass player—and we were talking about—he was my bass player at the time. And we were talking I was like—I want to sit down. And he was kind of like he was probably the first person where I went to like a really serious deep dive into a actual storyline for The Cool. And I remember we sat down and I just rambled for like probably like a hour about—and me and him kind of went back and forth about fleshing out this storyline is if The Cool was an anime right. And unfortunately, I don't remember any of that conversation and we didn't have any like I don't think we recorded it like nothing we just kind of like went at it in my hopes was that I would just remember it or something like that. And so you lose a lot of what that particular era of what The Cool was going to become, right? And it was kind of, uh, you know. But it was always kind of up and down. And then from that period of time you come back and we do I think we we probably had done Lasers I was working on Lasers and before you know we're it's a it's a kind of a dead idea. And then you fast forward to a few years but maybe a couple of years ago I reached back out to Nacho and I was like 'Hey, you know I want to do? I want to start. I'm thinking about doing a Cool 2.' And—but it wasn't, it wouldn't have been on—there's also a story about how The Cool was supposed to be a a musical, like a play. Which it I mean still might be but there's there was talk about that. So there was always talks about having The Cool as multimedia. It was a game, there's actually a Cool video game like know if any you played it was on the website when The Cool first came out there's this videogame that they built for The Cool that would probably be interesting to find the code for and put that back up. But it was always talks to The Cool like a movie a comic book a film whatever like have these characters and then start playing with these characters. So a few years ago, I went back to it it was like off and to do it and to do it it's finna happen I'm finna flesh all these characters, et cetera. And at the same time it was like hm, maybe I should do another album of The Cool and pick up where he had no hustler for death no heaven for a gangster, right? And he gets shot and from that point for all intents and purposes the story of The Cool ends The Cool story just kind of stops at the end of The Cool on Food & Liquor right? so even though you get an album that comes after it and it's fleshed out but that's more backstory. But if we're talking in real time, chronologically where we left off with his story, it would have got left off at him um, getting shot in the head. By the kids who were gonna rob them with the same gun, right? Now there's two things that happen. In order to do The Cool album it would be different from what The Cool story would be. So you get like a split in the universe because I felt like the album—if you would—if I would've stuck to the storyline that you're about to see right now um. Or some of it. With The Cool and tried to make music out of it would be really weird, it'd probably be really corny. And it would be like really hard to do, it'd just be a lot. So it was like—they needed to split, they needed to just be a complete its own separate musical universe for The Cool and it'll probably have like different elements of different storylines about The Cool in it. But it'll kind of stick more to the program that you get from the first Cool album, if there was gonna be a Cool 2. The other universe was split into let's expand the storyline, let's just take the storyline and then just blow that up and it would certain things that you could take from The Cool album music universe and there's certain things that you couldn't and there's certain things that were it just becomes its own kind of spin-off, so to speak, right. So one thing that you do get is that continues in the music but it's still kind of backstory and it's very, very, subtle is on Drogas Wave, right?
Fiasco 	So on Drogas Wave, my last album, you don't—it doesn't necessarily reference The Cool, but it does talk about very subtly or introduces the concept of how he was actually resurrected. And the way that The Cool was actually resurrected, or the way, the way it's kind of being, you know, the way I'm painting it in my mind is that he when he was drowned. So remember that he was pouring out the liquor and then they filled up his casket? He was resurrected like that. The same way that the LongChains—the characters that are kind of built and set up in Drogas Wave—how they come back to life. They come back to life when they drown, right, when they're thrown off the slave ship they sink they drown and then they come back to life. And there's something interesting with that too which I'll maybe talk about because the Drogas Wave is the same as The Cool. There's this whole other separate universe outside of the music that is Drogas Wave and the story of the LongChains and stuff like that and there's references and stuff like that to it. So these when you see like icons like this, on the album, it's similar kind of sort of icons that are on The Cool album. Like they're representative of something. It's not just some like just haphazardly they're. Like there's actually elements to it that are kind of get built and characters and stuff like that so. But anyway we'll talk about that kind of talk about that later. But only thing that the Drogas Wave universe kind of speaks to The Cool universe is that it sets up why he was resurrected and and why—and the way he was resurrected.
Fiasco 	So is The Cool evil? Right? Is The Cool an evil character, which is one thing. And that's kind of still up in the air. But there is a hint to it in that the LongChains for the most part like—should I talk about that? The LongChains aren't necessarily evil characters there is one evil character in the LongChains but for the most part they they're good. And it kind of has to do with the way that they were resurrected. But The Cool—the way he was resurrected—he was resurrected through Hennessey right. So Food & Liquor, Hennessy, liquor's bad. So he kind of gets resurrected as this negative character—if not negative, very neutral right. So—and the music is that kind of maybe The Cool feels like a negative, neutral character. But in the story the Cool, he is very much so a good guy right. Or striving to be a good guy. So here we go here's the story of the, The Cool 2—and how it would branch out.
Fiasco 	So if you remember the artwork for The Cool. Which is this right it's that. And I released this a not too long ago around the same time. But it wasn't it wasn't necessarily gonna be for the—well, no. So well so that was The Cool 2. Right and this is again this is Nacho, Nathan Cabrera coming back. It's all about The Cool—and if you just tuned in this is like "The Cool Wiki." Details of the storylines and some behind the same stuff and some some some uh connective points, uh, about The Cool. The Cool Multiverse, as I call it, right. So you get like this more expanded kind of cover or art right? And you see on The Cool art you got three, you got Michael Young History represented right here here you got The Streets and then over here you got The Game. On this work they're still there so you still got The Streets, you still got The Cool himself. And you still got The Game right here. And then what happens is you get three more characters that get plugged into the universe, right? Right. And then you get this very important piece right here this key it's like keyhole now and then you can see it's like the skeleton that's there right? And to a certain degree each of these are connected somehow to the skeleton, right? So you get The Cool's hand is the right hand and his right hand was all bones right so you get that so that, he stands for the right arm right. And remember the right arm decaying is this this idea of a the decay of righteousness, right? So the right hand represents that righteousness. But you got that you got two arms, two, two legs, the head and the heart. And of course the heart is the heart right? For The Streets so you see it kind of goes to the heart right there right this other character here represents the other, um. I think he represents the arm. This character here represents one of the legs. And I think this character—no, no, no is it—no, no. So this character here represents the legs, this character here represents another leg, and this character here is—no, no, no, pull it back. This character here—sorry—this character here is one of the legs. This character here is one of the legs, this character here is what is the other arm is the left arm. The head is the head, right? So The Co—The Game's head is the head. And what it basically was, was. All of these separate pieces needed to be put back together. And when you put back—when you put them back together something will happen, right. And what you had to do was go find all of these different pieces. And so, jumping from the music like—leave the music alone—and then just get into this weird, like anime, like almost RPG-type situation where the storyline if The Cool was a movie or a TV show this is what it would be about. You would get backstory of Michael Young History through the album The Cool, you would get his kind of story and being a gangster then you would get his resurrection and then when it ends you would get this, right?
Fiasco 	But there's something that happened that which—in, in this in, in the album on Food & Liquor "The Cool", it doesn't it doesn't show that anybody else is there, right? But in the storyline The Cool there actually is somebody there when he gets resurrected, right? And that person is this dude that we call the uh, I think he was like the Wine Maker or something like that. And basically what he did was he created the concoctions. He could create concoctions, so to speak. He was like a almost like a Somalia or like a Wine Mixer. Like he could mix all these different he's based like a chemist and he can mix all this stuff together and you know. In this case resurrect Michael Young History. Michael Young History had the right hand, which is one of the important kind of pieces, right? And this person was going to train Michael Young History about his powers that he had in his right arm, right? And then give him the actual story of how all of this kind of works, right? And what he needed to do. So it kind of gave him—this dude was gonna teach him and give him purpose. Michael Young History was this evil kind of character but he uh, he's learning to kind of be a good guy in the story, right. Then he goes out on this quest—or is put on this quest where he has to go and find the rest of these pieces to complete this, this body, right. And if he completed this body, something will happen. And I want to tell you I was what will happen 'cause I don't wanna go too far down the story the story hole but that was the idea, right. Is you expand these characters, you introduce new characters and they each have a different piece of part to this whole you pull all this part together. Sorry, I'm laughing at this thing. You pull all these different parts together right and then you get this new body and then you get this other thing that happens right? So one of those other characters so that will focus today on this guy this character right. So this character is actually... make it to it—yeah. Is this guy, him, right. So this guy—make sure you like and subscribe and do all that good stuff, right. So this guy right here he was, he represents again this, this character this guy and it's this, this. Knot. Some of y'all might recognize what this is. It's like the knot of existence or something like that, I forgot what it was. But anyway so it's this guy some kind of maybe a little Dhalsim action going on. A little levitation action going on, right. And this guy is uh, he was a monk, right and—sorry. He was a monk. And what he possesses is one of the legs, right? So he has one of the legs. But he uh, you know. Each of these... each of these, uh, each of these different parts gives you different powers right. So each one of these things give you different different sets of power so if you have the right leg you have this power, if you have that leg, if you got this arm gives you that power, gives this whatever, right? But this guy he recognized that the leg that he had was uh, was... was... was evil. Or it could be used for like it was just—not necessarily evil but it depends on what you do with it. So it has all of this power. If you get that somebody gets to this negative then they'll become like super negative. They'll have like super powers, whatever. So he uh, he cut the leg off. And like fed it to uh, like some birds. So it was like the sky burial where he cut it off, grounded up so that piece is like the uh, uh, destroyed, right? And he walks around on like this uh, he kind of levitates walks around his cane so he basically doesn't, doesn't have the leg right? So that piece is kind of like destroyed but there's a, there's a certain way for him to kind of get it back right and he's like a monk who lives like somewhere in the mountains, or stuff, or something like that. So yeah, so that was that that that uh that piece. And then each of these characters was, you know has like a level of backstory to 'em and it didn't get like fully fleshed out but it was like okay let's do a bunch of character designs, get the characters, get the characters kind of like fleshed out see them on page, add some life to them and some color and then like you know continue on with the story. So it was like do the a lot of pre-work and then start to attach story to it. Then kind of start to put them together like, like have these characters kind of interact and intersect in different, interesting ways as you kind of build out the storyline. So this was all from like a couple years ago, I think, a few years ago. And it was really just meant to be visualizations of these characters and then go back and start to write the uh, the story and craft and everything else around them. And again, this wouldn't have been in the uh, this wouldn't have been music, right. This wouldn't have been like music. This would have been like if The Cool was going to be an anime, The Cool was gonna be a manga, if The Cool was gonna be a some type of live-action situation and you have him as one of the, one of the characters. And so, I have the uh.... there's, there's these other characters, of course.
Fiasco 	This dude is like, represents Chaos and it was—he has the left arm. And his chaotic nature, he's basically just like this super wild beast and he has this the, he has the left arm. This character has the other leg and he's, he's a like a tech, like a tech person but like super... uh... he's like super greedy. So that's why you see like the snake eating itself. So he's like this tech corporate, super high tech guy but he's very uh greedy and in and of itself so that's why he has this ouroboros, the snake that eats his own tail kind of a situation, that's what he represents. But he's super basic. There was a new updated version of like the character for The Cool, there was a new updated version for the character that would be the uh, The Streets. And there was somewhat of a updated version of a character who would be the uh, The Game. Now The Cool, he was able to—they basically had like powers where he was a ruler. Like he could rule. Like his right hand gave him that like certain powers to rule in nuance, didn't really give him like supernatural powers like that, like he could throw a magic fire or anything like that. But he gave him the rule. And actually his arm—he had his whole arm iced out. Like he had it like diamonds, and it was so like the visualization. So like the visual of it is so nuts, right. Where his uh, his whole right arm was like iced out with diamonds and gold and stuff like that. But he basically became like that, the power of kind of be like a pharaoh. Which kind of speaks the Pharaoh Height but not really. And this Chaos dude was this wild beast who lived in the forest and what you had to do was basically go and get all of the pieces, put the pieces together. And again, the last person you have to get would be The Streets because you—I mean The Game—because you would have to get the skull and you would get the head. And then you would be able to do something. And what you would be able to do, is uh, still kind of like uh in the air. But it's not—this was never meant to be music, right? This was never meant to, just so we're clear, this was never meant to be like the musical piece of The Cool. This was stuff that was building upon the universe and the characters within The Cool to kind of animate and build out some type of story. You meet, you meet Michael Young History, I think you meet his daughter pops up and she—I have the, the sketch somewhere. Um, trying to open this file for you guys. Okay. Alright, let me see how you do this.
Fiasco 	Yeah, there we go! So you got... this was the, this was the like the synopsis of it. Right? Where we had this weird, uh, like this, the storyline. What was it? Five pieces all of which were gifts from various demons. When all five pieces including the heart of The Streets are joined they create big death, ooh who can kill this entire world and create a new one as directed by the person who joined the pieces. The skull of The Game is the strongest piece, it is the most strategic and contains all of the senses. He wears many faces and can speak in many tongues. He plans years and years in advance so this is basically just like a layout of those characters. So like I'll talk about that the dude with the left leg, right? The Monk guy, who you just saw. So, so the right leg belongs to this monk. The monk has removed the leg and as so as to try and regain some of his humanity. So when you get these pieces they like take away like your humanity, like your soul, and stuff like that. So they say he has fashioned the leg into a cane which he keeps with him so this piece right here—bam. That right there is actually the piece. That's actually the leg, right? But he had it disconnected from his body to, uh.. So he can get back some of his humanity. So he's fashioned the leg into a horn or cane which he keeps with him. The monk is the Tibetan Bonebreaker who carried out Tibetan sky burial funeral rites. He uses a prosthetic leg to walk on. He is very powerful in his intellect rivals The Game. He has a great wealth of knowledge about the human body from having such a close close relationship to him via his job as a bone breaker. The monk awoke during his own cremation and thus it is the reason for his physical disfigurement. He represents a parallel and how Big Death was broken up and the different parts of the body were taken by different demons at the beginning of time. So that is where it gets really strange with The Cool. And again, this is just like some backstory and some universe for uh the storyline of The Cool and where my thoughts were in between albums or thinking about how to redo or reinsert or redress or reproach the story behind The Cool. Um, again, the music piece is a different—it's a different angle it's a little bit more. I think it's a little bit more realistic and just focuses on, uh, more so how is is with the, with with The Cool the album, the first one. But that never kind of got off the ground. But the storyline as you can see with just the story itself went at all these different crazy places in different ways and spots and stuff like that. Um. And, you know, it may or may not still kind of have some life in it to turn it into something. But I felt like that would be cool to tell you guys about here on the first YouTube uh, the first kind of YouTube live to give you some backstory on the ideas and some of the thoughts and some of the places where the thinking with The Cool went and it wasn't just all a bunch of like hip hop and cool, dope songs and stuff like that. It actually went into some very weird, interesting kind of anime comic book deep, y'know, layered storyline with all these different kind of fleshed out characters and new additions and deeper than you think. And it's all these layers and relationships. And it's the same with Drogas Wave, too. So with this album and the storyline is scenario with the LongChains it is just as deep. There's tons of different characters that were, that were kind of added into it and there's actually a lot of writing this. The Cool 2 never got to a state where it was beyond just character development into actual narrative. The only narrative is kind of like what you can kind of suggest from getting the background of these different characters and having them interplay and work together. I think it might be a little bit um of that maybe a little bit of narrative that kind of got generated somewhere but the Wave—Drogas Wave—and the LongChains that actually got two narratives so it's actually story and and dialogue and different things that are down for that and are still kind of in the process of writing that out. But it's super interesting, it's super cool. And I hope that one day—uh, someday—you know get the time to sit down and put it all together for you all, you'll be able to experience these storylines which I think are so cool. Which may be a little too deep to turn into songs or they may be too um, just too meticulous and—you know, they wouldn't speak well as a record but actually would look really good as a novel, or maybe even some type of animation, or something like that. Or something live action. Maybe that all will happen. So, just want to share that with you all. You know. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it was eye-opening for some of you hopefully hopefully some of you it kind of made you added a little bit more into your Lupe cannon about certain things and how deep these stories go and where they at in certain states. So, with that piece, hope you all have a good day. This will—we'll leave this up so you can like check it out tell a friend. Subscribe, hit the like button, tell me what you think. What you think about the story. Maybe—even if some of you, what do you think? Do you think we should go back and do this and really put some invest some time and some resources into like bringing this to life? Is this something that you'd be interested in seeing? Or is it something that you think might just be better left where it is on the cutting room floor in this state um and then, you know, we'll go from there. So let me know in the comments, hit me up, tell me what you think. Tell a friend, subscribe, and I hope that you all have a wonderful day, alright? Peace and uh, much love to ya.
== Gallery ==
File:Lupe Fiasco - Lupe Fiasco's The Cool.jpg|Lupe Fiasco's The Cool album artwork
File:Lupe Fiasco - December 18 2015.jpg|@LupeFiasco: "The Cool" celebrates its 8th birthday today. The Cool is dead....long live The Cool 2. Winter 2017 ✌🏾💀"
== References ==
Category:2020 videos
Category:Lupe Fiasco's The Cool
Category:Videos