Chicago Ideas

Chicago Ideas is an American nonprofit organization founded in 2010 by Brad Keywell.Moran, Gwen (September 27, 2013). "Groupon Co-Founder Shares How He Created an Idea and Creativity Hotbed in Chicago". Entrepreneur. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, the organization's aim is to "bring people from different backgrounds together to focus on the gap: what other people aren't talking about.""About the Organization | Chicago Ideas" They hold the annual seven-day festival, Chicago Ideas Week (CIW), bringing hundreds of thought leaders and innovators to speak on a variety of topics ranging from leadership to science and technology.
American rapper Lupe Fiasco spoke on October 11, 2012, for "Music: Tuning In." The video was uploaded to YouTube on March 14, 2013."Lupe Fiasco: Solely for the Soul". YouTube. March 14, 2013.
== Interview ==
Title 	Date 	Video
"Lupe Fiasco: Solely for the Soul" 	October 11, 2012 	
Join music critics Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis for an intimate discussion with Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist Lupe Fiasco, and learn about the inspiration and motivation behind his music.	Join music critics Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis for an intimate discussion with Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist Lupe Fiasco, and learn about the inspiration and motivation behind his music.	Join music critics Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis for an intimate discussion with Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist Lupe Fiasco, and learn about the inspiration and motivation behind his music.
Greg Kot 	At the ripe old age of 30, I think now?
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, I'm 30.
Greg Kot 	You are an elder statesman of hip-hop. You're on your fourth album. Most guys—and gals—in the game, as they say, make it halfway there if they're lucky.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah.
Greg Kot 	Um. So the longevity of it is one thing. And even before that, first album came out of 2006. You had been, you know, experimenting with different styles. Figuring out how to do it. What strikes me is-is really amazing about that first record, which you are referencing on this latest record, Food & Liquor—with Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor—a landmark album 2006. Fully formed artist. I mean, that's-that's still the standard I think that a lot of people hold up for you.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, yeah.
Greg Kot 	You know, like it came out of the gate, you know, this guy's got something on the ball. Now, just briefly, if you can explain, how do you get to that stage with that first record? Because it didn't feel like a like a first attempt.
Lupe Fiasco 	Uh, that was the culmination of uh, maybe. That's 2006. I got my first record deal in 2000, um. And-and it kind of boarded itself. I got my second record deal in 2003 and it was another aborted process. And, you know, prior to that it was the-the underground, you know, crucible, you know. Creating the artist, and the ups and downs, and the test kitchens, and, you know, the failed recipes. And, you know, putting all of the the things together to become you know an artist, so to speak. So high school talent shows, you know, every-everything in between. Learning how to be a rapper, you know, learning how to put album together, going through the mixtape circuit and testing and experimenting with different, you know, the physics of rap, so to speak you know. And different ways to express myself but also, you know, growing up in it, you know. And then attaining a certain level of maturity, and a certain level of sense of purpose in that period, as well, you know. So this is artistic you know kind of elevation, as well, as this kind of, you know, person-man elevation.
Greg Kot 	Right, but did you feel it was a blessing that you didn't get to, you know, have a record out in 2001 after that first dealing, or 2003?
Lupe Fiasco 	Nah, they were all upsetting. You know, it wasn't a—there were upsets. I was definitely, you know, 'cause you-you feel. I guess it's what you spoke up before, as far as longevity, you definitely feel that there's a clock on rappers, you know. And if you don't make it by a certain time and you become obsolete, you know. There's a certain sense of—there's a planned obsolescence within it, within this art form, specifically rap, you know. Because it's so young, you know. See any old rappers, successful rappers. I think we're looking at Jay-Z now, it's kind of like, you know, the inspiration to say no, you can do this when you're 40. Do this when you're 45, you can do this when you're 50.
Jim DeRogatis	Yeah, but he's not that good anymore. You know it, man. You know it.
Lupe Fiasco 	I will not get into that. Um.
Jim DeRogatis	Chuck D is still bringing it, though.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, yeah.
Jim DeRogatis	Chuck D still makes great music.
Lupe Fiasco 	There's, it's, there's-there's various people that you can point to that that show that that clock, you know. It's kind of nothing to avoid. But like I said, it's still a young art form, so it's still kind of like I got to do it now, I gotta do it now. Or, you know, nobody will take me seriously when I'm 35.
Jim DeRogatis	Mm-hmm. Ideas Week. Let's get into the heavy stuff right away, 'cause this album, Lupe, is absolutely extraordinary.
Lupe Fiasco 	Thank you.
Jim DeRogatis	Howard Zinn.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah.
Jim DeRogatis	Alright, that is not a name people would associate as a major inspiration on hip hop.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jim DeRogatis	His influence looms large throughout this record. How?
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah. Um. Howard Zinn uh, you know, the author of People's History, United States of America um, offered up an alternative view, you know. The poor man's view, the poor man's history of America, the average man's history of America.
Jim DeRogatis	Custer wasn't the hero.
Lupe Fiasco 	Custer was not the hero, he definitely was not the hero. Um, but he provided, you know, a context, you know. He provided a—I-I always say that, you know, I live in and living in the hood, living in the ghetto—what would have killed me, was if I had not known that downtown existed, but you can get out, so to speak. You can going into other places. So it's the same relationship that I have with Howard, um. And I got a chance to work with him, and meet him, and participate in a voices of the People's History of the United States. He gave me a different—he allowed me, you know, the. He gave me a different perspective on, you can tell this story in a different way and it's just as credible and it's just as real it's just as factual it's just it's just as philosophical is just as deep as the standardized way. As the more practiced, academically accepted way. And also because of that he-he got beat up for you know. He took a couple ass whippings by the, by the press, you know, by the government but various amounts of people. Only later in his life he became accepted. You know, it became a part of the normal. We're still fighting now to even—we're literally fighting to get, you know, his book taught in schools, you know. To give, to—so kids can have that you know that a alternative perspective as well. So just in his life and his works you know it became a source of inspiration for this particular working great American rap album.
Greg Kot 	Well, he wasn't taught in schools. He still isn't as far, as I know, so how did you come to him?
Lupe Fiasco 	Um, I came to I was reached out it was reached out by someone at my record label to take advantage of opportunity to be a part of a-a documentary from the History Channel. Which was basically, you know, celebrities reading chapters of Howard's book on stage in front of a camera.
Jim DeRogatis	Mmm.
Lupe Fiasco 	You know, and so I got to meet him and became immersed into work because I had to perform it. And it went from there to just becoming you know friends with his editor, and different people, and becoming completely immersed, you know, in what he was saying. And just his mission, you know and.
Jim DeRogatis	How would your life have been different if you discovered that book at 18?
Lupe Fiasco 	Oh man, I don't know. But it's funny because I discovered a lot of that stuff when I was in third grade. I discovered a lot of what he was saying it was more of a reinforcement, you know, of stuff that my mother would have just kind of a glancing. Who is Malcolm X, why is his picture on the wall in our house, you know? Why do I live in the ghetto, you know. Why-why don't I live in you know, Northbrook, you know.
Jim DeRogatis	Where we have no stories, except the food and liquor around the corner.
Lupe Fiasco 	Indeed, indeed. So Howard gave me a, you know, understanding at 26, 27, why that is and in a chain of events and, you know. Points in history why I—a black man in America—was born in the ghetto on the West Side of Chicago.
Greg Kot 	Well this album takes the macro view. Um, unlike a lot of "pop music," where it's kind of about today, what's what's going on today. And not that your album doesn't, but it definitely seems to take a wider viewpoint in the Zinn tradition of the how did we get here? And that's not something you do kind of in a tossed off way, this is seems to be, as Jim was saying, I think kind of a product of everything you've done before. You couldn't have gotten to this place without making those three albums prior. So how did you get to this spot?
Lupe Fiasco 	Um, I always say as an artist, you know. Being a vocal artist, you have to talk about something, you know. And I'm always the person that once I exhaust a certain subject matter, um. You know, I kind of wanted I never one do the same thing twice. But what happens, is, as I look back at the records, and I look back at the arc of my career, it all seemed. Is, it's less about, you know, one moment and that's it, it is more just a continuous process, you know. So I'm kind of, you know, in-in-in the midst of you know these four albums there. To me they're all the same, it's one, long continuous project. There is no separation, and it's just becoming better, you know, or becoming a better artist, you know, becoming how do I tell this story better, you know.
Greg Kot 	But the kid in Food & Liquor one, the first record. Is-is very much about that street corner. You're talking about your neighborhood in your upbringing and now you're to.
Jim DeRogatis	And making Star Wars jokes—
Greg Kot 	Well, true.
Lupe Fiasco 	Indeed.
Jim DeRogatis	And rapping about skateboard.
Lupe Fiasco 	Indeed, indeed.
Greg Kot 	But this is a much broader, you know, context here, you know, we're talking about American history in a Zinn-like manner, you know.
Lupe Fiasco 	Well, I got to travel, you know. That was one of the, you know. The other parts of being a musician, a touring musician, is you travel. You see America, you see the rest of the world. So I've been everywhere, except South America, mainland Asia. And in that process of seeing America and all those different formats and forces, you know, the definition of America kept changing as I would go to a different city. And it wasn't, it didn't fit the mold that I was told that this is, you know, the land of the free, and the home of the brave, and a beautiful this and a beautiful that. It was like, no, there's some very ugly things here, you know. I never knew about Pine Ridge. What is Pine Ridge, South Dakota? You know. What is Camden, New Jersey? Why does that look like this, how was how was this. How do we live—if our country is so rich and so beautiful and so powerful—why do we possess one of the poorest places in the Western Hemisphere? Where the poverty rate and an infant mortality rate is second only to Haiti?
Greg Kot 	Yeah.
Lupe Fiasco 	You know, and just to discover that, oh that's America, too, Jesus Christ. I need to make a song about that. You know. In this process, you know. So it's-it's taking the lessons that I learned from from Howard and kind of, you know, trying to mimic some of that bravery, you know. And mimic some of that—I call it Baldwinian rudeness. James Baldwin was a big force in this as well to capture some of that rudeness in the truth.
Greg Kot 	And you're getting stick for it because there, you know. The pushback on this record is, don't preach those, Kanye! Don't preach those. And we're talking about, you know, you're turning into Kanye, and you're telling us how to, how to—
Jim DeRogatis	You know, I was scanning all the reviews. I've never seen rock critics use the word "hectoring" anymore.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah.
Jim DeRogatis	You're apparently now a hectorer.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, I don't know what that means.
Jim DeRogatis	I don't fucking know what that means, either. You're like an easy dude you talk to, I ain't feeling hectored.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, I didn't know what hector—I didn't know what mansplaining was, either. I didn't know what that meant, yeah. I've definitely seen critics go deep, deep into the into these—
Jim DeRogatis	Those goddamn critics, man, they so suck.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah.
Greg Kot 	But in the same way that, you know. Kanye West took the stand on certain things and-and got written off. And I, you know, the same similar things are happening here. Uh, in terms of, how do you address that, you know? "You're scolding us, you're finger pointing, you're preachy."
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah. Well, I always say this. And you have to develop these answers over time, because sometimes you don't know, honestly, as an artist, because it's new. It's the first time I've heard hectoring. I didn't understand what it was. But um, you know. And me kind of thinking about that, you know. Malcolm X was a preacher, you know. Martin Luther King was a preacher. Jesus was a preacher, you know. And people have no problem with them being preachers. But at the same time, too, people had one hell of a problem with them being preachers, you know. Um, so what side do you take? Do you take the side of the Romans, you know? Do you take the side of the Ku Klux Klan, you know? Do you take the side of a coin tail Pro, um, and you say, "yeah, they're preachers and they, you know. They should just be, you know, they should—why they gotta talk to us so much? We kind of know." Do you take that side, you know, or do you take the side of the people, you know, of their message and what they were saying, you know. And how deep and meaningful it was, and the risks that they took. To now, you know, after the unfortunate demises. Um, that they are the standard of humanity. Those preachers are the standard of humanity from a religious context. And if you're atheist, okay. Then you have James Baldwin, you know. And, you know, like if you don't like homo—Black homosexuals, okay, then okay there's Malcolm X. And if you don't like, uh, Black Muslims, okay then here's M—you know, here's Martin Luther King. And if you don't like Martin Luther King, then here's Howard Zinn, you know. Here were these people pointing fingers, you know, who are now the standards what humanity is, you know. And morality, and ethics. You know, and compassion. So hell yeah, I'm a preacher, you goddamn right.
Jim DeRogatis	You use the word 'taking risks.'
Lupe Fiasco 	Yes.
Jim DeRogatis	I'ma leave personalities out of this, it's irrelevant.
Lupe Fiasco 	Mm hm.
Jim DeRogatis	The murder rate in Chicago right now.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yes.
Jim DeRogatis	Is higher than that of Sao Paulo Brazil then Mexico City then Kabul.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yes.
Jim DeRogatis	We're closing in on 500 deaths this year.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yes.
Jim DeRogatis	At the same time, we have a new sound in Chicago hip hop. It's called drill music.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah.
Jim DeRogatis	It's, uh, it's nihilistic. It is the most extreme form of gangster rap we've had. You have said, I quote, "it scares me." People have said, "I'mma kill the motherfucker" in response.
Lupe Fiasco 	Mm hm.
Jim DeRogatis	Um, fearless. You're saying this isn't what we should be talking about people, we have better things in hip hop to address.
Lupe Fiasco 	Well, I think you have to back up a little bit to the. Whatever you want to talk about, is whatever you want to talk about, you know. I think, uh, Francis Bacon made some of the most vile paintings I have ever seen, you know. I think that a Damien Hirst, you know. Some of his paintings are just, they're gory and, you know, brutal, you know. I don't have a problem with uh, you know, with pornography in essence. I don't have a problem with a, you know, excess of certain things, excessive of violence in music as an art form. Um. But what I was speaking to was the culture that is behind that. The actual lie. The people who don't rap, you know. These are, these are the kids who just so happen to rap this and they can put it in a package for us to understand. Um, but the-the majority of the people don't rap, you know. But they carry everything that are in those raps in their minds and in their hearts. And they express themselves with actual violence, you know. An actual misogyny and, you know, an actual. These very terrible things, so to speak. So that's what my concern lies, because the music is very superficial, it's just the surface. But if you don't recognize that behind that music, you know, that thin layer. 'Cause there are only so many so you can count on my finger now—one hand, sorry—behind that is a very devastating tidal wave of youth violence, and youth exploitation, and the product of the last 60, 70 years, you know, of this country kind of overlooking, you know, the ghetto. For the sake of whatever.
Jim DeRogatis	But does it outrage you? Let me get Howard Zinn on your ass. Chicago Ideas Week. High-minded celebration of great thoughts. Soon to come, Chicago humanities festival. These events all sell out, a lot of money is spent. Corporations sponsor them.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah.
Jim DeRogatis	Where are the freaking hundreds of people sitting around talking about the murder rate being higher than Kabul? In this city.
Lupe Fiasco 	Well, I think that we have to, we have to be very honest with ourselves and we have to look in a mirror to a certain extent. We here. Do we dump all this money into these events? There's kids dying right now. There's a kid who can't eat right now. But like you said, we have these high-minded conventions where we spend millions and millions of dollars, you know, for the sake of what? What is the point of these ideas, y'know? What was the point of all this artsy-fartsyness, you know, if the kids are not here. And they don't hear it, right. And this is you know I think that we do more from us you know trying to be to create some type of civility about ourselves and you know mass, masturbate ourselves and our own intelligent little gatherings as kids die. A few blocks from here.
Jim DeRogatis	Yeah.
Lupe Fiasco 	You know, a few miles from here, so. We definitely have to look at how can we reappropriate some of the the extensive finances and the red carpets of gratitude that chase and JP Morgan lay out for us this evening. Will their money be better spent, better-better elsewhere?
Greg Kot 	Well, following up to that artsy-fartsy—call what you will—that's what you've made. That's the album's you made.
Lupe Fiasco 	It is very artsy-fartsy.
Greg Kot 	And you put it out there—
Jim DeRogatis	It's hectoring.
Greg Kot 	—Hectoring. What kind of a voice can that-that-that hectoring voice, that voice of the preacher that's on this record, um. Talking in this macro sense about America. What kind of effect can that have? Just the other day you told me you thought "I fear that my city is dying, I fear Chicago is dying." What kind of effect can that have on-on the conversation on-on change, on social change, if at all?
Lupe Fiasco 	I was a—funny. I was when I bought a book here about education in a gift shop—make sure you go to gift shop—about a book called Education. And there's a chapter in there, that I literally just read like an hour ago. And it spoke about I consider myself a cultural worker in the field of public pedagogy. Yeah? The-the cultural politician, so to speak. Where my part to play in this, um. And it's just as credible as the genuine politician, yeah? The genuine sociologist, you know. The genuine architect of civility, or what have you. Is that, you know, my music within these machines, you know. To be a part of these corporations, and be a part of this process and everything else. Is to, you know, start these conversations in the, in the realm that I'm in, you know. To bring some of these high-minded kind of things or if you want to call those these intellectual things or these uh, you know. To have the ability to tell you—in a public forum at that—I think my city is dying. So, the people who read that say, "what the fuck is he talking about? Chicago is not dying, is he crazy?" Then I say, "well have you been to Chicago? And let's say, oh hi. Have you been to Madison and Kenzie, have you been to K-town, have you been to Englewood?"
Jim DeRogatis	South of the South.
Lupe Fiasco 	The rest of Chicago, the majority of Chicago. Not just your little area, you know, of niceness and happiness. And it gets you thinking, you know. And I think that is my part to play, you know. I think that is my role, and it kind of justifies, you know, what some people can look at as being the childishness of hip-hop, you know. The childishness of what I do, the ineffectuality of what I do. But I consider myself not to be a musician, or not to be a rapper. My main position is I'm a cultural worker in the field of public pedagogy.
Jim DeRogatis	I think it needs to be injected here. For people who've been listening to you speak, and may not know your music, that there is also a tremendous amount of joy on this album.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah.
Jim DeRogatis	You know, it is a not a-a hectoring history lesson. You know, there are jokes, you-you leven everything with humor.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah.
Jim DeRogatis	Um, you know, it is, it's not a drag, it's not a lecture at school.
Lupe Fiasco 	No, I think if you, the, for. If nobody indulges in the music that deeply, if you just look at the album packaging. The album packaging is all black, there's no words.
Jim DeRogatis	Did you ever see Spinal Tap, by the way?
Lupe Fiasco 	You're the third white guy...
Jim DeRogatis	It's an old joke, but it's a classic. You gotta, the old black album cover, yeah.
Lupe Fiasco 	So there's no packaging, there's no words, there's no images. The only thing that all, that is actually in the packaging of the entire album, is what I legally had to put there. So the FBI warning, the parental advisory sticker, et. cetera, et. cetera. There's no words or anything else, and people say "oh, that's so dark and somber and it relates to, you know, the darkness of America." And it's like no, no, no, no. That could be one interpretation, I don't want to, you know, belittle your interpretation. But for me, it's my first memories. I remember way back when I was still in the womb, and uh. Everything was black, it had no context. I didn't know where I was, but I had no fear of not knowing where I was. It was the known, unknown, so to speak. And it was the most beautiful time in my existence, you know. This all blackness, you know, and that is why that is there. So from the, from the—
Jim DeRogatis	Well, and there's that part in the autobiography of Malcolm X where he riffs on the meanings of the word 'black.' But Spike Lee brought to life in the movie, too. You know, he said why is black become bad, black is beautiful, right.
Lupe Fiasco 	Black is very beautiful.
Greg Kot 	Well, now that we've emerged from the amniotic fluid. We got 27, 26 seconds, unfortunately. This conversation could go all night. But, every six months—and sometimes you kinda raise these rumors yourself—I'm retired, I'm getting out of here.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah.
Greg Kot 	Like I can't take this anymore. And for a while there over the summer, when things were getting really heated, I really felt because. I don't know if you follow this man on Twitter, but it's-it's-it's a an education in itself, very transparent, very emotional, very honest. It felt like you-you were hit—talk about some dark days.
Jim DeRogatis	You've quit more times than Jordan, man.
Lupe Fiasco 	Well, you know.
Greg Kot 	So what's going on, what's the truth about that?
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, I am. From the commercial space. And moving more into the artistic space. Hence why I bought that book, you know. To study, and trying to understand how to progress this art form truly as art and less as a commercial exploit. And more of a cultural, you know, kind of thing. A cultural institution. So that's what I'm pursuing, you know. Right now we're trying to build—me and a few of the fellow masters of the craft of this rap thing are in works now to put together a guild, you know. An artist guild for the sake of the art, just for the sake of art, you know. So that is my—I think that-that's what I'm leaning to.
Jim DeRogatis	Wow, nothing like small plans.
Lupe Fiasco 	Well, you know. I try be ambitious as I possibly can be. But, I will uh. You know, I'm definitely retiring from the commercial space after my, you know. I have I have two albums after this one. The part two of Food & Liquor II, and my final commercial exploit, Skulls. And then I'm off into artsy and fartsy land.
Jim DeRogatis	Oh, man. I'll believe it when I see it. Thank you, Lupe Fiasco.
== References ==
Category:2012 interviews
Category:Organizations