New Music Fix Daily

New Music Fix Daily is a British digital radio program that launched on June 5, 2023, to BBC Radio 6 Music. It is hosted by Deb Grant and Tom Ravenscroft, who broadcast live from Salford, Manchester. In 2024, American rapper Lupe Fiasco was interviewed, the episode airing on July 22, 2024. The background music included "Samurai," "Mumble Rap," "Til Eternity," and "Bigfoot.""Lupe Fiasco Chats 'Samurai'". BBC Sounds. July 22, 2024.
As a separate show, Matt Everitt of New Music Fix obtained a brief statement from Fiasco on Samurai. It aired on June 28, 2024. Fiasco stated in the recording, "Hi, my name is Lupe Fiasco. The name of my album is Samurai. It's based off of a voicemail that was spoken by Amy Winehouse on a documentary that I've watched. And that's why the album is called Samurai. I recorded it in L.A. in my living room during the pandemic. I worked on it with a friend name Soundtrakk who's responsible for producing a lot of my music throughout the years and a team of musicians called Open Session. One track that best sums up the album is probably the title track, "Samurai." It's meant to be a portrait of Amy Winehouse and that track was the initial track I recorded I think that captures what I was trying to accomplish with the record.""With Hiatus Kaiyote, Lupe Fiasco and Aaron Frazer". BBC Sounds. June 28, 2024.
== Description ==
Deb hears from veteran US rapper Lupe Fiasco about his personal new album 'Samurai' and its surprising links to Amy Winehouse.
== Transcript ==
 	
Deb Grant 	A real, real treat for you now. A few weeks ago, myself and Tom caught up with U.S. veteran rapper, and all-round legend, Lupe Fiasco. Buy his new album Samurai on the 1st & 15th label. Here's our chat.
 	
Deb Grant 	This New Music Fix Daily on BBC Radio 6 Music. We are absolutely honored and privileged to welcome Lupe to the programme. Hello, Lupe.
Lupe Fiasco 	Hey, how you doing?
Deb Grant 	Very well, lovely to speak to you. How are you?
Lupe Fiasco 	I'm good, I'm honored and privileged.
Deb Grant 	Awwww, that's very.
Lupe Fiasco 	You put me in a very honorary and privileged class.
Deb Grant 	That's very kind of you to say.
Lupe Fiasco 	I guess I'm better than the proletarian right now. I'm elitist.
Tom Ravenscroft	Yeah, you are. You're higher than that now, yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about your new album, Samurai, then? We've read this is a record you put together in which you kinda want to serve the rap community but at the same time it being one of your most personal works. Can you explain sort of how perhaps you brought these two ideas together for this record?
Lupe Fiasco 	Well it works, the title of the album comes from an Amy Winehouse documentary.
Tom Ravenscroft	Okay.
Lupe Fiasco 	—That was done a few years ago. And there was a scene where she's leaving a voicemail to her producer friend. And was like "hey, I keep coming up with these battle raps, if you wanna battle, come through, I'mma kill you 'cause I'm a samurai." And I was like "oh, oh, oh, that's juicy." And that was kind of the inspiration for the record. So that's where the title comes from. But I've done martial arts my whole life, I use samurai swords on a daily basis, so it speaks to me in that way too, but it was less about that and more about what if Amy Winehouse was a battle rapper kinda angle. And it started off as kind of one song, like a portrait, to kind of capture that. I'm a big Amy Winehouse fan, all these other pieces and then it kinda developed into well, y'know, how did she get her powers? Then it was like well what did the battle look like, and what happened after the battle, and all these kind of things. It became like this mini little project and kinda evolved into what you have now, which is the album.
Deb Grant 	So these are like several very sorta like disciplines you're committed to, aside from music. You have martial arts, you have the portraitures, do all of those things connect together or is martial arts something or painting portraits something that you do to take a break from music?
Lupe Fiasco 	Maybe diving in just kind of on Samurai as a concept may answer a lot of that. So I grew up in the martial arts, my family business is martial arts, my dad was a judo expert, karate, kendo, all these kinda Japanese martial arts, Chinese martial arts, all these different things. So I grew up in that and if you study, the word 'samurai' means 'to serve.' And it's the title for a particular class in Japan at one point, like a noble class. But if you look at the things like if you were the son of the samurai, the things that you would do, like when you went to school, so you would learn the arts. It was very much so based on Chinese classical four, five disciplines. You had to know how to play chess, you had to play archery and you had to know how to do poetry. And you had to do some painting and some calligraphy. So, for me all those things are bundled and if you look at my dad's life, looking back my father is a superman, he painted, he was an instrumentalist, he did the martial arts, he was a military guy, he was an engineer, he was all these different things and kinda bundled and fastened together. And so my approach is the same. I just look at myself as being a complete polymath of a person. In the most humble way. And I just happen to do a lot of stuff.
Tom Ravenscroft	Samurais your second consecutive album working with your producer Soundtrakk. What is it that works with you like that? How come you gone again for the same producer? Obviously it worked so well last time, and you kind of want more off that.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, I mean Soundtrakk is responsible for a majority of my most popular big records. They're not even popular just conceptually, so Soundtrakk did "Superstar," he did "Kick, Push," he did "Paris, Tokyo," and kind of the list of those more public records. But then also a lot of the cult classics that people love, so he's all over The Cool. It's almost like when he sends me a batch of beats, he sends me a bunch of flowers. And they're dated, so even like these beats on Samurai, I have a backlog of tracks from him and I think those are from like 2018. 2016, maybe. I think one might even be from 2012. I just have this warehouse of Soundtrakk beats I can just dip into and sometimes they turn into a complete project, or just like a singular record, like Superstar." But that's my guy, he's been on the label with me from the beginning, and I foresee us doing more and more things together. And there's a personal piece to it, when during the pandemic he almost died. He caught COVID really bad, and it struck me like you know what, you know, YOLO. No time like the present, let's just work, let's get 3,000 songs together so if anything happens to us, we've completed the task that we needed to complete together.
Deb Grant 	And obviously, I mean, the fact that this whole album came about, inspired by this one quote from Amy Winehouse. You must have your ears open all the time looking for inspiration. Is there anything, I mean what else? Are you just still in a receptive state looking for things to inspire you to make music?
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, so I mean if you like see me on the 'Tube, like literally by myself. It might look like what is this Lupe doing? Even yesterday, I was shopping for socks. This dude walked up and was like, "what are you doing here?" And part of it is if you wanna write records that speak to the world, if you want to write records, even if you listen to Samurai there's very, very, I get very deep on simple things. And it's kinda being an artist, I have to be open to all of those experiences, so I have to experience. My job is to kind of be normal to a degree. But I'm there, recording—recording in a sense of coming up with ideas. Picking up on different sounds or different situations, and you gotta be in the world to see that. I'm not trapping my artistic compound in Malibu, I'm like on the Metro in New York.
Deb Grant 	Yeah, I love that. I remember reading Andy Warhol's autobiography. He has a whole chapter about buying underwear and socks. And his whole meticulous process buying them. So, you know, if the right person is writing about these things, they can make anything sound interesting and stimulating.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, you know. And I have to get out of my mind sometimes. So you gotta get out into the, and when I say normal, I don't want to minimize or diminish it in any way. Life is beautiful no matter what you're doing. But it's like to get out of this high-end, high-thinking, high sophisticated, complex rap over conceptual multiple layers, sometimes it's just I need to go to the beach and look at this dude selling popsicles on the beach. And maybe there's a story in that.
Tom Ravenscroft	Lupe Fiasco, so lovely to talk to you. We really appreciate you taking time out to speak to us. The album is a gorgeous, wonderful thing and we'll hopefully see you in the UK soon.
Lupe Fiasco 	Very soon.
== References ==
Category:2024 interviews
Category:Radio shows