Kingsize Magazine

Kingsize Magazine is a Swedish magazine that focuses on pop culture and entertainment. It is owned by Nöjesguiden Media AB and distributed for free. In 2024, they interviewed American rapper Lupe Fiasco, which was published on their website on July 4. Fiasco spoke of his ninth studio album, Samurai. The photos accompanying the interview were provided Karl Ray.Hojat, Artin (July 4, 2024). "Lupe Fiasco – About Japanese Martial Arts, Amy Winehouse and Battle-Rap". Kingsize Magazine. The interview was conducted by Artin Hojat, who also uploaded the full-length recorded interview to Spotify on the same day as part of the Art in Science series."Lupe Fiasco Talks the Creative Process, Samurai, & Making Timeless Music". Spotify. July 4, 2024.
== Interview ==
Kingsize Magazine	It's really an honor for me to talk to one of, in my opinion, the absolute best hip hop artists ever. You've got an album in the works! "Samurai," please tell me about it!
Lupe Fiasco 	It's loosely based on an idea, I saw a documentary about Amy Winehouse where she mentioned in a voice message that she had come up with a lot of battle raps, like "so if you want to battle, come and beat me, I'm going to crush you because I'm a samurai". That's pretty much how the voicemail went. I thought, 'what would it look like if Amy was a battle rapper?' It was just like a seed that was planted and I started to create small ideas and small things around it and it grew into a bigger project.
It's not like Amy Winehouse's life story in any way, it's not like a biography or anything like that. It's more about taking one thing and going for it. And it's woven with my experiences in the music industry, something I've never really talked about, at least in music. So I used this album as an opportunity to speak from the perspective of an artist, who goes through different things and different emotions.
It's probably my most conceptually personal album, but not in the way you might think. It's not about my mother, it's not about my father, it's not about my personal life. It's more personal experiences and things that are contextualized that I've gone through in the music industry. But also outside the music industry, just as an artist; from the struggles and the trials and the difficulties. And some of the victories and successes too, so it's not just a dark side. Musically, it's a bit everywhere.
Kingsize Magazine	What does that mean?
Lupe Fiasco 	There are several different styles of music. So you have boom bap there, you have some things that are a little bit unknown. You have some songs that are just "lyrical-chimerical"...
Kingsize Magazine	I read a YouTube comment about the single "Samurai" where someone wrote that they love it when you rap over jazz and instrumentals. Is that something you've included as well? Because I mean, the concept of a samurai, you know, Japanese culture, Japanese jazz... Is any part of it included in the production?
Lupe Fiasco 	Not really. The album is not a Japanese cultural thing, although the cover undeniably hints at that. Maybe my relationship to martial arts a little bit, but the album is not like a kung fu movie. It's not like an anime soundtrack for anybody, you know, "afro samurai," it's not that, hahaha.
You know, when you take the word 'samurai' and connect it to this kind of lo-fi boom bap beat, a lot of people immediately draw the parallel 'oh, Nujabes,' because they're trying to make connections. But I'll take it. You know, I love the new Nujabes. I've always wanted to work with him, unfortunately it wasn't possible. He is in the layer of producers like Madliboch J Dilla. It's like it has that Nujabes feeling, it feels like a Nujabes record. I love it. I take it every day of the week. But that was not the intention. It wasn't like we were going to do Nujabe's songs.
Kingsize Magazine	It wouldn't have been hard to believe otherwise, since you're still exercising... is it Kendo or is it Kenjutsu or something similar? You know, swordsmanship.
Lupe Fiasco 	Iaido.
Kingsize Magazine	Iaido, my bad.
Lupe Fiasco 	But Kenjutsu is there, they are all in the same family. But yes, Iaido is the main one.
Kingsize Magazine	And we've seen clips of you being really good at that. So obviously there's a story and I think there's a connection you make as a listener when you see the name of the album, which you mentioned earlier.
Lupe Fiasco 	My relationship with it is very authentic. And the information I have about some things is probably a little deeper than people think. So when people think "Samurai," or when you hear the word "samurai," you immediately think, "oh, a guy with a sword." And sword fighting and ninjas and stuff. But there's nothing in that word that has a sword in it or battle or anything! "Samurai" means to serve, you know, it means to be in service or to serve and samurai is actually a position. It's like someone who's like a cabinet minister or a senator or something like that. So it's more like a position, a prestigious position. Some samurai were the only ones allowed to carry swords, but in the same way as, you know, police officers are allowed to carry batons or carry weapons.
And just like some police officers, some samurai didn't know how to fight, you know, they didn't know how to use their sword. It was more like a thing they had, as part of their title and part of their role. So it doesn't mean swordsman, it means to serve. And for me, you know, I've been doing martial arts all my life. My family's business was martial arts. I did it before I started rapping. I literally did it before I was born.
Kingsize Magazine	What types of styles and martial arts are we talking about?
Lupe Fiasco 	We did karate. We did Iaido, Kenjutsu, Kendo, Judo, Wushu, the Chinese martial arts. Tai Chi, a little Taekwondo, Jiu-Jitsu, Aiki Jiu-Jitsu, all these other things.
Kingsize Magazine	More East Asian, not so much Western, I guess?
Lupe Fiasco 	Oh, I mean, we did Capoeira. Oh yes!
Kingsize Magazine	Wow!
Lupe Fiasco 	Like I said, my family's business is martial arts. So we had big, big martial arts schools and we had instructors coming in who were going to lead a Taekwondo clinic or would come in and do like a Kung Fu, Wing Chun clinic or something like that. And we were so skilled that we could just watch a movie and think, "oh, let's do Drunken Fist-tonight". We can make those shapes.
Kingsize Magazine	Speaking of service. The lecture on YouTube from your class at MIT was absolutely phenomenal. I think the way you break down how everything works in hip hop and rap and constructing rhymes and stuff like that was very, very good. It was something we needed, I think, the culture needed it. Because there's a whole science behind it. How do you balance this intricacy with also satisfying those who want a little more digestible music, because it's a pretty difficult balancing act?
Lupe Fiasco 	Hmm. I think, for me, I do everything, you know. As I said, this is my ninth album, maybe the 20th project. I've gone through three record contracts, now I'm on my fourth and I've been doing rap since I was 16, 17. Now I'm 42. So I've been doing this for over 20 years and slowly I'm getting closer to having done it even longer than that, every day, all day. So I've been trained in all these different pockets and styles of rap and hip hop. There are some people who only rap for themselves, an audience of one. You can be a backpack rapper with a large following, or you can be a pop rapper with no fans, with big mainstream songs that no one cares about.
"Some people just want to see a song, some people want to be the song. And I think the great writers can do all of that. The people I want to be like, or the people I look up to, they're the people I want to be as a lyricist, then there are people I want to be as a songwriter and there are people I want to be as an artist. There is a whole spectrum of things that come into play. And I land on this: I think there's something in just doing it for yourself. At the level in my career where I am now, I only do it for myself. As with this project, I just wanted to create a portrait of Amy Winehouse.
Kingsize Magazine	I think Rick Rubin said the same thing. He said that when you create, you should create because you want to create, not to please someone else. I don't like to speak in absolute terms because I don't think they're absolute, but I do believe that a lot of beautiful art comes from creating because you want to create it and hopefully it resonates with someone else as well. Especially when music is such a dynamic thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Amy Winehouse also had problems with the music industry? I guess that's one of the reasons why you choose to talk about it more now?
Lupe Fiasco 	Yes. Any artist, if you let them talk long enough, will reveal that they have problems with the music industry in one way or another. It's rare to find someone who doesn't have a problem with the music industry anywhere. Some people just have it deeper than others. And if you don't have the right environment and people around you to help you deal with these situations, it can lead you to dark places sometimes. Get you in trouble, get you into some bad habits and things like that. And I think everyone in the music industry has to find a strategy to get through certain things. So, you know, luckily, I've been in some really dark places in the music industry where you'd think, "Oh, he's got to enjoy this." No, you only see the front of it, the back to get there was just chaos.
Kingsize Magazine	How does Lupe make music that stands up to the test of time?
Lupe Fiasco 	I think one of the strategies is to identify timeless songs. Those songs are still around. Every time you hear Pharcyde's "Passin' Me By," that song is still here. It's still fresh. It is still new. Every time you hear Commons "Pray," it's still here. You know, it doesn't feel dated. It doesn't feel aged. Or even outside the genre, you hear songs from Earth, Wind & Fire, or you hear songs from Michael Jackson. When played, the lights still light up. They feel new. You may have heard them a million times, but you're still surprised by how the bridge comes in or how the chorus comes in. You're excited to sing them and dance to them. So just do songs like that. Go for the things that make you feel good instead of things that make you look good. Go to things that actually speak to the emotions and try to create it.
So I try to do it. And then I think it's doing things on the lyrical side, doing things that have multiple meanings. Where you can come back to it five years later and feel 'oh, wow, that had that meaning too'. Instead of things that only have a single meaning or no meaning at all. So, you know, multiple sentences, "triple entendres" and Michael Jackson beats. That's the formula, haha.
== Gallery ==
File:Kingsize Magazine No. 3 (2024).jpg|No. 3 issue
== References ==
Category:2024 interviews
Category:Magazines