Billboard

Billboard is an American music and entertainment magazine. American rapper Lupe Fiasco was featured on the cover of their 28th issue, published on July 15, 2006."Lupe Fiasco Makes Billboard Magazine's Cover". Hypebeast. July 8, 2006. This happened after the release of his single, "Kick, Push," accompanied with the headline "A Self-Made Career About to Go Boom," which photographed him riding on a skateboard. He gave a shout-out to the magazine in his song "Outro" (2006).
== Articles ==
Title 	Year	Author 	
"Lupe Fiasco Sets Sights on Pink Floyd for New CD" 	 	 	
"The Unclassifiable Lupe Fiasco" 	 	Hillary Crosley 	
"Lupe Fiasco Drops Label Beef to Focus on 'Lasers'" 	 	Walter Frazier 	
"Lupe Fiasco on Calling Obama a Terrorist: 'I've Got Nothing to Clarify'" 	 	 	
"Lupe Fiasco Talks Creative Director Role at Higi, His New Health and Wellness App, During SXSWi" 	 	Andrew Hampp 	
"Lupe Fiasco Talks New Album, Defending Iggy Azalea & Quitting Twitter: 'I Don't Want To Be Relevant'" 	 	Thomas Golianopoulos	
"Lupe Fiasco Talks Guest-Starring on 'ELEAGUE The Challenger: Street Fighter V,' Nicki Minaj's 'Chun-Li' & His Upcoming Music"	 	Eric Diep 	
"Black Music Month: Lupe Fiasco Talks Dodging the Sophomore Jinx With 'The Cool'" 	 	Carl Lamarre 	
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|-|2006=
Having worked with Jay-Z, Kanye West and Jill Scott on his debut 1st & 15th/Atlantic album, rapper Lupe Fiasco is setting his sights on a mythic band for a collaboration on his next project, the follow-up to this year's acclaimed "Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor."
"I got my wish list on my last album so I made this one unattainable," he tells Billboard.com. "Now I want to work with Pink Floyd, or the remnants of Pink Floyd." Fiasco knows the prospect of getting the legendary British rockers to sign off on such an idea is remote, but that isn't stopping him from pressing forward.
After all, he got jazz pianist Chick Corea to allow a sample from his group Return To Forever for the "Food & Liquor" track "American Terrorist" after Corea initially said no.
"'American Terrorist' wasn't going to be on the album, because we heard Chick Corea doesn't like hip-hop," Fiasco says. "But we went the extra mile to make sure he heard the rest of the record and could see that there was no cursing, and that there was positivity. We were taking extra care with his work and not putting any garbage out there. It's that same approach with Floyd. I'm really serious!"
Fiasco says the next album will be titled "The Cool" and will only feature production from the up-and-coming collaborators utilized on the debut, such as Soundtrakk and Prolyfic. "I'm coming up with concepts, but I need to find a way to wean myself off the Internet," he admits. "I think I need to break my laptop. Lyrically, it's going to be intense, but nothing is recorded as of yet."
"Food & Liquor" spawned three Grammy nominations last week, including best rap song for "Kick, Push," which has cemented Fiasco's image as an unlikely hip-hop skateboarder. "I'm fine with people identifying me that way," he says. "I like to support it any way I can, from literally helping to build skate parks with Tony Hawk to making sure I stay in the dopest hoodie."
|-|2007=
"'LupEND' — that's going to be my last album's title. When you play a videogame, you can only put in three letters for your name and when the game's over, those three letters and 'END' pop up. My next record might be my last one."
We're supposed to be talking with Lupe Fiasco about his sophomore album, "The Cool," due Dec. 18 via Atlantic. But instead, the Chicago rapper is already forecasting how his career will end — he's not sure when it will happen, but it sure seems like it'll be more sooner than later.
Fiasco has never been a typical artist, and that's part of his charm. On one hand, he's a slightly defensive know-it-all; on the other, he's an endearing, introverted nerd. Hip-hop consumers either get him or they don't.
Add to the equation that during the last several years, he's collaborated with Jay-Z, Pharrell and Kanye West; scored a Reebok shoe deal before his debut album dropped; and dealt with several family deaths and the imprisonment of his co-manager.
So it's only natural that Fiasco's a bit more weathered than your average 25-year-old.
"I don't define myself by this industry's standards," says Fiasco, sporting a slim army fatigue Gortex rain hoodie, black jeans and his signature thin glasses, as he looks out the rain-beaded window of a Navigator. "I have a core fan base of about 200,000 people, so I'm fairly comfortable that I can sell 200,000 if it takes me a year-and-a-half." Clearly, Fiasco has realized that there's more to life than hip-hop and isn't shy about saying so. Still, he's got "The Cool" to promote, and Atlantic won't have an easy time marketing a concept record whose creative songs don't easily fit onto urban radio playlists.
BEFORE THE STORM
In 2005, Fiasco was bubbling underneath the hip-hop mainstream as the next MC to watch. He peppered the Internet with mixtapes long before the practice was popular, earning international fans in the process, and kept an eye on street wear marketing by performing at sneaker and clothing shows and launching his own clothing design company, Righteous Kung Fu.
Drawing on such influences as Spice 1 to 8Ball & MJG, Fiasco carved a niche with fun yet intricate lyrics over beats that leaned more backpacker than gangster.
It wasn't long before Jay-Z declared himself a fan, fellow Chicago native West added him to his single "Touch the Sky" and Pharrell hopped on Fiasco's "Kick Push Remix." A deal with Reebok's RBK line before his first album, "Food & Liquor," was even ready furthered the notion that Fiasco could be hip-hop's next breakout star.
But the album leaked several months ahead of the intended August 2006 street date, with the music spreading across the same Web sites that had previously devoured his mixtapes. Bloggers championed Fiasco's artistry, and once released on Sept. 19, 2006, "Food & Liquor" went on to sell a respectable 81,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. To date, it has shifted more than 320,000.
Songs like "Kick Push" did connect with braver radio programmers like Ebro Darden at rhythmic WQHT (Hot 97) New York. But despite a Grammy Award nomination for best rap solo performance, "Kick Push" failed to rise higher than No. 56 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. His current single, "Superstar," was No. 82 after five weeks on the Nov. 24 tally.
"We've had success with Lupe here at Hot 97, and that's why we continue to support him," Darden says. "I don't think he fits into a familiar mold that many radio programmers associate with what they think is hip-hop. They may not get Lupe because he's not a traditional rapper." Riding the line of creativity and commercial success, Fiasco almost begs the question, Why not work with big-name producers in hopes of creating a radio hit?
"It's too expensive," Fiasco says, noting that a prior Pharrell production, "I Gotcha," "didn't even do anything at radio." All of this is par for the course in the eyes of Atlantic president Craig Kallman, who sees the sales of "Food & Liquor" as a natural step toward building a new artist.
"It's been an overall sales decline in hip-hop," Kallman says. "If we can surpass his last album's sales, I'd be thrilled because I'll know that we're growing his audience." THE PLOT thickens "The Cool" will certainly separate his true fans from the onlookers. Fiasco created an interior world strung together with several mixtape songs, including "The Pills," along with variations on two songs that were also on his debut, "The Cool" and "He Say/She Say." "It's about a hustler who dies and comes back to life, only to get robbed by two little kids with the same gun that killed him," Fiasco says of the new "Cool." "I expanded that story by connecting different songs and characters in those songs." "The Pills" introduces the characters the Streets and the Game, at a funeral for the Cool, whom several other songs are related to. Each character has defining attributes: The Game has dice for eyes and blunts for arms. The Streets is a temptress with dollar signs for eyes and tattoos of ex-boyfriends like Al Capone and Alexander the Great.
Fiasco explains that the Cool "is actually the little boy from 'He Say/She Say' who grew up without a father. And the people that step in to raise him are the Streets and the Game, like how people also say, 'The streets raised me.' It's an answer to that." Before anyone gets too confused, Fiasco clarifies that the entire album doesn't adhere to the concept. Outside of the aforementioned four songs, "The Cool" is another helping of left-of-center hip-hop, often with a melodic, jazzy vibe.
In-house producers from Fiasco's 1st & 15th Records like Soundtrakk crafted the bulk of the album, although there are contributions from Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump, Snoop Dogg and UNKLE.
Songs like "Little Weapon," a tale of African child soldiers set to a deep bass and stripped-down battle drum sample, are reminders of Fiasco's socially conscious leanings ("I killed another man today/Five more and we can get a soccer ball is what my captain say," he raps).
Elsewhere, the viral single "Dumb It Down," distributed via a YouTube clip, addresses the creative predicament in which Fiasco finds himself.
"That speaks to his conundrum," Kallman says of the song. "The industry doesn't really want to step out of the norm, but Lupe still inspires risk-taking in the music. It's more challenging to market Lupe for certain, but it pushes all of us to be more creative in our approach."
BRANDING LUPE
Fiasco plans to expand the new album's characters into a Vincent Price-esque vintage radio show via a currently unspecified satellite radio company for release alongside his album. In addition, he is creating character-inspired toys and is working with Converse, Levi's, street wear brand Maharishi and Japanese clothing line Swagger to craft custom Righteous Kung Fu designs.
Each clothing line will release their pieces at different times throughout next year, to keep the brand top of mind with consumers.
Mobile is a key part of Atlantic's marketing campaign. The company has partnered with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint for ringtones and downloads, and Boost Mobile, which was an early Fiasco supporter, will prominently display stand-up advertisements for "The Cool" in 8,000 stores beginning in January.
Online, additional viral videos are planned in an attempt to capitalize on the crossover of "Dumb It Down," which became so popular on YouTube that it landed on BET and MTV. In addition, Atlantic product manager Veronica Alvericci says Fiasco might blog on a to-be-announced site for the remainder of his 22-market promo tour.
An online in-store is in the works, where Atlantic will "partner with a major retailer, who'd air the in-store across their Web sites nationally, and distribute it amongst all of their chains," Alvericci says, and MTV.com's "The Leak" initiative will begin streaming "The Cool" Dec. 11, a week ahead of street date.
TV placements include a "Monday Night Football" commitment from ESPN for "Superstar," while several other album tracks are due to be used on the sports network's Sunday program, "Ultimate Highlight." You can't blame Fiasco for having a few things other than marketing plans on his mind these days. During the last year, his father, aunt and friend Stack Bundles passed away, and his longtime friend and manager Charles "Chill" Patterson was arrested and sentenced to 44 years in prison for a 2003 drug charge.
In October, Fiasco flubbed the lyrics to A Tribe Called Quest's "Electric Relaxation" at the VH1 Hip-Hop Awards in New York, then incited an online riot by saying he wasn't that into Tribe's "Midnight Marauders" album growing up. Ironically, his fan base skews more Q-Tip than Spice 1, which Fiasco hails as his inspiration. But instead of letting the storm pass, Fiasco argued with fans, pushing the controversy onto radio and further into the blogosphere.
"Ninety percent of the people saying something about that probably downloaded my first album," Fiasco says. "Besides, the people at my shows don't care about that shit." In the same way that West has basically forced people to form an opinion about him, Fiasco is not biting his tongue. And with "The Cool" nearing release, only time well tell if his fans do indeed care.
"I don't know how to make a No. 1 record, so I don't even try," he says.
"The reason behind the whole 'The Cool' concept is because I miss my father, Stack Bundles, my auntie and Chill. I found solace in the miracle in itself and it came out in 'The Cool.' I wish the shit was true."
|-|2010=
Although Lupe Fiasco's upcoming album "Lasers" has suffered noticeable delays due to label disputes and leaked tracks, the Grammy award-winning rapper plans on making this release his biggest yet.
"Lasers," out March 8, 2011, will feature superstar producing duo the Neptunes, as well as guest spots from Trey Songz and U.K. rapper Sway. The album's lead single "The Show Goes On," which saw a proper release and video last week, is a song Fiasco said will appeal to "die-hard Lupe Fiasco fans."
"It's a big controversial record, and a lot of ears should perk up on this song. It really is what the direction of 'Lasers' is all about," Fiasco tells Billboard.com.
Fiasco is no stranger to controversy. Back in October, more than 200 of his fans gathered outside the NYC offices of Fiasco's label, Atlantic Records, to celebrate label execs finally setting a release date for "Lasers." But the gathering, called Fiasco Friday, was originally planned to protest Atlantic's ongoing delayed release of the album. The protest effort was preceded by an online petition signed by Fiasco followers. It read: "The fans below have been waiting for the release for Lupe Fiasco's album 'Lasers' for over a good year now… Enough is enough, we demand that you stop playing around and give us the album that we have been highly anticipating since the release of 'The Cool.'"
The rapper has also tackled music piracy, fighting track leaks on various blogs — some of which have reportedly stopped covering the rapper due to his strong opposition to piracy. However, Fiasco says his stance on hackers and leaks remains the same.
"When it's something that's done illegally or maliciously, it's different," Fiasco says. "It's songs you don't even have as the artist, and some dude in the middle of nowhere that hacked into a computer has it. It upsets the balance of what you want to do as an artist and how you want to roll your album out."
He adds: "People don't really understand the ramifications when a song leaks. There are actually studios that are sued, and engineers that are fired."
Fiasco, however, is not opposed to the idea of offering some of his music for free — just so long as he maintains a sense of control. He teamed up with Gatorade's Replay Series, which airs on Fox Sports Net, this past fall to give away a track titled "We Can Do It Now." The inspiring, Chicago-centric song features Fiasco's fellow Windy City natives Common, Jennifer Hudson and producer No I.D. — perfect for the show's Chi-town-focused third season.
For now, Fiasco looks forward to the release of "Lasers" — and to furthering his own musical legacy, despite the industry hiccups that have plagued him along the way.
"I think I set the precedent for record labels — showed everyone that you can have rappers that don't fit the format and still have a presence," says Fiasco. "You look at a person like me, or Kanye [West], and it was sort of a shock to the system. I definitely think I was part of changing that, and an influence to a lot dudes that are coming out today."
|-|2011=
Lupe Fiasco caused a stir this week when he called President Barack Obama a terrorist during an appearance on CBS' "What's Trending." His exact words? "To me, the biggest terrorist is Obama in the United States of America."
Billboard.com's The Juice has since caught up with the Chicago rapper to discuss the controversial interview, and it appears he's standing by his statement. "I've got nothing to clarify. It's Obama and the U.S. government," Lupe said, echoing his comments to CBS. "[It's] every president that came before him and every president that comes after him.
"It's funky because everybody's pulling soundbites from this one interview that we did, but they don't talk about anything else from the interview," he continued. "So it's really about, 'What do people want to listen to?' It's not what I want to talk about, cause I want to talk about all types of shit… there wasn't the same reaction about me having a book club… about me trying to promote literacy in a country with 50 million functioning illiterates walking around, because we have a failed and flawed education system."
Elaborating on another point from the interview that's raised ire — that he doesn't vote in elections — Lupe said his reasoning is simple. "Voting doesn't work, because everybody who voted, voted for the same people who are in office right now that are actually allowing these policies to go forward… You have to educate the populace — the masses, the voters, the people who don't vote, the people who pay taxes."
"You have educate the masses to exactly what their tax dollars are going to pay for," Lupe continues. "I think once people educate themselves and open up their minds to understand that on that really basic level, then you'll have some type of change in the way that Americans associate themselves and participate in their own political process."
Since his controversial interview, Lupe has spent much of the week brushing off criticism via Twitter. "The Morning Hate…Ready…Set….Go…," he tweeted today (June 9), in addition to retweeting several negative comments. After posting one in particular that read, "If President Barack Obama is the "biggest terriost to America" @lupefiasco is the "biggest terriost to the hopes of Black people," he wrote, "That is by far the best negative thing I've ever seen/heard someone say/write about me ever!!!"
|-|2013=
While it was still three days before South By Southwest Music officially kicks off, at least one high-profile musician made an early stop to Austin Saturday to plug a new technology venture. Lupe Fiasco, the Chicago-raised rap star currently climbing the Hot 100 with latest single "Battle Scars," dropped by to talk about Higi (rhymes with "Ziggy"), a new health and wellness app where he now serves as creative director and an investor. The app, launched with backing by Wrapports founder Michael Ferro, calculates a Klout-like score (ranging from 1 to 999) that combines body vitals like blood pressure and weight and gives extra weight to wellness metrics like social interaction and community involvement.
As Lupe explained to Billboard over a lunch of fried chicken and mac & cheese at Austin's Hyatt Place, it's the latter part of the Higi score that can make the biggest difference. "When I first checked in I was 160 [pounds] and my score was something like 760. I checked in today, and I was 155, but even though I lost 5 pounds I wasn't active in my social activity enough and my blood pressure was a little high… It shows you how weight and wellness aren't the same thing. You can be super fit and super depressed because you're not interacting with your social network. You could work out and work out, but that doesn't really translate to how happy you are in life. You could be at home super happy, super comfortable, just logging in to your computer all day, but your body is paying for it."
Higi has launched both as an app for iOS and a physical pharmacy kiosk in retailers like Shop Rite, Kmart and others later this year as an updated alternative to popular blood-pressure machines. One particular feature of the app that interested Lupe was a photo tagging feature that allows users to upload images of their meals or their social activity, and the app will be able to identify the relative caloric content of the activity pictured and suggest traditional as well as more light-hearted ways to work it off. "You could take a picture of this fried chicken, and if it was 60 calories you could take a couple walks around the block, or do 20 minutes of jumping jacks," he says.
Higi is also working to embed compatibility with other fitness tracking products like the Nike Fuelband and FitBit to provide a fully integrated wellness experience for its users. "The goal is to enhance the existing services, not compete with them," says chief marketing officer Mustafa Patni. The company also has a goal of getting Higi kiosks in up to 10,000 retail pharmacy locations over the next year or so.
Lupe's involvement with Higi is yet another example added to the increasingly long list of musicians who've gained creative director titles in recent months — Alicia Keys and Blackberry, Taylor Swift and Diet Coke, Swizz Beatz and Monster, Joey Bada$$ and Marc Ecko, Justin Timberlake and Bud Light Platinum to name but a few. "The dope part about this, other than just being creative director, is adding value to this company, because it adds value to the world," he says.
Though he's still touring in support of current album Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1, released last August, Lupe is already hard at work on his next record, Tetsuo & Youth, due later this year as well as gearing up for a residency in Vegas on behalf of DJ project Soundclash. But Higi will take priority over his creative projects. "This is like my normal job," he says. "I'm still doing the rapper thing, but I got a legit 9 to 5 now."
|-|2015=
Billboard 	Is Tetsuo & Youth a good entry point to your music for new fans?
Lupe Fiasco	Not really. It's an interesting album because it's a transition. I'm much more mature in my representation in public, in the sense of I'm not as relevant as I was before. It's kind of that natural irrelevancy that occurs with all artists. I think I had my peak and now I am coming down in relevancy. It's not a sad thing for me.
Billboard 	Why not?
Lupe Fiasco	I don't want to be relevant today. I don't want to be the go-to guy for the club song or to speak on all the dumb shit that's going around. I'm happy being that somewhat sophisticated, overly deep weird guy making powerful music — but just two or three degrees away from the center of attention. There is a new generation speaking to a new generation, so you have a Kendrick Lamar and a J. Cole and the other people who are the new Lupes. I don't have the same lingo. I don't sip lean or smoke weed. I can't compete with a Wiz Khalifa for the attention of a 12-year old.
Billboard 	The album cover is a painting of yours.
Lupe Fiasco	I paint a lot — probably too much. I paint more than I write raps. It's the same creative thing for me. I started painting two years ago, and I gave myself 10 years to really get good. I'll sit and paint for 11 hours and get lost in it, the technique of it, trying to execute it clean, colors and palettes, etc. Van Gogh said he wasn't happy unless he was painting, and I'm starting to realize that's becoming true for me. If I'm not in a creative mode and I'm dealing with the outside world, I'm not really happy.
Billboard 	Is that why you recently announced you were going to quit Twitter when the album drops?
Lupe Fiasco	[Laughs] You're witnessing the last kicks of a dying horse.
Billboard 	But you recently got into Twitter spats with Kid Cudi and Azealia Banks. The latter criticized you for -defending Iggy Azalea. Why do you engage people?
Lupe Fiasco	You realize, "Oh, this is a game. Let's play this controversy-sells game. Let me just engage this fan and have people watch this conversation," which is what happened. My tweet was literally, "Iggy Azalea has her place in hip-hop," which is so open-ended. Half the people are coming at her throat, the other half are supporting, and I'm more in the middle — it's like, I don't even care.
Billboard 	You've often argued that rap promotes violence. What's your take on Bobby Shmurda being charged in December with conspiracy to commit murder?
Lupe Fiasco	What does it say about America that simultaneously you have the junior Ryder Cup team of America, the golf team, on TV doing the Shmoney Dance, and then you have Eric Garner on the other side? And when you listen to the lyrics [of "Hot Boy"] it's like, "I shot n—as." It's not an act if you look at the accusations [against Shmurda]. People were dancing to and celebrating a certain reality.
Billboard 	In previous interviews you said that Tetsuo & Youth would be fun, not political – "ratchet" was a term you'd used. Based on "Madonna" and "Deliver" that doesn't seem to be the case. What changed?
Lupe Fiasco	I honestly don't think people know what political means. This is not a shot to you or anyone else, even myself. We just paint that on to things that speak to society, but that's not political. Political is, 'I want a revolution.' 'I want to change the government structure.' And I don't think those records necessarily do that. I think people like to slap that on anything that is outside of the realm of shaking their ass in the club. There are no mentions of Democrats or Republicans. I don't look at [the songs] as political. I look at them as social portraits as opposed to political diatribes.
Billboard 	Can you explain the meaning behind "Deliver?"
Lupe Fiasco	A song like "Deliver" is the autobiography of a myth in the hood. You don't really recognize it until you are there. The hood doesn't really have the basic amenities that things that aren't the hood has. The pizza man might have two or three thoughts before he comes to your neighborhood. The pizza man might pull up, see your building and then keep driving. It's almost like a myth. Does that really happen? Does the pizza man really not come to the hood? In some cases it's true. In some places it's probably more of a story. One of the interesting things when we put the record out was that people were posting news stories about pizza men getting killed. There are some very serious reasons as to why. But it also speaks to the nature of those places like the places I grew up in, West Side of Chicago, South Side of Chicago. It's things like that, that are those odd aspects of the hood that don't really get a lot of attention like all drug dealers. But they have effects too.
Billboard 	This is a Lupe Fiasco song after all, of course the pizza man must represent something other than just a pizza man.
Lupe Fiasco	[Laughs] It's interesting you would say that. As an artist, me doing music, or any artist, you do it for so long, you start to become — I won't call myself a master but you become very proficient in being able to structure things in subtle but powerful ways. Take a song like "Deliver" and the pizza man. It's kind of also saying 'peace of man' like 'peace of man don't come here no more.' Once you look at it from that perspective, it changes the dynamic of the song. We kind of did something like that on "He Said, She Said," which was about the single mother and single parent talking to this father and they used the exact same verse but kind of switched the pronouns around, but it was the exact same thing but it came from two different sources. It's almost like the inverse of four, five albums later, you learn that switching out one word changes the dynamic of the entire song, and pizza becomes a metaphor for something else and the words become double entendre and even triple entendre. From an artistic level of learning how to work with words and understanding words, "Deliver" is like the most prominent example because that's the record that's out now, but when you get into the rest of the body of the album, it's even deeper. It's taken to extremes on certain songs where it kind of takes 10, 15, 20 listens to really pick up on what the song is saying. That's why you get songs like "Deliver" first. "Deliver" is, like, the simplest song on the album. It's somewhat of a straight narrative. There are songs on the album that have five narratives at the same time.
Billboard 	Are you officially gone from Atlantic?
Lupe Fiasco	It's the last one. We haven't made a decision [on the next move] because it's like, let's just focus on this album. It's a really amazing album. Let's just focus on putting this out and having fun, shooting the videos. Let people enjoy this record and then let's think about what's next, next.
Billboard 	Back to music, do you have a stance on streaming services like Spotify?
Lupe Fiasco	I think Spotify has had a hand in destroying the value of music. I think its something that is something that was understood as coming from record labels. I remember sitting down with Lyor Cohen a long time ago and he was like, Music is going to become like a utility like water, so how much do we value water? We value it when we can't get it because then we'll fucking die. On a day-to-day basis, we don't even drink water, like I don't even want my water, I'm going to drink soda or whatever. I think from that point of view, it's made it so abundant, it's allowed it to be accessed at such a low price, at such a low level, that it has completely destroyed the value of music. I think we're never going to get back from that because it's such a good business model and at the end of the day, money wins all wars.
Billboard 	It's a good business model for Spotify. I don't think its good for artists.
Lupe Fiasco	It is a great business model. Like damn the consequences but it's a great business model. The car was a great business model even though it kind of destroyed the atmosphere, right? It's just how are we going to react to it. You have people like Taylor Swift saying its like a science experiment she doesn't want to be a part, and it's like, they tell her you are going to lose $6 million this year if you don't do this. You are supposed to be on the artist side. If you wanted to be on the artist's side then you should have did deals directly with the artists, and not the labels. As much as you want to say, 'Well, there are people who control the music…' No, we get that. But that doesn't stop you from striking a deal directly with the artists on a sponsorship level or doing something else to make it a little more worth their while to want to participate as opposed to just going and buying licenses in bulk from these publishing companies and record labels who really don't give a shit. The value of music is going down. ITunes is gonna cut the value of music in a year or two from $10.99 to something else crazy because the value of music is just being pushed down so much. What is it doing to music? I don't think it's had too much of an effect on the quality of music, but the actual price of music, it's pushing it down. I think you see artists have to become savvy on how they will capitalize off their music or how they are going to approach things when they do music. It's going to have to be more than just a song because according to Spotify a song is worth $.0001 cents.
Billboard 	Back in 2006, right before Food and Liquor came out, I was interviewing you backstage at a concert when you ran into Rakim. He was like, 'Yo Lupe, you really doing your thing.' You seemed so humbled. When was the last time music made you feel that way?
Lupe Fiasco	Oh man, I don't know. Last night I was sitting at this little coffee shop in LA eating a cookie, and having a conversation about my place in music. The place is closing and this guy and girl walk up. We are sitting in the back. They walk to the back. They go, 'Hey, how are you doing Lupe? I don't know how to say this, we were sitting over there for the longest trying to figure out how to say hello, but I wanted to thank you.' Prior to this I was thinking, 'I ain't got no place in hip-hop, my career is over,' that whole diatribe I gave you earlier. She goes, 'I teach your music in my class. I teach at a community college in the Bay. You don't know how many papers I've read about your music.' The other guy teaches high school, and says, 'I incorporate music in my class, so of course I play you and put on a lot of kids to your music.' So in 2006 I was speaking to high school kids, and in 2015 I'm speaking to high school kids through the people who heard me in 2006. They are passing up the chain, back through time. It was an interesting moment. One moment I was talking about the end of days for your career and then two teachers — one high school, one college — walk up to you and say, 'We are grading essays about your music and teaching you in our class.' That was just kind of like, Oh maybe I do have a little more fight, a little more gas in the engine.
|-|2018=
Billboard 	When did ELEAGUE The Challenger: Street Fighter V approach you to be apart of the show?
Lupe Fiasco	I had done some work with TBS before on their ELEAGUE show for a celebrity gaming kind of thing. I played Shaq and some other folks — Reggie Bush. I worked with them prior, and I was just kind of in their pipeline already for people that they knew were interested in Street Fighter. I think that's how I got the call.
Billboard 	When did they shoot your part?
Lupe Fiasco	It happened this year so it wasn't that long ago. I think they were shooting the show for a few months now or something like that. But yeah, they shot it in Atlanta. I think I shot it a couple of months ago.
Billboard 	You're going to be appearing on the third episode. Can you explain the special challenge that you're apart of?
Lupe Fiasco	I went in for a special team challenge and I was one of the team captains. I had to pick a squad. It was still an elimination — whoever won, got to pick whoever would go up in their elimination round. It was pretty cool because I knew most of the players that were there. I've seen them in competitions or know them somewhat personally.
Billboard 	Who did you pick for your team?
Lupe Fiasco	It was me, RobTV, and JB against Commander Jesse, gllty, and Dayasha.
Billboard 	Why do you choose Ken as your fighter?
Lupe Fiasco	I always play with either Ken or Ryu. I used to play with E. Honda when I first started playing Street Fighter along time ago. And then I gravitated towards Ken and Ryu for the karate aesthetics and the hadoken and the dragon punch and all that stuff, which was more my style. And then kind of around high school, like 8th grade or freshman year of high school, I really started to play Ken in Street Fighter vs. X-Men. I was playing at the arcade.
I always had consoles [to play]. I always played Street Fighter on Super Nintendo and all that. When I started to really play was at the arcades. I actually picked Ryu, Ken, and Sagat. It was all those Shodo, down-forward fireball dudes. I just got an affinity for Ken. Then it became Ryu, and they started to balance him out. They made Ryu slower, but stronger. I still liked the speed of Ken, so I kind of just stuck with Ken. Fast forward to this Diago [Umehara] match, that's who I was naturally able to practice with and play with.
Billboard 	It sounds like you've always been a fan of the franchise. What's the earliest memory you have of Street Fighter?
Lupe Fiasco	I think it was either kindergarten or first grade. I went to a school called Crown Academy on the West Side of Chicago. There was a corner store up the street from the school that people used to go to before you had to go to class. Before the bell rung and school started, you would get cookies or candy or whatever. They had a few arcade machines in there, and one of the machines was Street Fighter II, the original. I remember just throwing a few quarters in or if you just let the game play, you'd see the different scenes and the different characters kind of come up. Kind of like the demo thing.
Those were my very first experiences with Street Fighter. Then it just kind of fast forwarded through random arcades and seeing it around. And my father, we had martial arts school. He always had some type of video game at the school. At one of the schools, he had Street Fighter II: Rainbow Edition, which was this super glitchy Champion Edition — like glitched out version that we used to play. It was like super crazy. I kind of fell off at around Street Fighter IV when it came out for Playstation. I was like, "Yo, this is wack." I really just wrote it off.
Billboard 	You stopped playing Street Fighter when the fourth one came out?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, I stopped playing Street Fighter when Street Fighter IV came out. I really love the period of time between Alpha, 3rd Strike, X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom. That period of just the aesthetic of the game, the way it played, and the way it felt, that's what I kind of fell in love with.
When IV came out, it was the 3D, clunky animation. It just looked weird. Somebody bought it and I remember being at home. I think I had a record deal by then — or maybe not, I can't remember. I remember just playing it, like, "Yeah, whatever with this. I'm out." Then I started playing Onimusha and straight campaign kind of games.
Billboard 	Now with Street Fighter V, they got all these updates. Which one do you play?
Lupe Fiasco	They really only got Arcade Edition. They keep doing those updates like seasonal updates or whatever. Just mostly layering characters in stages. I just have to do the updates because I have to or they're automatic. Everybody plays Arcade Edition now… You kind of really don't have a choice. I just play AE and I play online sometimes.
I was begging them to do a standard arcade mode, right? Like what we used to play when we played Super Nintendo or whatever. Just basic arcade mode. So when they put that in, I was just like, "I'm just playing arcade mode from here on out. I don't even want to play online. I just want to play this arcade mode." Arcade mode is too easy for me. I walk through it.
Billboard 	You won in the celebrity Street Fighter V tournament as well as beat Diago. Are you undefeated in professional play?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah! In professional play, I'm undefeated. There's another celebrity tournament they had where I played [DJ] QBert and I think Del the Funky Homosapien. There's like another little tournament where I think I won. Well, I lost Weds Night Fights, something they do out here in SoCal. I lost at that. But I didn't even really want to play, so that didn't really count. Y'all just using me to play. I lose everywhere else. If it's not celebrities or Diago, I lose. [Laughs.]
Billboard 	If you could break it down, how do you prepare for those type of matches?
Lupe Fiasco	I mean, the Daigo match, I really trained. People put an asterisk next to that match because they think it was fixed, but it wasn't. Like, it really, really wasn't. It was just a matter of what state or condition Daigo was in and how comfortable he was with playing the game. That was my first time ever playing Street Fighter V because it wasn't out and I didn't have access to any of the betas. I was playing Street Fighter IV to practice because I thought we were going to play Street Fighter IV. I was expecting to lose. I was just like, 'Let me just go in here and not look crazy. If I can get in a super, then I'm good.' But we were playing IV.
So then fast forward to the match, they were like, 'No, no, no, we're going to play V.' And V came out the next day for console. So we did our match on the 15th and V came out on the 16th. So we're like, 'Yo, we are just going to play V.' So that was my first time ever playing V. I got to practice a little bit before that match and one of the Street Fighter techs were there from Capcom, and he was like showing me the updates and some of the moves on Ken… And giving me ideas on target combos and stuff like that.
It was just one of those things, and Daigo — whatever his condition was or whatever his comfort level with the game — people were like, "Oh, he was sandbagging." I was like, "So? [Laughs] I still won. It was a real match." So that was cool. I was the No. 1 Street Fighter player in the world. Until the first tournament came around, I was No. 1.
Billboard 	eSports has been a trend to watch in 2018. Do you see yourself becoming a celebrity investor or a professional player after hip-hop?
Lupe Fiasco	I got approached to come in on some teams as an investor, as a co-owner, stuff like that. It wasn't something that I was super into doing. My relationship to gaming is real. I think because people don't know about it, they just look at it as just being a celebrity. It's like, "Bro, I had an arcade, literally, when I was a little kid." 
We had a little bit of money, and my father, he used to go and buy — this was 1982… We had an arcade in our basement. We had Asteroid. We had another game called Submarine. We had Scramble. We had these stand-up arcade machines in our basement. Like I said, everywhere we went, whether we had a martial arts school or a surplus store, my father would put an arcade machine in there. I've been around video games literally since I was born. 
For some people you have to qualify. Like now, you guys qualified in the '90s or the 2000s. You guys qualified on Super Nintendo or Dreamcast. I was playing Odyssey and 64. I've had every console that ever came out, whether we got it from the flea market [or elsewhere]. I remember buying the last TurboGrafx-16 that Toys "R" Us had. I've had Action Max. My relationship to gaming is super pure — that it is to the martial arts, that it is to, like, rap.
But it is weird when you show it to the world after you're a celebrity, and you think that you're just kind of like gaining off of it. It's like, "Nah, I really got it. Do I have to put my whole story as to why I should be here? And like why I'm authentic to this space? I actually vibe with you guys more than I vibe with the rap world. I can hang out with you dudes more than I can hang out with the next rapper."
So I was like, "You know what? Fuck it." So I started my own team like about two weeks ago. We only play SaltyBet.
Billboard 	What's that?
Lupe Fiasco	Do you know what SaltyBet is? SaltyBet is a channel on Twitch. There's a gaming engine called MUGEN, which is where they built Fatal Fury, Mortal Kombat, those early Street Fighters, those 2D Street Fighters. All those weird kind of anime games. They were built on an engine called MUGEN. MUGEN just kind of opened their software to be open source so anybody can come in and create games and customize players and stuff like that. People kind of took it to the extreme, so the standard MUGEN engine has 2,000 characters in it.
There's a guy named Salty, who took all the characters, had AIs play each other — so computers playing computers — and put it to where you could bet on it. And it runs 24 hours a day. So people actually go in there and legitimately bet fake money, but it is still dope. You know what? You guys will never respect me as a Street Fighter player, because I could never play at the level. I don't play any of these PC games like that, so I'll just play SaltyBet [Laughs.] You get to watch these crazy fights.
It's super fun, super easy, super legit. I just play that. So I started a team kind of a joke just to play that. But some of the best players in the world wanted to be on my team. So now I got ill dudes on my team.
Billboard 	Do you want to shout out your team?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, it's Cobra Deportes Electrónarcos. MenaRDis on my team, he won Capcom Cup last year. Chris Tatarian, he's one of the best Ken players in the world. He's on my team. I got Ne-Yo on my team, like the singer. So I am slowly building. It's kind of like all this funny, jokey, thing, but it's kind of like whoa. When I did it, people were like, "Oh shit, I want to be on your team." We are going to have the illest merch, the illest team jerseys, this shit is going to be the illest shit ever. You'll see.
Billboard 	To get into some music, Drogas Wave is back on schedule?
Lupe Fiasco	The albums were never really on a schedule… let me pull that back. Not to say never. I wanted to do three albums last year, and we were able to squeeze Drogas Light out. Waves was always in the pipeline, and Skulls was always in the pipeline. But we hit this wall with samples and stuff like that. I explained it all on the Reddit account that I set up to let fans know with daily updates. We actually did the last update last week. It is going to come when it comes.
For me, I always shoot myself in the foot when I try to give an idea of a release date or a period of time. So I'm just not going to do that [Laughs.] I'll just let you know that it is being mixed, and then pass it off to manufacturers and stuff like that. And they have their own kind of schedule. My portion — the raps are written, recorded. My part is done. Now it's on to the next. Now it's shift gears to figure out what I want to do with Skulls.
Billboard 	What about Roy? Is that something you're still putting out?
Lupe Fiasco	Nah, Roy is dead. Roy was supposed to be maybe a replacement for Skulls or something like that. Roy was an idea. I was like, 'Huh, maybe I'll do a thing around this.' I actually sat and built it out, but it was something like, "Eh, it's not as strong as Waves and it's not where I wanted to be with Drogas." So I just broke it apart. I'll just put this song here and use these beats for something else.
Billboard 	Is Drogas Waves still about American slavery?
Lupe Fiasco	Not technically. It's about a group of slaves on a slave ship on their way to Africa to the West Indies and they are thrown off the boat. But they didn't die. They stayed alive and they lived under the sea. And they dedicated their lives to sinking slave ships — so they became this super, underwater force against slavery. It's like a super-deep story that I am building on different fronts. But that's the main idea and the source material for the album.
Billboard 	You talked about Drogas Light having pre-existing material. Will Drogas Waves be curated in the same way?
Lupe Fiasco	I mean, you'll have to see when you get it. I don't want to give none of that out. Light definitely had some pre-existing joints on there. What's pre-existing to me might not be pre-existing to you 'cause you never heard it before. It's something that I dedicated to another project. But you'll see. On this album, I don't want to give anything away. I just want people to get it and rock with it. And we can do the press and all the other stuff after it is out. I don't want the press to speak to what this album should be. I rather let the fans have it. Let them rock with it and then everybody can have that conversation at the same time.
Billboard 	I have to ask you this since we're talking about Street Fighter. Nicki Minaj dropped a song recently called "Chun-Li." Have you heard it?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, I heard it. I was listening to it the other day. I was waiting for the Chun-Li sound effects! I was like, "Yo, this is Chun-Li. Where's the Spinning Bird Kick? The Yah-Yah-Yah-Yah-Yah!" But I mean, she murdered it though. The first verse is kinda crazy.
Nicki has always been cool with me and I always been cool with her. I've always been a fan. She used to rock—like way back in the day—with my brother Stack Bundles, rest in peace. She's always been good in my book, and super solid. I would definitely want her to do some Spinning Bird Kick sound effects in the remix maybe.
Billboard 	Maybe you can hop on that and help her out.
Lupe Fiasco	Nah, I don't know. I don't know. We'll see.
|-|2022=
{| class="wikitable"
! Billboard
| What I thought was super-interesting was that "He Say She Say" from Food & Liquor was a building block for The Cool. Talk about the song's importance in how we ended up with The Cool. 
|-
! Lupe Fiasco
| There's some interconnectivity with more than a few songs. "The Cool," that song is on Food & Liquor and it was kinda like, "Let's extend that narrative." There's a lot of narrative for The Cool, outside of just the album, goes back to this song "The Pills" that I did on MTV's compilation. It was like, "Okay, I'm gonna talk about the streets as if it was a person." It would be a random third verse on a song. You could follow The Cool outside of the album and arrange certain songs to speak to character development or a prequel. Songs like "He Say She Say" kinda fit — it may be a little bit of a force, but it's there to be had. 
The result of "He Say She Say" — unfortunately for a lot of the homies who the song is based on — some people don't grow up to go through a "He Say She Say" situation. That's used as motivation to get up out of it. Some of the kids, they turn into "The Cool." Not having a dad or family structure around and being introduced to the streets in a certain way or not having that type of guidance to stop them from making that first wrong move. They can turn into that. It's unfortunate and real serious when we perform "He Say She Say." It's one of those joints I have to apologize to people in the crowd who went through this that shouldn't have to. 
|-
! Billboard
| The first record you recorded off The Cool was "Superstar," which had pop sensibilities, even for a dark record. Looking back on your career, how do you feel you were able to handle fame at the peak of your career?
|-
! Lupe Fiasco
| The video for "Superstar" got the characters for "The Cool" in it. Even if the narrative for the album isn't expressed explicitly in a song, the characters are still a part of a song like "Superstar." All that stuff is still there. The characters just don't exist in the hustling game, they exist in the music business itself. The game itself is the music business and all the evils that come from that. Even something with "Superstar," which still feels like this big pop record — which it was — it's still tied into the dark side of what the album was trying to express and the forces in this world. 
Outside of that, just as a song on its own, the perils of the music business — you learn by the time The Cool came out, that was my third record deal. I had been through all of the shenanigans, and more shenanigans to come, but it's still that self-motivation record for me. I may not write about my personal life a lot in my music, but I'll write things in my music to remind myself. On "Superstar," I'm like, "Hey, if you are what you say you are" — just remember here's all the kind of struggles, trials and tribulations and don't rest on your laurels.
It's always been a challenge being in the music business. Whether that's a challenge to stay credible or selling records or staying relevant, that all comes at a certain cost and a lot of the times that's not good. I literally got a herniated disc in my back from performing. It's painful. Prince, rest in peace, who had all types of issues with his knees and taking pain killers to go on the road. Sometimes we might be able to dodge a bullet in the streets, but we might catch an L on stage with some type of injury, and still have to find a way to thug through and perform… It's part of what we do. and I always say rap is a sport, so you gotta train like that.
Going back to the song, it's still relevant. I literally just performed it with Coldplay in Chicago with 60,000 people and Chris Martin singing the hook. We had the whole crowd singing it. I did a walk-through in the club the day before yesterday and they played "Superstar" in the club after all the drill s–t, and that same exact crowd is singing along to the chorus to the song that's 15 years old. It's still valid. 
|-
! Billboard
| Over the years, how has your relationship with Chicago changed since The Cool?
|-
! Lupe Fiasco
| It ain't even since The Cool – I'm in Chicago right now. The reason I flew in was to do The Cool. I performed it at this festival in the heart of the city. The first official song on The Cool is "Go Go Gadget Flow." I'm from the best city in the Midwest, best city in the whole wide world. I just performed as a special guest at the Coldplay concert in Chicago. This city loves me and I love the city back.
I'll frame it like this: About 37 years ago — I was three years old — my dad, who did martial arts, had a bunch of his friends invited up to City Hall to meet the mayor, and my dad took me up. It's this photo of these Black martial artists, me and another little homie there with the mayor holding up my dad's t-shirt. 37 years later to two days ago, there's another picture of me, my sister, and my mom with the current mayor of Chicago. The relationship to the city runs deep. From the highest office in the land, all the way to the ghettos. They show me much love, and it's reciprocated. 
|-
! Billboard
| Another highlight on the album is "Paris, Tokyo." What was it about those cities that really helped shape your view of the world outside of Chicago, and have you developed affinities for new cities?
|-
! Lupe Fiasco
| It's still the same cities that's in there, right? As much as I love the city, Chicago still feels rather small. If you got a big imagination — I was just talking to the homies about this — the city is a great place to start from, but you don't need to necessarily spend your middle time or end here. If you from here, you always gonna be here. The goal is not to go to other places and take them over, but to really just experience the rest of the world. Chicago is not the representation of the full reality of this world. Other cities hold special things you need to engage with that you're not going to find in Chicago. 
I always push people to go travel and get passports. Even if it's just a boring place in a small town outside of Chicago, go experience what it feels like and what it means to be somewhere else with a different culture. I look at it as a joy to travel the majority of the world. My bass players have been to more places than I have. One of my little homies, when he was a teenager, he wen to more places than me. I ain't never been to Thailand. It's a joy to have the access and opportunity to move around and bring songs like "Paris, Tokyo" to life, and know that the song is inspiring other people to do the same.
You're a huge advocate for people to do better with their health. I say that because I think of "Gotta Eat." You're personifying this hamburger and looking back now versus today — what do you think about people taking a health-first approach in this day and age?
Drinking eight glasses of water and eating a chocolate cake. It's super current because it's the 15th anniversary of The Cool, so we been just going around performing the album in its entirety. Before we did the joint in Chicago, we was in Fort Worth, Texas and I performed "Gotta Eat." These are songs I haven't performed in years or at all because they never fit into a 45-minute show. Now, I perform "Gotta Eat" on some tour stops and I'm being reintroduced to what the song meant in a new era. I performed it and I always think how I'ma end this or how I'ma bring the song in? When the song was over in Fort Worth, I was like, "Yo, that song was dedicated to the vegans out there." I hesitate to say it's prophetic or anything like that, because veganism or vegetarianism is not necessary in my point of view, but there's health consciousness, which has been around forever.
Some of our best leaders, like Dick Gregory, were about pushing health. They came off weird in some times and eras, but nutrition — you think of the Black Panther free breakfast program, which was about understanding there's certain nutritional structures we need to abide by. Just our history in this country being forced to eat the scraps. Even if you look at our indigenous brothers and sisters, they gave them a diet of lard, flour and whiskey. Then you look forward to today and wonder why they have the highest rates for diabetes and alcoholism and it's kinda connected to the diet they were forced to intake.
You look at Black folks and we were somewhat in the same kinda position. Given scraps, bulls–t and work food, to go out and work until you die. It's important to kinda speak to it. It ain't on me, I really give it to Dead Prez. Each record with their RBG album [2004's RBG: Revolutionary But Gangsta] was targeted very specifically on certain issues in the community at large. Even to this day, stic.man is about making music that you can work out to, so you can get healthy listening.
"Gotta Eat" is a little more cryptic than that, and is a concept record about fast food, but it creates a platform to have a conversation about the importance of health. It speaks to dudes who wouldn't even think about it in that capacity. You might have a dude from the hood who's playing the album because it's dope, and he gets to a record like "Gotta Eat" and it's like, "Let me think about what I'm eating. Maybe there is an alternative."
|-
! Billboard
| I think about The LOX opening up a juice shop. 
|-
! Lupe Fiasco
| We facing it. Rest in peace, Big Pun. You see people from our OGs and legends facing health issues later in life. Rest in peace, Black Rob. What lessons can be learned or what message were they sending out? It took a Big Pun what he did on "Yeeeah Baby" and he was like, "I just lost 100 pounds, I'm tryna live." I think it's something that's been there from the most gangster to the most conscious of us, that you hear it every now and again. I don't necessarily agree with everything the vegan movement is about — I think they're kinda harsh sometimes — but I respect that it's an avenue to take in our culture to eat better.
|-
! Billboard
| "Dumb It Down" was originally called "Space Travel." Before even diving into that record, in an age where lyricism is dumbed-down, who does Lupe listen to when he wants to dumb it down?
|-
! Lupe Fiasco
| It comes across as a play, B. I feel that everyone has their goals with their words and what audience they're trying to connect with. I know some super-lyrical rappers, and when it's time for them to sell albums and make records, it's catering to the most bottom things ever. And I know some super rappers you'd think would be wack rappers, and they'll be in a cypher murdering s–t. I think with rap, you can't help it. 
It's part of the DNA of being a rapper when that wittiness and intellect is going to come through, but it needs to be controlled or regulated if you tryna sell some records. I think there's some rappers can get super lyrical and sell records. 
|-
! Billboard
| You mention lyrics being dumbed-down, but I think we're in a supersaturated lyrical age. I just think at the time The Cool came out, you had an imbalance… There was big dope songs with a big chorus over a dope-ass beat, but it wasn't really speaking to nothing. It might have been less the artists' fault, but more the label or radio's fault. Like, "We got a formula we want you to follow. Just come with the simplest rhyming scheme and sell a bunch of records." Instead of A&Rs going to look for the super-lyrical rappers at the open mic, they're at the strip club looking for the rapper to get the crowd to move or dancers to dance. 
|-
! Lupe Fiasco
| I came up in Chicago, and we listening to 8Ball & MJG, UGK, Geto Boys — and all of them are lyricists, but they just not from New York. People only attached lyricism to New York when I was coming up. So there's a certain kind of bias that gets projected onto non-lyrical [artists]. I've had my issues with New York trying to defend the position. 
|-
! Billboard
| You're talking to a dude from New York. I'm not that biased. 
|-
! Lupe Fiasco
| Yes you are.
|-
! Billboard
| André 3000 isn't from New York, you're not from New York and you get busy. Jeezy is from Atlanta. 
|-
! Lupe Fiasco
| You remember Pimp C said, "What time zone is Atlanta in? Eastern Standard Time." You're still on the East Coast. 
I don't think lyricism is being super-duper lyrical miracle. I think it's having something to say. I don't think DMX was lyrical, but I think he had s–t to say. 
|-
! Billboard
| Do you consider bars to be punchlines, concepts?
|-
! Lupe Fiasco
| I think there's levels to it.
"Kick, Push" ain't got no bars to it, but it's a concept so it feels like this lyrical thing. Some people would say it's not lyrical and others say it's super complex talking about eight different things. Like nah B, it's just talking about skateboarding. 
To "Dumb It Down," it was literally my A&R. He was like, "That song was super complex, you should dumb it down." The hook was originally called "Space Travel," and it was like, "I'm finna go crazy in space." I got some radio records and now I'm gonna do what I do on my mixtapes, which is go off. I played the record for him and he asked me to dumb it down. That's the chorus now. 
|-
! Billboard
| I read there was a record called "Blackout" that you originally wanted to do with Chris Brown on it. Looking back, is there an artist you wanted to have a hook or verse on the album?
|-
! Lupe Fiasco
| It's an album that's aged well in certain parts. Certain records are a classic forever, and there's others that I don't want to perform. Other records like "Superstar" were written in the vein of Chris Martin from Coldplay and 15 years later he performs it. You never know where these things are gonna live. It might line up being a Grammys performance and that's where it comes to fruition. 
It might not happen on the record itself, but it could be a special guest appearance or someone else covering it. I ain't got no regrets, especially with what just happened with Chris Martin was the icing on the cake. It happened in the biggest way it could have, at the crib of Soldier Field with Chris Martin singing your chorus. 
|-
! Billboard
| Do you feel like you accomplished everything you needed to with The Cool?
|-
! Lupe Fiasco
| Yeah, I dodged the sophomore jinx. That was the whole goal. It's probably gonna wind up being my first platinum album. I've never had a platinum album and I've sold millions of singles. There was no rush, but it's looking like The Cool is a few thousand albums from going platinum 15 years later. That's the next milestone and the one commercial thing that can really put the stamp on it and I'll have the plaque to prove it.
Hopefully, we can do a few more shows and things like this where new generations get introduced to the record and we can push a few more albums to get over that platinum mark, and then that would be like, "Yeah, we done." We got the Grammy nods, critical acclaim, people's life-changing stories, impact it had for a certain generation of hip-hop, and now let's see if we can get the platinum plaque. The Cool can go retire. 
|-
! Billboard
| Your new album, Drill Music In Zion, comes out Friday. Talk about the chemistry you and Soundtrakk had in your early days and the growth, mainly because he produced the upcoming project.
|-
! Lupe Fiasco
| Soundtrakk did "Kick, Push" and "Superstar." I always say we're like Batman and Commissioner Gordon. He's been pivotal to me. Whenever we get together, it's always something special. People just may think you need to do music to impress other people, but Soundtrakk is one of those dudes that will make a record that I'll love that nobody else likes, and he's one of the only people that can do that. Then, we can also turn around and sell millions of records and make classics. 
He almost passed away from COVID-19. His mom passed away and it hit me hard. It was a moment I felt like I almost lost a homie. I just doubled back down saying we need to grind. I got albums with Soundtrakk. Whole albums with us just rocking. He'll send me 100 beats out the blue and I'll start slowly rhyming on records. I thought we needed to start finishing these joints and putting them out, so I did Drill Music In Zion in three days. He got his production team and he's the maestro. It's just nasty the level he's at as a producer. He can do everything. 
The next couple of projects you going to get from me in a serious way, he's going to have a heavy hand in. He's going to be in there running the full staff on the music side. The plan is learning that lesson from almost losing him. It's like, "Let's put out as much music while we can."
</tabber>
== Chart history ==
=== Artist 100 ===
Year	Peak position	Weeks on chart
2015	34 	2
=== Billboard Hot 100 ===
Title 	Year	Peak position	Weeks on chart
"Touch the Sky" 	2006	42 	9
"Kick, Push" 	2006	78 	5
"Superstar" 	2007	10 	20
"Shining Down" 	2009	93 	1
"The Show Goes On" 	2010	9 	33
"Out of My Head" 	2011	40 	17
"Words I Never Said" 	2011	89 	1
"Beautiful Lasers (2 Ways)" 	2011	70 	1
"Around My Way (Freedom Ain't Free)"	2012	76 	1
"Lamborghini Angels" 	2012	92 	1
"Battle Scars" 	2012	71 	20
"Old School Love" 	2013	93 	5
=== Billboard 200 ===
Title 	Year	Peak position	Weeks on chart
Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor 	2006	8 	13
Lupe Fiasco's The Cool 	2008	14 	28
Lasers 	2011	1 	25
Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1	2012	5 	7
Tetsuo & Youth 	2015	14 	4
Drogas Light 	2017	28 	2
Drogas Wave 	2018	60 	1
=== Independent Albums ===
Title 	Year	Peak position	Weeks on chart
Drogas Light	2017	2 	3
Drogas Wave 	2018	5 	3
=== Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums ===
Title 	Year	Peak position	Weeks on chart
Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor 	2006	2 	27
Lupe Fiasco's The Cool 	2008	4 	44
Lasers 	2011	1 	47
Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1	2012	1 	39
Tetsuo & Youth 	2015	2 	12
== Gallery ==
File:Billboard.jpg
File:Billboard July 2006.jpg
File:Billboard July 2006 (2).jpg
File:Billboard July 2006 (3).jpg
File:Billboard July 2006 (4).jpg
== References ==
Category:2006 interviews
Category:2007 interviews
Category:2010 interviews
Category:2011 interviews
Category:2013 interviews
Category:2015 interviews
Category:2018 interviews
Category:2022 interviews
Category:Magazines