Reel Notes

Reel Notes is a podcast hosted by American journalist Dylan "CineMasai" Green, which features "conversations about the relationship between rap and film with rappers, producers, journalists, directors, and more." His interview with American rapper Lupe Fiasco was published on July 17, 2024."Reel Notes S4 Episode 22: Lupe Fiasco on True Detective, Criticism, Soundtrakk, 'Samurai', & More". YouTube. July 17, 2024.
== Description ==
My guest this week is Chicago rapper, producer, label head, and MIT professor, Lupe Fiasco. We spoke about True Detective, being inspired by his father's record and film collections, practicing martial arts and African drumming, references and concepts in his music, creating across eras, the art and pros and cons of criticism, his bond with producer Soundtrakk, and the creative process behind his years-in-the-making latest album, the Amy Winehouse-inspired Samurai. Come fuck with us. 
Samurai is available wherever music is sold, streamed, or stolen.
== Transcript ==
 	
CineMasai 	Peace, y'all. I just had a quick correction for context's sake that I wanted to address before this episode starts and before y'all hear it. So about probably like a good hour into this conversation, Lupe mentions the Pitchfork review of he and Soundtrakk's album, Samurai. And he mentions how the first two paragraphs speak about the movie, The Last Samurai. The 2003 film starring Tom Cruise, it's white saviorship, maybe worth a watch just for content but whatever. So the Pitchfork review in question actually references a completely different novel from 2000 also called The Last Samurai by a writer named Helen DeWitt. It's about a completely different thing, it's about like a child prodigy who plays piano on a quest to search for his father. I just wanted to issue that technical correction because I don't correct him on it proper in the interview. You know, like I just want to cover him, I want to cover me. The reason he brings it up and the point he's making is still a salient and an interesting one, but I just wanted to issue that technical correction. The author, Paul Thompson—shout out to Paul Thompson, by the way, he's amazing. Paul was talking about the novel, not the movie, I just wanted to give Paul his credit, his flowers, and all that shit. But yeah, you know. I already know a lot of people are about to be here for this one, so I just wanted to make sure that was addressed upfront and uh, yeah. For anybody new, welcome to Reel Notes. Hope y'all stay a while.
Peace y'all, before we get started, I felt compelled to remind everyone to stay safe and stay abreast of all the atrocities happening around the world. The people of Palestine, Tigray, Congo, Sudan, Haiti, and countless other territories are currently fighting for their rights and their lives. And if you're choosing to take action, please take every precaution you can. Stay hydrated, stay in groups, cover your face, and please, more than anything, don't lose hope. I've been leaving links to organizations and resources at the bottom of every episode description for a good minute, so please go check those out for places to donate and to find ways to take action today. We're not free until 'all oppressed people in the States, and abroad, are free. Much love, stay strong, and stay dangerous.
 	
CineMasai 	What's good, y'all. My name is Dylan Green, and this is Reel Notes, a space dedicated to blurring the cultural and artistic lines between rap and film. I'm here to chop it up with everyone from rappers and producers, to journalists and video directors, about their relationship to movies and how, if at all, film inspires their craft.
My guest this week is Chicago rapper, producer, label head, and MIT professor, Lupe Fiasco. We spoke about True Detective being inspired by his father's record and film collections, practicing martial arts and African drumming, references and concepts in his music, creating across eras, the art and pros and cons of criticism, his bond with producer Soundtrakk, and the creative process behind his years in the making latest album, the Amy Winehouse-inspired Samurai. Come fuck with us.
What's cracking everybody, welcome back to Reel Notes. It's a Monday, we're back, we're tired, post-Fourth of July, all sorts of fun stuff. My name is Dylan Green "CineMasai," got a lot of names, do a lot of shit, outside, inside, all sides. Everybody I have on the show is special, but this person who's here today is extremely special. He doesn't need an introduction but I'm gonna give him a real brief one anyway. This man's a rapper, producer, poet, college professor, gamer. lover of green [?], Morocco moles and undercover squirrels, and a lot of other stuff. But the one, the only, Lupe Fiasco is here, on the podcast. I can't articulate what it means that you're here, Lupe, thank you so much for your time. I really, really appreciate it.
Lupe Fiasco	Thank you, dawg, I appreciate it.
CineMasai 	Yeah, it means the world. I've been listening for you know like since Food & Liquor, basically, so there's a lot I could ask but we'll keep things we'll keep things pretty narrow. I'mma ask you the first question I ask everybody. [Cutting out.] Who comes on here—which is—movie—you had a strong about?
Lupe Fiasco	The signal broke up, so you like stuttered all the way through that.
CineMasai 	Oh, my fault. What's the last movie/TV show you watched that you had a strong opinion about?
Lupe Fiasco	Uh, True Detective. The last True Detective, the one where they're up in like I guess Alaska or the Arctic or whatever. That's the last series that I watched that I actually like was like, oh wow, that's pretty dope. But I try to watch all the True Detective series whenever I get around. Fortunately I was on a long set of flights from Saudi Arabia to the UK and. So it was on the same airline, so I was able to watch the whole series all the way through. That was pretty dope, I like that.
CineMasai 	And how'd you like the season, because I haven't watched any of True Detective at all, so got no frame of reference.
Lupe Fiasco	I mean it's like Sherlock Holmes, in a certain way, like they're all under the same moniker True Detective, like the same title for all of them, even though each one is completely different, has different actors, different storylines and plots. They're all under True Detective. They're just really well done, I think they're really well-written, really well-shot. The narrative's always really tight and good and it's really hard to figure it out. So, you know, that there's a twist. You know there's a layer to it and it just sends you in all these different places and by the time you get to the to the end it's always satisfying and it's one of those things that even though once you discover the twist, they're still engaging enough I think where you they have like replay value. So you go watch it again, knowing that the twist is going to happen. But then you watch it again looking at like oh, I didn't know that that part was part of the like twist, that I didn't catch it the first time. But it's really good, you should check them out. I think they're really worth your time.
CineMasai 	Yeah, it's been on my list for awhile. I just never like, you know. I'm one of those people who's got like 70-80 recommendations that I'm always trying to watch but I love a good anthology series. I'm trying to remember who was a part of the first season but like either way, it's always been in the back of my head but I just haven't fully tapped in at all so I'mma definitely do that now, so thank you.
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, they're pretty dope.
CineMasai 	Oh, that's tight. So real quick, let's run it all the way back with you. What's the first movie experience you can remember having? It could be at the theater, it could be at your cousin's house, like the first thing that comes to mind for you.
Lupe Fiasco	I mean, I can't really pinpoint a specific, primary moment. My father kept like a big collection of film. I remember we had like a Betamax VHS player. Betamax player, VHS player, like we always had all of the like um, at least my dad always had the latest and great—I even think we had laser disc for some reason.
CineMasai 	My dad had a laser disc collection, I get it.
Lupe Fiasco	Maybe, maybe not. I might be projecting, but I remember just having like the either the Betamax or the VHS' and watching those as a little kid. And then we would go to the movies from time to time. I think the one movie that stood out for me was um, Hamburger Hill. I think it was like this Vietnam movie or something like that, might have been Hamburger Hill. I know if it was Vietnam or another war. I remember going to see that, I remember going to see Colors at the movies as a kid, which is interesting. So yeah, there's some cinematic memories back there but they're so that's so long ago that they're all over the place, I don't know which came first. I don't know if I was five, I don't know if I was two, I don't know if I was whatever, so. But I think the most standout one is my dad always had a a ton of films.
Oh, I remember the one that the stand that probably is the most is TriStar Pictures back in the day. Their opening thing before the movie came was. There was like a unicorn that would like start at the back of the screen and then come up. I remember I always used to run it high because I always thought the horse was gonna jump through the screen.
CineMasai 	That's tight, yeah. I had um—oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
Lupe Fiasco	No, I was done.
CineMasai 	It's funny because I had a similar experience with the Columbia Lady. For anybody who doesn't know the TriStar thing, it's this lady holding a torch and she's standing on some steps. There was one movie—I can't remember which one, like. She started moving and ripped off her dress, and started—it might have been like an Adam Sandler movie, or something dumb like that. But like ever since that happened, I cannot watch the Columbia thing happen without thinking that like she's gonna move or like jump, or something. I'm less scared that she's gonna hop out and do something, and I'm just like, what are they gonna do with her this time? Like it's just kind of stuck in my head. It's always fun when companies do like weird interesting things with their logos and their mascot and shit.
Lupe Fiasco	Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I remember seeing something like that. When she was fighting somebody, she was beating up something with the torch. I think it was in one of the films, I can't remember like she was fighting with it or something but anyway, yeah.
CineMasai 	Right, yeah, something like that. And then in the Charlie Angels movie they like zoom all the way out to the right of like where the clouds are and there's like the opening scene where like LL Cool J is on the plane and he's like a spy but he's like actually Drew Barrymore in disguise like. I don't know, like I just always remember stuff like that because it's different, not everybody does that, so that's just cool to me.
But you know as you get older, and you start to have more life experiences and you develop your own taste. What's the first Capital M movie you can remember seeing? I like to think of a Capital M movie as something that really affected you and touched you in like a artistic or emotional or spiritual sense, like something that was more than just like a piece of entertainment for 90 minutes type shit.
Lupe Fiasco	Um. I mean, I really can't remember, to be honest. I've had so many experiences when you try and go back and you try and piece things back together. Like I said, I don't know if the TriStar Pictures thing happened when I was five, or if it happened when I was three, if it happened when I was eleven. Things get blended and mixed together, you know. There's a ton of movies and even TV shows that have effects on you, they may be subtle. They may be a little bit bigger of an impact than that, but I don't know. We used to watch a lot of martial arts films because we did martial arts, so that was our kind of thing for us. We would always watch a kung-fu film or something like that or some ninja movie and because we were martial artists, we could actually go outside and reenact the film. We had the sword, the outfits, we had all the other stuff. So you know, if you talking about like an immediate thing and that was a ton of movies, so we could do that with kickboxing movies, we could do that with, you know, whatever. We go outside and basically reenact the moves or paused it and rewind it and see how they did that move, and then flip it that way and do the same. We literally—I remember we had Surf Ninjas. My dad, he had the sword from Surf Ninjas and then he had the knife from The Shadow. So I don't know if you remember the Shadow, dude was able to control like this knife. Almost like Balinese or like Southeast Asian-type style knife, but it was alive and he could use his mind to send it and kill people whatever. But I remember we had that knife so you like watch the movie and then like you know a few months later that knife is like sitting on the kitchen table, or the dining room table, or something like that.
So we literally kind of had like this one-to-one relationship with film because so much of the film was stuff that we used to do, or stuff that was part of our like martial arts heritage. So you we watch a movie about drunken boxing and then go like outside and do drunken boxing. Those are probably the ones that are most impressionate ones upon me was the martial arts films.
CineMasai 	Wow, I knew you and your father were close in that way but not necessarily like. The film connection's really cool, especially when it comes to stuff that you like do in real life. Especially martial arts, you know, something that's so philosophically and physically like in tune with your body and having that be one of one is really dope. Yeah, that's just cool as hell. That's not what I was expecting to hear, so that's just dope.
Before we move on to more specific music things, was there ever a period. Well actually, no, you already answered that question so I'm not going to ask that again. But in a similar fashion, when did music become kind of like Capital M music for you? Like was there ever a time where it was just a thing that was like passive in the background, to a time when you just were like this is music, this is a thing that like—not so much like you want to make it, but you're interested in it and fascinated by it?
Lupe Fiasco	There's two things my dad gave me when I was a child, when I was like a baby, like two, three years old. Maybe three years old. He gave me a short wakizashi, which is a katana sword, but a short one, called shōtō. And he gave me a little djembe drum, a little African djembe drum, that matched his. So it's like he had a big djembe, I had a little djembe. He had the daito, which is a long sword, and I had the shōtō, which was a short sword. So music has always been a part of my existence in one way or another. My dad was a musician, had a lot of instruments around the house, played a lot of instruments. So music was always a part of our experience. We'd always go to the lake and drum. He had a drum circle and it be different people with different types of instruments, and dancers, and all these people come up. So that was a part of my life since I could remember.
And again, one of the two things my dad gave me was a drum and a sword, so music has always been in that space. Like always, so it's like, he was always listening to music, he had a a big record collection. I remember listening to records, classical music and stuff like that. I remember even in our martial arts demonstrations, there's like demonstrations where you would hear this soundtrack. So you would just come watch us perform, doing the karate demonstration and martial arts demonstration and then it would always be a soundtrack in the background and you would think oh, they're playing like music, there's a CD or like a tape or whatever playing. And then at the end of the demonstration, we would bring out the band. And so behind-the-scenes, we had like a drum core where my dad would teach kids to make their own drums and they had these like kettledrums and [?] drums and all these different things. And behind-the-scenes, the band was playing the whole time. So music was always a part of the martial arts tradition for us and then on the cultural tradition as well. So was it a professional pursuit? I mean, I don't know, I wouldn't say that deeply, but when it's just part of your life, there's no difference. It's like, oh, that's just what we do. This just a part of our thing and all my sisters are like dancers, so we all dance and do that stuff. They used to dance. And then it kind of turned a corner in high school, where it's like I wanted to play jazz. I wanted to play the clarinet, and my dad had a clarinet amongst a bunch of other instruments, so it was like I wanted to play the clarinet. So I remember I started playing the recorder and then the Japanese shakuhachi flute. And then was like oh, let me step up and play the clarinet. My sister used to play the flute, too. My older sister played the flute back in the day but yeah, wanted to play clarinet, went to high school. They was like, we can't teach you how to play, you got to go to music school, and so I was like oh fuck, I'm not doing that. So like all right, let me just start rapping. So I started rapping to replace the jazz piece.
And then I was like 14, because I was in freshman year. And then by junior year it was like oh, I'm gonna be a rapper. Like that's going to be my job, you know, professionally. I didn't go to college, didn't prepare to go to college. I was like, I'mma just gonna rap. I got my record deal when I was like one foot in high school, one foot out. And then from, I would say from 18—maybe 19. I call it 19, 'cause it's just easy. 19-years-old is when I got profession into music business.
CineMasai 	Alright. Before we move a little further into that, I also grew up playing djembe. Not from a super young age, I started playing in high school. My high school had an African drum, and I joined it, and I still have my djembe in my closet. So yeah, djembe and doundoun were always my two favorite drums to play whenever we were in the core. I never owned a doundoun before. I also grew up playing instruments, but I had never encountered West African anything instrument-related until I was in high school, and I really do feel like that's enriched my life in a lot of ways. I always tell myself I'm gonna take the djembe out the closet, I'mma restring it, I'mma get a new skin, I'mma start playing again, and it never happens. So I'm trying to get myself back on that path. I had no idea that you did anything you just said. So that's really beautiful, for me to hear just as somebody who did that as well and thinks about it sometimes.
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, I mean. There's a lot of people that don't know a lot of stuff. I've been saying this stuff for years, I always tell why'd you do what you do, my dad did da-da da-da-da, it's either people don't pay attention or it just like goes over their head and it's like alright, fuck it. Cool, this is [?] But yeah, my dad used to make drums from scratch. So he used to do the carvings or he used to get the whenever it was kettle drums, he would get like the metal drums. The barrels or whatever. Drill them, string them, he used to get the skins. I remember our bathtub, you go on in there and there be like skin soaking in the bathtub to make them pliable and loose and stuff like that. And he would cut them into circles and string and everything so yeah, my dad was like, you know, all the way all the way all the way there. Like if you see my dad, he would be like oh shit, he probably made all that. He made the sword, made the drum, made the [?], so it was pretty dope.
CineMasai 	Yeah, I mean, just hearing all of that. That type of discipline, and dedication to craft it just sticks with you for life. No matter what you do, that could be like a creative pursuit, it's just really fulfilling and I just love to hear that. I think it's great. Before we move on to other music stuff, in the new project you had mentioned earlier that you were already kind of like one foot in and one foot out while you were in high school. You mentioned like that was around the time when you really started to take it seriously, but was there a more—sorry to get back into specifics—but do you remember the first moment when you like specifically knew rap was going to become more than just a hobby for you? Where it was like this moment is like I am going to rap, period?
Lupe Fiasco	Uh, yeah, one of my homeboys I used to rap with named Bishop G. Went to high school together, I built a little studio and I remember we were doing some freestyle—I can't remember what it was. We rapping over something and we're listening back to it. And he was like yo, he'd listen to his verse, had another homie Doughboy and another homie. I don't even remember who's on the song, Doughboy or Napo. But anyway, he got to my verse and he was like, yo, he's like "you sound like you do this for real." He was like "yo, you sound like you do this on the radio." He was like we rap and everybody was dope he's like, "we rap and you know we sound like we sound." But he was like "when your shit come on, it sound like you can it sound like you do this for real." And then that was kind of like one of the things where I was like oh, okay, cool, then I'm gonna do this for real. Even though I probably made the decision to dig in way before then, that moment was kind of like oh shit, like even the homies are like yeah, you can do this like for real. And that kind of boosts your confidence or solidifies the writing on the wall to like oh, yeah, you could pretty, you know you apply yourself you can kind of like your tone's already there your skillset is kind of there. Like maybe you can pursue it, so. That was probably like the pivotal moment that I kind of come back to.
CineMasai 	That makes sense because right before this, I went back and listened to "Armpits" and just your verse on "Armpits" is just ridiculous. You know, you were just ready to roll and even going through like the early singles and everything like your eye, your ear, and your tone and your writing were already so sharp and it's just like all we got to do is just refine this and move it forward. Yeah, that's dope, that's super dope.
So before we dig into albums specifically, I wanted to touch on another specific song since this is a rap and movie podcast. I couldn't not bring up "Double Burger with Cheese" from Friend of the People 'cause like, what a song, man. For anybody who doesn't know, "Double Burger with Cheese" is a song from a while back where Lupe ties together a bunch of different references to movies: Boyz in the Hood, Menace II Society, Paid in Full, South Central, Colors, you know like you mentioned before. As a way to draw generational divides between like these movies that raised so many of us. And I was just curious about where the idea for "Double Burger with Cheese" came from, and why you felt the need to dedicate a whole song to it. Like it just it spoke to me, I love that song.
Lupe Fiasco	Thank you. A lot of my work has a lot of reference in it. Referencing film and TV, cartoons, and stuff like that. So that part of my creative process is kind of baked in. I guess "Double Burger with Cheese" will be just more like oh, I'mma just do nothing but those movie references from a very specific canon of films. Simply because those are the films that were, you know, watched a lot when you're when you're a kid in addition to all the kung-fu movies. We still grew up in the hood, we were still gang banging, drug dealing, and shooting and shit. So it was kind of like oh, okay, this is this is part of my milieu, too, and those films were able to capture so much of the reality. And, you know, some of the some of the shit was hyperbolic in certain capacities and very much West Coast. A West Coast bias in certain ways, so it's interesting to get like East Coast versions of it like Juice and or like... not Once Upon a Time in Brooklyn, Once Upon a Time in Red Hook, something like that, Make it Out of Red Hook whatever, whichever one that I forgot what it was. But we had something similar, too. We had a TV show in Chicago called The Awakening which was this public access channel, almost like lowkey cable. But it wasn't cable, I feel it was public access but it's something that was produced by a church to kind of be one of those dare to keep a get off drug type joints but it turned out to be like super hood. It was pretty cool. So I mean, you're surrounded by that kind you know that type of material in that cannon and you're gonna draw from it, it's gonna pull on you, and you know project into certain things. Again, I'm always pulling reference points from films and that particular case was like oh, let me just concentrate all the reference points specifically from this genre of films. Kind of new age Blaxploitation to a degree, right? And embed that into that one particular song.
There's another record that I think's done a little bit more subtly with a little bit more nuance and more of an appreciation for one of like my favorite films of all time. There's a couple and they're both Black, kind of those Blackhood films and that's Fresh and so they're a little bit more, they're actually a lot more sophisticated than say like Boyz in the Hood, or Menace II Society, or Juice. And I did a whole song about Deep Cover on Tetsuo & Youth called "Body of Work." It touches on different things, pulls from different energies, but the main energy is Deep Cover. And was able to hang—Bill Duke was the director, you know, Bill Duke's a real good friend of mine, real good guy, I was able to kind of vibe with him in different capacities. I think that some of those movies, some of those films have a very high cinematic quality and capacity to them that rivals [?] and some even some either even higher art kind of films, if you allow it to, I really see it. So like, yeah, they're inspirations. I make songs about them sometimes.
CineMasai 	Yeah, no, I'm really happy you brought "Body of Work" in particular because I remember the first time I listened to it like on the project and I was like, is this Deep Cover? One of the things I've always loved about your writing is you're like obviously a great storyteller, but the thing that makes you a great storyteller is how you're just very good at embodying other people, you're really good at getting at other perspectives, you're just good at telling stories through characters. There's so many examples I could pull from here but you know stuff like Alan and Jonylah Forever from Drogas Wave and you know, "He Say She Say" from Food & Liquor and you're capable of doing things like that, but you're also capable of making a song like "Gold Watch" where you can just kind of like flex for a second and then be like, this stuff's cool but you know, this shit in me not on me, type shit. I was re-listening to "Gold Watch" on the way into work today and the way you're just really good at getting a point of view across, whether it's your point of view or somebody else's point of view, and putting yourself in other people's shoes and therefore, we're in those shoes with you.
Just as a general question, when you're writing, how do concepts like this tend to come to your head? Because it's also observational but I've always been curious about how you go about writing songs like these because everything feels so lived in, you know?
Lupe Fiasco	I mean, it's a nonproprietary way to look at this. I don't know, I mean, because there's so many different. There's eras where I'm writing across certain. So like Samurai, for example, is like four years old, so Samurai is not now. The only real time project that you probably got from me was DMIZ—Drill Music in Zion—and that was only because place within three days, right. So you get like everything that was in my milieu within that three days versus like Samurai, which is years. Food & Liquor which is years and years and years. The Cool, not so much, maybe a couple years in between Food & Liquor and well from Food & Liquor until it released in like '08 or whatever. Then you get like Drogas Wave, Tetsuo & Youth, these are like years in between. So the thought processes and the things that were happening, the real time kind of reference pointing, the kind of imagining things and then also kind of pulling from history. Like, it's all of those things kind of combined, so the process, it runs a spectrum of different approaches. You know, it's not like one singular approach for one singular song. So you might get a song where the first verse was written and recorded, you know, ten months before the second verse got done. And then some will have the first eight bars that sat for four years, and then you might get a scratch chorus, and then it won't all get put together until two months before the album comes out or something like that.
So the workflow is open, and I think that's probably the secret sauce, is that my workflow is very, very fluid and it yields the things that it yields when you operate in that kind of fluid space. But it's built on, with that said, decades of practice. Decades of kind of internalizing how to approach a subject matter, how to flip it, you know. And then there's a certain aging process that occurs, like wine, where it's like oh, this is wine, it needs to sit or this concept needs to sit. And sometimes they sit, you know know. So Skulls is like 15 years in the making, it's still just kind of sitting until it's appropriate for it to kind of be uncorked, I guess.
CineMasai 	Right, I love that, and you know I appreciate you saying that in the perspective of rap music. Because a lot of people, I don't necessarily know that enough people feel that way about it. I feel like that perspective is kind of at the core of Samurai, just this is fine art, like I am making art here. You know, rap is artful, like that's one of the points being made here. There's several, but that's one like on repeat listens, that's the one that's really been getting at me. This is a practice, this is a thing that can grow and mature and be refined, like you said, like wine. And you know, when it's ready to go, it's ready to go.
On top of the Amy Winehouse battle rap concept. Which, since we're here, it's from the documentary, it's from a bit where she leaves a voicenote for Salaam Remi and mentions that. So I want to know, how did you feel about the Amy Winehouse documentary? Because it's really powerful, Amy Winehouse's story is so rough and the industry and the public and just everything did her so dirty in a lot of ways, but when you first watched the documentary, how did you feel about it and how did it affect you?
Lupe Fiasco	I mean, I made an album about it. I think that speaks, I think that answers that without getting into the nits and the grits, you know, of it all.
CineMasai 	And it's funny because at first I didn't, like it took me a second because when I first heard what the concept was, you know. I was like oh, that's kind of—or not kind of interesting—I was like oh, that's interesting, it's really cool. And then I was trying to parcel like how the samurai concept fit into there but I also realized that she kind of like called herself like a battle rap samurai and I'm like oh, okay, there it is. And that just once again, just I never you know just like one of those things where it's not even like a why didn't I think of that, it's just like only somebody that dedicated to the craft and that willing to go that deep into their own head would be willing to pull something out like this and this is a really breezy, cool listen. It's your shortest project by a pretty wide margin, and it just, like it feels really nice, you know.
Lupe Fiasco	House is short.
CineMasai 	Oh yeah, of course, yeah.
Lupe Fiasco	House is shorter, um. But yes, the second shortest. The second shortest like album/EP release.
CineMasai 	Yeah, no, you're totally right. Shout-out to Kaelin Ellis, yeah, definitely. Yeah, my fault on that.
Lupe Fiasco	Nah, it's cool.
CineMasai 	But there's a couple songs that I'd like to focus on specifically. The first being the opening song, "Samurai," you know like going back and looking it over again, this is very much like the most literal personification of Amy Winehouse. You're kind of like describing her looks and the whole second verse is, like. Just walk me, like why did it feel. I mean, maybe I can kind of like feel out why it felt appropriate to start out the album with a song like this, but why was this the song to open the album for you?
Lupe Fiasco	Well, two caveats. First, I didn't sequence the album so this could have very much been the last song on the album. Two—so that's one piece, right. The other one is like oh, it's 'cause it was the first song that I recorded. So it was like there was no chronology to it and it was never kind of meant—I won't say never, because I can't put myself completely back in that time period. But it wasn't like this is going to be a full album, right, it was like oh, that's a dope statement that inspires a record, let me paint a portrait of Amy Winehouse. And that's what it is, it's a portrait, you know I've gotten into portraiture over the past like maybe decade. And it's kind of like one of the spearhead things that I teach at my class at MIT is like this thing of rap portraiture. Portraiture in rap, what does that look like, what are the standards, as a pursuit how do we put things into a portrait format and an audio space. So, there's some rules and regulations that were actually kind of like implemented in Samurai that we had to kind of remove for intellectual property reasons and sample clearances and stuff like that.
But there's a certain rule that at least I kind of impose on my students for what needs to be within a portrait of a person. But beyond those kind of standards, it's open and free to kind of take it where you want to take it as long as you're kind of. As long as you can kind of listen to the record and see the person, or listen to the record or feel something about the person, even if you expose what the conceit is. That's the thing. But anyway, all that, to get out of that technical kind of piece, it started like a singular thing. Like here's a singular song about this particular thing inspired by a statement that this person said, and here's the thing, and that's not. And then it went from like oh, similar to kind of "Kick, Push." "Kick, Push" was really just the beat and it was meant to be like I'm gonna give this beat to these skateboarders so they can put it on their skate DVD. That was like a dope beat, or at least put on a skate DVD underneath like them skating like it's a dope, breezy soundtrack track to that. And then it was like oh, I got this chorus. "Kick push, kick," okay let me put that on there because then it just be like this chorus piece that just kind of comes up to add another kind of layer to it. And I remember recording the chorus and then like driving, and then as I'm driving to go get some food, listen to the chorus and the beat, it was like oh, I got this verse. I like alright cool, I'mma lay this one verse you know which talks about skateboarders and then talks about this guy who's a skateboard or whatever and then like oh, now I got a second verse and then oh shit, I might as well finish it because I got a third verse it's like oh, here's I might as well keep that song for my album because it's such a dope song. You know, it's like that very organic. That's how this project was, it was like oh, I got this song. But yo, how did she get her battle rap powers? Oh, I guess we got do another song, you know, then it's like oh, then what happens after she won the battle? Oh, guess I gotta do another song and then like oh, what happens.
So it kind of just grew over time, and "Samurai" being the first record was kind of natural because it's like the introduction and then everything kind of builds from that. But like I said, I didn't sequence the record, so it could have been. Like I had input on sequencing it, but it was like sequencing goes into like how it flows acoustically, music, different things, kind of you know sometimes the narrative can get disjointed for the sake of the total body of work sonically. It's why you can it in a repeat way. But luck would have it "Samurai" could have been in the middle, it could have landed somewhere at the end, you know there's definitely records that are out of place if I had to think of it chronologically it was like oh, I did that when I did that that over, that's weird.
CineMasai 	That's tight, yeah. Shout-out to Chill, I'm really happy he's home and that y'all are working close together again and really pushing 1st & 15th to the greatest power you can. I know you've mentioned in other interview that there isn't necessarily a like one-to-one beginning, middle, end narrative to this album, and it's just kind of like flashes and pieces of this concept, which I think is also really dope.
Lupe Fiasco	It's not finished, and it won't be finished. So I'm not saying that oh, it's not finished wait for it. I'm not gassing you to hold you over for the next one, I'm not going back to it. But it wasn't finished. So it was like you know, Chill comes home, play him the kind of different seeds for projects that I have. Play him Samurai, he's like oh yeah, let's rock with this so I like alright, let me let me get together the records that are done and then the records that are kind of like, need a verse, need to add a flesh-out a chorus change, beat up, do that and then it was kind of like. You sit back and you look at those records like oh, need to do like eight—not eight, I need to do like maybe four more records to kind of finish this out and it was this other record that I kind of had sitting over here that was the thing and it was this one was like a seed of another record.
And then it was like, nah, Chill was like nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, we done. And not even out of a sense of like expediency, like yo, I want to put this out by a certain date, it was more just like no, I think this is optimal, you know. And for me it was kind of like alright, cool, I'mma move on to the next. So the reason that it has that kind of. Unlike The Cool which was quote unquote finished but it was like The Cool was like, it's only four or five records that are directly talking about the concept and everything else is like "Superstar." This one was like purely meant to be this step-by-step piece about, you know, Amy Winehouse being a battle rapper. But it didn't get finished, so it was kind of like okay, cool. Then this is the EP, like it's. You make the decision between like completing the storyline and potentially getting like a bloated kind of very linear album, or stopping at a certain point where you have a somewhat abstract disjointed piece, but you have a really, really solid, powerful album. You know and so it was kind of like yo, stop while your ahead, we're done. And I was like alright, cool.
CineMasai 	I think that was a great choice because I really do think this is such a solid album and you know, like it works. Like a lot of your music, it works on so many different levels. You know, like even just taking a look at songs like two of my other favorites on here are "Palaces" and "Bigfoot," you know. "Bigfoot" to me almost feels like a more detailed or at least maybe like, or even like the inverse of a song like "Superstar" for example, since you mentioned it. You know like "Superstar," the third verse is you kind of like describing like the perfect idyllic show. Like things are getting autographed, the crowd eventually comes up on stage and is singing with you, and like it's this like beautiful moment, right? And then you know like "Bigfoot" is you know, just kind of you digging into like the minutia of like what a show entails and like how it can go wrong if you're not careful. It's tight to me to see you kind of dealing with—or like, not dealing with, but like exploring something like that from a different side. Like not necessarily the most positive side, because you know like we all know the music industry is fucking crazy. People get ripped off, dreams are distorted, and a lot of people get left for dead in a lot of cases. But you're at this point in your career where you've built, you know you have your own infrastructure, you're independent. You're working with you're working with people like Chill and Soundtrakk, who you've been working with for years you know like once again Chill's home and like you know like the gang's back together type shit. And it's dope to me to see you and Soundtrakk in particular come together for DMIZ and this and like really lock in on a full project together.
I would say, to me, this project feels so focused like Samurai. Even if it's unfinished in whatever form, like it feels so focused like the two of y'all were just very, very locked in and it feels great to see you explore that relationship across like two full projects. So I guess just because I'm once again, always been curious, why was DMIZ and now the time for the two of y'all to really make full-length projects together as opposed to kind of like working a little more uh, carte blanche?
Lupe Fiasco	Who, me and Trakk?
CineMasai 	Yeah, you and Trakk.
Lupe Fiasco	I mean, me and Trakk are. For one, he's 1st and 15th's like sole producer. And projects before that were always like these mismash things that the label would send and you know, different people that would send beat tapes and stuff like that and you just kind of got like this assortment of things. And that's cool, 'cause you get different points of view, and you get the beats from the top producers, but then it always kind of falls a little bit flat for expectation reasons for just random. It becomes like you get spoiled for choice and then you got to figure out that one beat that you had actually was produced by six motherfuckers and you got to deal with six different. It's like fuck this. So yeah, Trakk is, he's the home team, we've already kind of proven ourselves. And that was another thing, like we had already proven, it's like why do y'all keep sending me all these beat tapes from all these dudes when Soundtrakk can do everything? You know, so you had a little bit of that kind of like people disparaging Soundtrakk and even the fans. Like fans would disparage Soundtrakk like yo, you need better beats, you need this, you need that, it's kind of like yo, you saying this while you listening to all the records that you mentioned all produced by Soundtrakk. You know, "Kick, Push" is Soundtrakk, "Paris, Tokyo" is Soundtrakk, "Superstar" is Soundtrakk—like we can go down the line of things that are all Soundtrakk, all those kind of pivotal moments. And so I think sometimes I think it's cool, because we're the underdogs, but we're the underdogs with plaques and big hit records, but also those cultural hit records and so like, fuck it. Like fuck what the fans is talking about, because if it was up to y'all, I'd be doing whole albums with fucking Alchemist and the whole album with fucking Hit-Boy and whole, and all this other little shit.
It's like they're cool, no disparage, but it's like to me Soundtrakk better than all them dudes, like to me for what you know. Where he takes me, how he challenges me, and then just the breadth of his of his creative possibilities across every format and even if you we just did an interview with Rolling Stone. It was kind of Soundtrakk's first interview in like forever. Every time he mentions, you know they go track for track, and every time dude say "Samurai" or "Mumble Rap" or "Cake," the first thing Soundtrakk does is he pulls like oh that was me trying to be like Rizza. He's like oh that's me studying Kanye, or like oh, that's me studying whoever. That's me studying this person that Q-Tip is me. So he's a student of the craft, like me, you know. So I'm like oh, that's Homeboy Sandman, that's me doing Aesop, to your point where you said I'm always emulating. Oh, that's me doing my Fabulous, oh, that's me pulling something from Jay-Z, that's me pulling something from whoever the fuck, right. But there's a certain level of appreciation and student of the craft but then also taking those elements and combining them in our own way to create really powerful dope ass music. Um, and dope ass moments so that that's one play I think Soundtrakk's like he's going when it's all said and done. He's going to go down of one of these top producers ever. And I think his track record, even tiny compared to other people, is super powerful, and we can go top five for five and he'll definitely be you know hitting people in the fucking face with stuff he's done. One of the things was like, oh, when you ask why are you and Soundtrakk kind of picking his time? I got whole projects with Soundtrakk.
CineMasai 	Yeah, I figured. I figured.
Lupe Fiasco	Shits with Soundtrakk of just like, you have this one then we gonna do this one this one, and, you know. On the outside looking in, it may seem like very sparse and sporadic but on on this side of the fence I got like four folders of just tons of Soundtrakk shit in various genres from years. I think Soundtrakk said that most of Samurais from like 20... I think he said between 2013 and 2016. The years, right, so it's old. It's like older Soundtrakk stuff from a old region where he might have a particular piece of equipment that he bought and he just made a hundred beats just on that particular piece of equipment. And you will know because he'll write it in the description like this is from the virus whatever track blah, blah, blah. With all that said, there is another team of folks that around us. The Buchanans are family, so they did "Mural," and some other shit so there's other people in the squad, but Soundtrakk is closet to to me. During the pandemic, he almost died, that was one of the other kind of pushes of like, let's really create this shit and put it out. Get it, and put it out. It's one thing to just sit and ruminate on it and process the ideas, but let's create this shit and then also do all the work that it takes to put all this shit out to the world to get it. Because he almost died, you know, and it was kind of like man, fuck this, like YOLO, like let's go. Like fuck these dudes talking about, fuck these fans talking about, fuck these critics talking about like you hot to me, let's roll. You know we make great progress, motherfuckers want to talk whatever they want to talk but you get me, and you in the studio, it's all over with, I don't give a fuck who you gonna get like we finna go record for record, pound for pound. And I think that lit a fire in him to a certain degree. Lit a fire in me to just like not want to live with regrets. I want to make sure that every beat he sent me, I want to put a song to, that's kind of like the ambition, so that when I and he pass away and y'all open up the time capsule and shit, he like oh, these dudes had a thousand fucking records. Every single one of them is his own little world, and his own little piece of greatness.
So anyway, that's kind of that, not to belabor the point too much but technically he's a part of the team, he's 1st and 15th's main producer, and you know I think he's proven himself and earned his spot to be that guy and every time he sends me something, there's something in that package where you'll get a "Palaces," you know you'll get a "Kick, Push," you'll get some shit that's just like it's worth going through fifty beats to get to that one joint. Whereas other producers you might not ever get that magic you might get the dope beats and the ill fucking you know sample flip and this down the third but you're not gonna get that cultural impact record that touches the soul type shit. You gonna get some you might get some dope to dance to some dope to sell a few records off of that but I think you know records like "Kick, Push," records like "Palaces" and then more shit we got coming down the pipe, it's a different kind of feel that only that I only get from him.
CineMasai 	Yeah, no, like that goes back to all the home team stuff y'all were talking about and that's like your mans so that wouldn't just come from nowhere like if y'all weren't already kind of tapped in on that level. And before I forget, because since you mentioned the Rolling Stone interview, my man Andre Gee did that. Shout-out to Andre, great conversation, love to see that. But yeah, I'm happy to hear you still consistently give you know Trakk his flowers because yeah, like even just coming up like listening on my own when I would start digging through all the liner notes and looking at credits. Most, if not all, of my favorite beats of yours were Soundtrakk beats. There was never a time when I had to reconcile that, when it came to like the beats that you were rapping over that were his. I had the opportunity to do the liners for the Vinyl Me, Please reissue of Food & Liquor last year and putting all of that together and like looking over everything and like just kind of going over the beginning of your career at that point. Seeing where it all came and kind of just like running through the whole discography just to refamiliarize myself, I was like, you know like every time I would notice a Soundtrakk beat, I'd be like oh, yeah, like of course that's a Soundtrakk beat, you know.
And even just across these two projects, like you said, you mentioned his range before. Even just looking at stuff like "Ghoti" or like "Ghoti" doesn't sound like "Kiosk" and "Kiosk" doesn't sound like "Naomi" and "Naomi" doesn't sound like "On Faux Nem," you know. That's not even getting back to the Samurai stuff. Like you said, he pushes you, and you guys meet each other halfway, and it sounds dope. It makes sense to me that y'all have several other projects in the tuck, because it sounds like you've been at work. You know, it doesn't just sound like it happened one day and it was like oh, let's do it, it's finally time type shit. It sounds like you've been at work, and it sounds like you've kind of been, you know, feeling each other out a little bit more just to make it smooth and it's great to see y'all really locked in. Like I said, I've rinsed this album several times and you both sound so focused and sharp and it makes me happy to see you at this point in your career. Like I was saying before, as sharp as ever on the pen, like technically, like narratively, tonally, you know. You've always been melodic, but there's a lot of melody on here, like you're really playing with hooks a little more.
Lupe Fiasco	But the caveat is, too. Not to cut you off, but like one is Soundtrakk can carry an album. I think that's part of the technical part of this, is Soundtrakk is a producer that can carry an album. And there's artists who just make a bunch of beats and put them on an album. That don't mean that the album is carried, you know, it just means that you use one motherfucker to make all the beats versus like a producer Soundtrakk can produce. An album an entire body of work and it be cohesive and fluid, even if it's unfinished. I think the other part is, again, all that's old. So this isn't like. There's only like a couple new verses on Samurai. This shit's old, so you gotta think like oh, we've been doing this, like we've been doing this. The fear is like oh, shit, that album was four years old, now where you are now, oh shit you might be whack now so it might be my prime was four years ago.
I don't think that's the case, 'cause I've been recording ever since, but you gotta kind of look at it like that, too. So again, on the outside looking in, it seems like oh, this is fresh and new, and you're at a certain peak, and you guys are at a certain thing, and it's like yo, these are Soundtrakk beats that are 10 years old, maybe more I think when he said was from 2013. The verses are from the beginning of the pandemic, and the concept that I think Amy Winehouse documentary came out in like 2015, or something like that. These like oh, we're talking about the past. You're not even getting the work of me processing, and even Soundtrakk, processing right now. And I think that's why I'm irrelevant, is because the timing for these things is kind of like—to make it relative to your to your podcast—it is on like a movie scale, you know. Like you're seeing movies that have been shot for four years, you know that have been in like in some level of embargo or something like that or being you know. Have been re-edited multiple times because they're so old, but you'll see an actor it's like oh, they're in their prime and they're walking the red carpet and they're just thinking like yo, this shit came out, you know, years ago. But it's kind of just getting released. So I just want to caveat it with those things, too. As I appreciate you know people like oh, you're in your zone now, and it's kind of like. This was five years ago.
CineMasai 	Yeah, I hear it, but I don't know. You said the word 'irrelevant' but to me that's almost like a testament to how timeless what you're doing is. Because I even think about it in the context of like when s first heard about the Amy Winehouse concept. The way that caused everything to just stop and people were like, "what the fuck?" I was even just telling my co-workers this just now, I explained the concept and every single one of them looked up from their computers, like, what? You know, it stopped everybody in their tracks and it was like okay, I need to like lock in and figure out what this means, like "what do you mean this is an Amy Winehouse concept?" You know, people like on the surface level like the fuck you talking about type shit. But then you sit down and you listen and you know this stuff like three, four, five back to ten, eleven years old, is catching people off-guard and making people want to sit down and be like, what do you mean Amy Winehouse wanted to be a samurai battle rapper? Not everybody can do stuff like that, you know. Not everybody's capable of capturing attention in that way.
And I love that you related it to the process of movie-making because there are plenty of people who make movies, and plenty of people who make albums as we all know that take years and years and years and the shit's are ass. Like straight up, you know. Like there's no like debate, it just happens and it that's like x amount of x millions of dollars, x hours of you know like time and energy and sweat. Trash. You know, like. This isn't that, at least it isn't to me. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way but I think that's a testament to how timeless, not even just like the music itself, but your thought and creative process is. I always think that's worth pointing out.
Lupe Fiasco	Well I mean, ass is relevant, I just want to be clear about that because I watch a lot of, you know, movie critique kind of things and there's different folks who think movies are ass for shit that ain't got nothing to do with the film. And there's politics of the film they don't like, that it's all woman led cast, they don't like that it's a woman writer, but if you compared that shit to Star Wars—original Star Wars was fucking garbage as a film you're like yo, this shit is like what the fuck are we doing like. What's happening, right, the rebels are actually the what do they call it? The Empire is actually the good guys. The rebels are bad, [?] and the rapists and fucking bullies.
But. I think there's something to like, you know, the process of things. Why people critique things, why things are certain relevant, why things are certain relative, why people critique things in a certain way. Why people look at things, expecting certain things. Some people go on the albums listening for beats and when they don't get the beats they like oh, this shit's garbage. Or people don't get the lyrics, beats are fire but because they don't get the lyrics they're like yo, this shit is garbage and I think there's some people that that know how to do that balance and there's some people that don't. At a certain point, you just got to kind of like does your fanbase enjoy it? And sometimes the fanbase has. The fanbase is just the first three Star Wars, you know. They never left those three things and that's what anything beyond that it's just kind of like. I guess it's there, but I'm going back to watch the original, like I'm going back to watch that first three and you got fans of the new shit who look at the old shit and be like, I can't even watch this, right?
I think they're all dope, but I think it's like, they're like yo, I can't watch it. Either the cuts are too long or the the graphics are just too fucking shitty, compared to what I'm seeing in fucking whatever the newest Star Wars is. So I apply some of those metrics to my own work and to the work of all my peers who work in the same space with me. I mean, it's different strokes for different folks, and I think there's something like that the critic industry for what it was before, which was probably a promotional tool by the studios to actually promote films versus then it became its own industry of people using, weaponizing it to bring down certain political opponents or whatever, social opponents or push certain agendas and shit like that then it's not about the movie at all. It's really just about how much you appreciate your personal particular biases and how much you want the things that are produced to reflect that and then part of your identity is actually shooting down anything that's an opposition to it. That's why you look at the internet or YouTube and it's full of motherfuckers critiquing shit that other people made and those people, the only thing they made, was the critique of the shit critiquing other people's shit.
So there was like a Pitchfork interview, like Pitchfork did a review and to each their own. And now I'm learning to talk about other interviews within other interviews to pit the other interviews together even though you and a homie from Rolling Stone are homies. But the people at Pitchfork, it was like you read the review and the first two paragraphs are like about the movie, The Last Samurai. And it's kind of like, what the fuck does this have to do you know with. Because that particular reviewer captured one thing that captured his or her imagination, and then that was the reference point that they had and now they're bringing in all this other shit from something else really to kind of push their particular views and it can be read as like. We know The Last Samurai was about some white people in going to Japan, and like some cultural appropriation, colonial bullshit, you know. Like what the fuck does that. So it's things like that where people take work and try and apply their own, even if it's a critique, and apply their own kind of political, personal points of view to it and you rarely ever get like just a pure like just clear. I think you get it more now kind of like the guys that do reaction videos. I think it's a little clear and pure, but I think that kind of industrial standard of the critique or the dressing down of a work doesn't really hold that much weight and it feels weird because I don't really even care about them shits, you know. Now it used to be like oh, they did and now it's kind of like whatever like. Are the Twitter kids happy, I'm cool you know. Is the Reddit kids happy, like cool whoever the fuck is this journalist that went to NYU to do whatever, like, whatever.
Um, with all that said, you know, I think there's some into appreciating things under its own terms and stop trying to categorize things, even though I think our Western sensibilities will disallow us from doing that. It's a powerful thing to try and not constantly cross reference the quality of something versus something else because they're two different things, you know. They're meant for two different things, they're meant for two different audiences. Even me, I make work that's for a particular loop section of my audience. You know, it may not be for the general Lupe audience you know who knows me because of you know I've sold millions of records not because of "Jonylah Forever," not because of "Samurai," not because of these lyrical things. It's like because of "Battle Scars" and "Show Goes On" and "Superstar" have big mass things and yes, we'll cater to that audience, but at the same time too there's also the fans who listen to the mixtapes who don't even fuck with the albums. They're like, "I'll fuck with this album because it's the close I got to one of your mixtapes."
CineMasai 	Yeah, no. There's gonna be some people who are like "oh, yeah I stopped listening after A Rhyming Ape" or some shit.
Lupe Fiasco	And you see that in video games, you see that in film, you see that in sneakers, you see that in clothing, you see that in every kind of capacity and I'm not complaining about it. I think it's just part of the creative process and when you put yourself out there, you got to take responsibility for the shit that comes back. But I do think it's important to at least recognize that it's like on behalf on on the one of the responsibilities on the consumption side is to just appreciate things in isolation, you know. And maybe, yeah, that conceit of this is a Amy Winehouse portrait adds a little bit more context to the work. I still think it's something just kind of appreciate it in its own capacity, as opposed to trying to compare it to this album that came out or an album within my own cannon, but you know, to each their own.
CineMasai 	It's funny you bring that all up, as somebody who used to work at Pitchfork—and I just left my job over there not too long ago. You know, this is something that as a critic I constantly I think about, the stuff you said, all the time. I'm the type of person who's like that's the reason a podcast like Reel Notes exists, because rap and film, these shit saved my life, in a very real way and that's just kind of how like I see the world through those two lenses. And whenever I write about music or film or anything, really, my brain can't help but look for. You know, like I'm just always about connecting nodes, obviously recognizing that everything kind of works within its own culture and space and all of that obviously. But every once in a while I'll just be like oh, there's a either a thematic or emotional or some sort connection here, and sometimes you just can't help but make that connection.
I reviewed the Killer Mike album when it came out and I started it with a brief summary of The Spook Who Sat by the Door because it's sampled and referenced on the album. And I felt like it was relevant to kind of bring that into context because of what the stuff Mike was talking about. But there are other times where I'll just be wanting to write about some shit and be like, "this sounds dope, this is cool, this is cool, this is cool." I personally myself let the work talk to me, and if I start hearing things that come from other places, I follow those. But if I don't, then you know, like there's value in both things and I only try to do that when I think it's appropriate. But you know, like you said, to each their own. I appreciate you saying all that because once again, this is all stuff I think about pretty constantly. And it's all about balance. At the end of the day, it's about the music, you know. There's so many other different contexts and so many other different things that are either appropriate or not appropriate to bring in but it's about the music at the end of the day. And I like to think that at my best, I'm at least because like another thing. I'm sorry, I'm kind of rambling right now. Another thing I think about a lot is how, when music's being written about, producers don't get mentioned. A lot of the time unless they're like a big name, you know. That's why it makes me so happy to hear you talk about Soundtrakk the way you do, and whenever I write, I try as often as I can so. Even if I can't dig into the intricacies of a beat or whatever, I at least try to mention names because they're 50% of the equation, you know. Once again, these are just all things I think about all the time you know like as a writer, as a relatively new podcaster. Hearing it from you, you know, like hearing it from someone whose music I've been listening to for a while and someone who has all these experiences, I'm sitting with this. I'mma be sitting with this in two hours, I'mma be sitting with it in like two days, you know. I just appreciate this dialogue you know.
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, no, I mean it's always a challenge to how as an artist you know what are the things you got and I think it's a service to artists on the come up. Even artists who are already came up and are, you know, continuing on and maybe haven't adjusted themselves to that kind of thinking. It's like even in that creative process, just create, you know, for yourself. You know, create for your own wants and goals, and needs. And hopefully as an artist—and this goes back to a question you said earlier about how I observe and my thought processes and stuff, like that and being being able to emulate certain things and tell certain stories in certain ways is. I mean, all you got to do is give yourself an opportunity to live normally as an artist and experience the world in a normal way, you know. And you can always imagine your brain's going to imagine and add unicorns and fucking dragons to shit but you know underneath all of that, it has to kind of have a tone of normality, and if you can capture that and speak to normal things and basic things and the minutia like you said in things like "Bigfoot," that's enough. That's enough to kind of carry you over the threshold, but then also gives you a certain level of grounding and gives you a certain access to aspects of the human condition that don't require you to be a super duper lyrical expert, or a super duper having to pull in all these different reference points and all these different things to kind of communicate your story. Uh, maybe those reference points are to excite a certain moment.
So for me, the inspiration for the entire of Samurai was that one line from Amy. It wasn't me, it was allowing myself to just sit and watch this story about someone at that one moment and then taking that one moment very seriously and then it organically turned into something else. But, you know, artists also need to know that whatever they put out into the world, there's going to be some response. You know, there's going to be some reaction and there's going to be a certain level of soft rebuttal. Hopefully over the years as critics, you know, get a taste their own medicine to a certain degree or realize even with what we would consider like you said trash with some of these films, that there's human beings who really appreciated the work that they did on that film. You look at that list of credits and there's people who are really proud of the thing that they did and for them to have to turn on YouTube and have some fucking dude tell like, "that shit was garbage," you know, and then they give him "that shit was this and that," I mean you gotta kind of give people their round of applause. You know like that's "hey, you did you did a thing and that shit is dope. It wasn't like the dopest, that it possibly could have been in certain capacities," but hey, go fuck yourself, you know. To do that shit that way. So anyway, just have a little bit of sensitivity to the holistic aspect of projects that people do. That's all I got.
CineMasai 	No, I feel you. Once again, I personally never want to like, I'm not trying to bully people. I can't stand that in writing most of the time, when you can just tell this person is out to bully this person, like I don't like that, that's obviously not what I'm trying to do. Once again, it's all about balance and like you said, sensitivity. I think it is important to note that people do work hard on this stuff and just like everything, we're all coming to this from our own perspective, objectivity is a very. I don't want to say it doesn't exist, but it's a very difficult thing to really like grasp because like things are, you know. I'm the type of person who thinks that things don't just exist without us, you know. Like this napkin exists without me being here to hold it, you know, the headphones exist if they were over in the corner and I couldn't see them. You know your glasses exist if they're not there to help you see, you know, things are. And there are qualities that make them be, you know. There are things that we're not always going to be able to see, because we're coming at it from like I only see this as a napkin, what else could it be? Like maybe I'm kind of going off the rails but.
Lupe Fiasco	That's the job of an artist, to take those kind of mundane things and apply optimal reference point, optimal kind of ambiguity or focusing on adding layers to it or breathing life into a thing to give it a purpose beyond it's just utility. Which in itself is a whole another kind of [?] of way. But anyway, that's I think some of the roles of an artist, is to take those things that we kind of take for granted, take the things that we don't really look at as being special or don't see a function, in them beyond this most basic thing and then we kind of cast it aside. Cast, pun intended. It's the [?] to activate those things. And everybody that's in that chain to bring that thing to life you know. It's a part of that kind of tradition to get you to look at the world in a different way in a more nuanced way in a more subtle way and then the hope would be that you're able to apply those things, even if it's something as Star Wars or something as, you know, whatever. I keep coming back to Star Wars because it seems like the most decisive, divisive community in terms of new versus old.
CineMasai 	It's a good call.
Lupe Fiasco	And I bring that up because it's like "yo, Samurai old." It's part of the old cannon, if you want to put it like that. But I think that's, again, that's the role of the artist and everybody just in that chain to bring it to life and to bring it all the way full circle and get back off of that shit and get back to, I guess, to start landing this plane. I have my team back, so I have shields back in play. You know Soundtrakk, and Soundtrakk didn't die from COVID during the pandemic, you know he's here, he's been able to build his production team Open Session where a lot of the guys are responsible for those little pieces of production and elevating. And we're back producing and creating in a way where that list of credits of everybody who's behind this is like yeah, you're not finna just haphazardly kind of dismiss the work of my family at this point. I think that the work reflects that, so I think if you have your team engaged and everybody's invigorated and excited and operating at their optimal. Not their best, but their optimal levels, that you'll get things like Samurai and I hope that tradition kind of continues where you'll get more quality work from this side, from 1st and 15th, from here forward as opposed to just kind of being a one-off that we're celebrating now but everybody's like "yeah, but it's not going to be as good as the next one," you know, 'cause it's always the dip and it's like no, like hopefully we're able to keep up the momentum and give you great work.
CineMasai 	Right, well I mean if this is—once again, if this is old—and you know like y'all got even more coming, it bodes well for the future. I'm really vibing with these two projects, this one in particular, and once again you know just like. Well, I'll save that for the end. Very last question for you, Lupe. If your life was a movie, what would it be about?
Lupe Fiasco	If my life was a movie, that's crazy. I mean, my life is a movie, I think my life is a fucking movie like some people say that and it's like hyperbolic. Third time I use hyperbolic in this interview. But I think if you step back and just look at the thing that "I've won many things that I've done" type shit, like yo, look at all this shit. It is a movie, add my parents into it for the origin story, my dad's life is a goddamn Star Wars, like an epic journey through the world. Then you throw my mom in there and it becomes a whole another level of—put my family all in there, you put Chill and that whole experience and all my peoples and, you know. My life is this big ass story. But I think it would be like. I don't want to prematurely reduce it to something. Um, I mean it'll be about bringing things back to life. You know, I think that's one of the functions of my work and even Samurai, you know, is that. It's taking things and breathing a new life into them, you know. A new animation in an interesting way, in completing the story, completing the loop, or whatever you want to call it. The Lupe part of Lupe is that loop part. Putting things in a certain continuum. And you know if it's just that fine, you reduce that down to a documentary about teaching people how to do CPR, you know. Yeah, story is like CPR like okay, cool, you know.
CineMasai 	Yeah, I mean like you know like you said, I really don't think it's hyperbolic for you to say that your life is a movie. I can't think of many people who almost signed to Jay-Z and beat Daigo in a Street Fighter tournament. You're it, bro, you're it, so you know just off of that. And you know, you're a college professor on top of that, you've been practicing swords since you were a kid, like you had a whole crazy thing with a label and now you're on your own, and you've got like, you've commanded respect over the years and built this really solid...
Lupe Fiasco	Write the script, send it to us, and then we'll.
CineMasai 	Hey, man. See, this is what I'm talking about, bro. I'm seeing the dots, they're like in front of me on some Iron Man shit. I'm telling you bro, like this is what I do. This is my art. Oh man, Lupe, yeah. As somebody who's been listening for two decades, you know, thank you for your time, for your perspective, and I don't know. This is like... 13-year-old me is doing fucking backflips right now, like just talking to you so yeah, man, just thanks, thanks for the time and the perspective and the understanding and this was such an incredible conversation. It means a lot to get the chance to just do this, you know, like I don't take that for granted.
Lupe Fiasco	Thank you, Dylan, I appreciate the time, and hopefully we put out a couple more projects in between now and we can come back and have a even deeper conversation on the next pieces.
CineMasai 	Absolutely, yeah, no I'm down for round two if you want to do it so, yeah. Nah, man, thank you, again.
Lupe Fiasco	'Ppreciate it.
CineMasai 	Thanks for listening shout out to y'all for making it this far and shout-out to all the Black people listening too 'cause y'all really impeccable don't forget to like subscribe and tell a friend to come through next time. One.
 	
== References ==
Category:2024 interviews
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