Apple Music

**Apple Music** is a music, audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. It was founded by Jimmy Iovine and launched on June 30, 2015. American rapper Lupe Fiasco was commissioned to create the original song "Galveston" for their *Juneteenth: Freedom Songs* playlist.

## Artist Playlists

* Essentials
* Deep Cuts
* Inspired By
* Influences

A star turn on Kanye West's Late Registration album hipped the world to the talents of Lupe Fiasco. A fixture on the Chi-town scene, the rapper embraced his love of skate culture on his debut, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor, while pitching himself as a socially-conscious voice for his generation. A protracted dispute with his label engulfed the release of his third project, Lasers, although the drama only served to strengthen ties with his fans as they memorably petitioned for its release.

Street-savvy, socially conscious, soulful, and a little avant-garde, Lupe refuses to be pinned down to just one lane. On "Dots & Lines," he incorporates twangy fiddle and harmonica into raps about sacred geometry, while in "The Cool," a dead man kicks open his casket to walk his old neighborhood. Fiasco even spits a guest verse about gentrification on "This City" by Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump.

Lupe Fiasco's dense rap style was taken up readily by new generations. It's easy to hear his cadences in fellow West Side rapper Saba on jazzy neighborhood anthem "Westside Bound 3." Vince Staples' conscientious, grinding "Lift Me Up" shows a debt to Lupe's purposeful politics. And Kendrick Lamar's "Backseat Freestyle" demonstrates the long footprint of his freewheeling, concept-driven lyric stylings.

Listening to jazz and the Watts Prophets just as much as Nas and N.W.A., Lupe draws inspiration from all across the board. The rapper's sociopolitical storytelling gestures back to Ice Cube and Spice 1, '90s rappers who challenged the status quo, while his penchant for flipping dusty samples evokes 8Ball & MJG's silky smooth tracks. And he always shows love for his Chicago roots, including Common and early mentor Kanye West.

## Biography

A brilliant lyricist with a nimble, self-assured flow, Lupe Fiasco has shaped a career with juxtapositions that have grown continually more complex and rewarding since he arrived on the scene in the mid-'00s. The Chicago rapper born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco in 1982 manages to be both a pop star and a conscious-rap cult hero, able to skate through references to Nietzche, metaphors about yoga, and the excess of hip-hop culture with an easy nonchalance. With a flea-market mixing board and a stack of used vinyl, Fiasco began creating music in his father's basement at 18, eventually finding inspiration in the thoughtful lyricism and jazz inflection of artists like Nas and The Watts Prophets. Fiasco's record deal in the early '00s was the first of many rocky major-label relationships, but the mentorship of JAY Z and an attention-grabbing verse on "Touch the Sky" from Kanye West's *Late Registration* made *Food and Liquor* one of the most hotly anticipated debuts of 2006. On that record and its 2007 follow-up, *The Cool*, Fiasco's verses were loaded with ideas and delivered with dexterous flourish, musing on small pleasures—like his love of skateboarding—and the impending apocalypse alike. When his third album, *Lasers*, was released in 2011 after a protracted label battle, the rapper's dedicated cult following was rewarded with an artistic journey that had grown increasingly cinematic and conceptually ambitious. Fiasco's layered, string-adorned 2015 release, *Tetsuo & Youth*, was another critical and popular triumph, filled with moments that rushed by in a glittering sweep. True to form, it was a Fiasco album with depth that revealed itself after repeated listens, emblematic of an artist who has never shied away from big ideas.

## Interviews

### 2022

Lupe Fiasco explains that "Galveston" is not a celebratory record and is very intentional in articulating that Juneteenth is an acknowledgement of a violent and painful past and a hope for the future. He shares his perspective on the holiday, as well as his thoughts on the role that rap plays in celebrating Blackness. Lupe Fiasco also extends his warmest wishes to those celebrating Juneteenth and welcomes them to enjoy his music.

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## References

1. ↑ Thompson, Paul (August 2, 2022). ""Rappers Don't Fall Off": Lupe Fiasco on Aging in Hip-Hop, Drill Music, and the Audience". *The Ringer*.