Mural

## Song by Lupe Fiasco

"**Mural**" is a song by Lupe Fiasco, released as the second track from his fifth studio album, *Tetsuo & Youth* (2015). The song samples Cortex's 1975 song "Chanson D'un Jour D'Hiver" and is the first installment of his 'Mural' trilogy, followed by the future songs "Mural Jr." (*Drogas Wave*, 2018) and "Ms. Mural" (*Drill Music in Zion*, 2022). On the website Genius, it is his most-viewed song with him as the lead artist. The track is often praised by fans of showing off the rapper's lyrical prowess and dexterity. According to @HipHopNumbers, they analyzed that the track contained 153 bars and 1,373 words; 785 words which are unique.

Fiasco leaked the song on January 17, 2015, three days prior to the LP's release.

## Critical reception

*Paste* wrote, "Lupe presents a towering wall of words, rapping for nearly seven minutes straight with few pauses and zero hooks, bridges or refrains. It also lacks a central topic, with the sheer breadth of the song seeming to be its main subject. As it stretches on, the somber instrumental and Lupe's unstrained voice meld together, becoming one sound. It's really not a particularly exciting song. In fact, despite its rich content, it is performed with a notable tranquility, a disinterest in excitement. This should undermine the song, but it actually strengthens it. Lupe wants to takes self-expression to its limits, so he commits to it fully, sacrificing even his own passion." *XXL* described it as "a concrete reminder of the man's deft lyrical stronghold," while *HipHopDX* likened it as "'Dumb It Down' on performance enhancers." *PopMatters* called it a "dizzying track" that, being the introduction, leads the album "down into a almost a King Crimson-like level of progressive complexity."

## Lyrics

**Lyrics**
[Verse 1]

We're all chemicals, vitamins and minerals

And vicodin with inner tubes, wrapped around the arm

To see the vein like a chicken on the barn

Top Cat chat, let's begin another yarn

That's flying saucer cheese, or is it chicken parm'?

But roosters don't fly like boosters don't buy

So what powers cowards to get them to the top

Just to fall asleep listening to Bach?

The ribbon in the sky is the ribbon that I drop

Dribbling the eye across the prism of a clock

That lacks meaning, but racks up stacks of fat reading

They catch Chief and wrapped up plants from trap dealings

Now what's a coffin with a scratched ceiling?

And what's the talking without the match feeling

That's buried living, And cherry picking

Every lemon from your berry system

Then proceed with the pack feeding

When I was young I had visions of another world

Sneaking looks at the porn stash of my brother HurL

Incense smoke made vortices and other curls

Casting calls from porn films and ad space for rubber girls

I like my pancakes cut in swirls

Moroccan moles and undercover squirrels

I like cartoons, southern cities with large moons

Faith healers, ex-female drug dealers and art booms

Apologize for my weird mix

What taste like hot dogs and tear drips

And looks like pantomime and clear bricks

And smells like shotguns and deer piss

They on their hunt, kind of salty that I'm going hard

First part of a party, that I throw in parts

One minute you're playing pool, next minute you're throwing darts

But that's how you do with a party that you throw in bars

I run the Gambit like I'm throwing cards

From Popular Mechanics to overdosing heart/hard

Paint cold pictures like Nova Scotia landscapes

Nerd gang, make Mandelbrot sets when we handshake

A word game back up plan that can dam lakes

Backup the wordplay ain't playing that the man's states

Means I can still be the man if the dam breaks

And when demand brakes I'm reflectious, what they can't face

My peers will still treat the mirror like it's a fan base

The unfettered veteran, the eagle feathered man of medicine

That hovers above cities like weather men

Or maybe weather woman

Whatever better to tell ya weather comin'

I prefer girls to reign all over the world

And not rain like, rain man or rain like rain dance

Or rain like a slight chance of rain when it's raining

Or rein like deer slaves to Santa Claus sleigh man

But Reign like Queens that reign over made man

And not Queen like Queen killer, rhapsody bohemian Queen

But Queen like white glove wave hand, and not wave hand, like it's a heat wave

So you make a fan by waving your hand, I'm talking wave, like you saying, "Hey man!"

And not hay for horses, and hoarse is like you almost voiceless

You gotta treat your vocal chords like it's a fortress

And treat every single one of your words like reinforcements

And especially when you're recording

Cause that's the portion that's important

When I was reporting that I was poor, but now I'm more than

It's still hooker heels on my sugar hills and sweet spots

Crying shames, make margarita rims from cheap tops

Deep plots, in floor to ceiling windows for my pee pots

A little scene, with the sickle swings, to make the wheat drop

And a hundred words, for them hummingbirds, that like to eavesdrop

And fan out like peacocks, with a parakeet that beat box

So the sun rise when the beat drop, and the sun dies when the beat stops...

Then it unties, then it relocks, then it relapse, then it detox

Then heat back like a heat pack on his knee caps of the weak spot

'Cause he want what we got, like yeah

[Verse 2]

Then forge poetry, like a young ornery Morrissey

Then spit it to the golden locks thots, who like their porridge all watery

Not scorching nor sorbet-y

From the steel orbitings, sorcerer of sorcery

Coming down gorgeously, just like a Stacey Dash waterfall

A more torturing, a water-boarding Barbie doll

A river of women like Brazilian Carnival

Swimming in feminine bikinis made out of Barbasol

Somebody give them the volleyballs

If you love her, don't ever send her to Mally Mall's

Homie, if she lonely she might end up in Macauly's claws

Coming out the closet over goblets, down at Mardi Gras

The fame, champagne, walk of shame lobby call

My rap position was black condition and activism

Ammunition for abolition, missions attacking systems

But they not apt to listen, unless it's dropping on Activision

Are we apps, or are we bodies filled with apparitions?

Operating applications, stuck inside an Apple prison

Chicken hackin' download updates that lack religion

Or are we more...

...Than soil tainting, disloyal changelings

Preoccupied with boy and Goyle chasing, and foiling other's royal saintings?

I sit back and watch the world through eye holes in my oil paintings

Uhhh! Ain't nothin' to it, but to do it

Unless you Virgin Mary, nothin' do it but the truest

Believe all that, unless you Jewish

Life is not a dictionary, it's a thesaurus

And I feel like a missionary, to a clitoris

The water bearer, heir of traditions, that I swear to never change

My chair position or conditions of my porridge

Submission for sedition against the religion of a chorus

Keep them golden weave thieves out the mothafuckin' forest

As I perform a nerd storm, I prefer my pictures in word form

Bury the hatchet like how a bird born

As I paint cold pictures, like Kool-Aid facing condensation

Having conversations with flavorful combinations

Slave to my concentration

So that's OJ da Juiceman, meets OJ with two hands

And two gloves, that's too snug, to judge who was, who drew blood

And, Lupe look at all these toucans, in a cemetery full of tomahawks

Giving middle fingers to the pigeons doing somersaults

Road runners don't fall off cliffs, they run across

Anomalies by the colony, flukes by the reservoir

Wildin' pursuers end up as poofs, on the desert floor

Levitating youths, who know the truth of where the fountain hides

Buckaroo roof painting tunnels onto the mountain sides

A thousand parts, a pound of heart, an ounce of eyes

Announcing now, the doubt in mouth, pronounces out a count of lies

Chocula Counts by the count of five

Refrigerator roof, full of animals and monsters

Incinerator chutes and the manual for Contra

Assorted memories from my childhood

Absorbing energy from the wild woods

Electronic combat Konami sign contract

Chinese chalk killing cucarachas on contact

Chicago, spray gun aficionado

Efficient spitting bridging divisions isn't Chicano

Who's the Boss? If it isn't Alyssa Milano

Dudikoff, ninja mission into the Congo

Polarize envy of the older guys

Black obi, shinobi hittin' Kenno in the face with all my throwin' knives

Sub-zero, Gaiden, hiding, Raiden in the pack as well

Sound village, Leaf village, wolf spirit, magic spells

Dodging Rain and catching hail

Faith seers need samurais to catch the L

Special research vessels made for catching whales

Filet-o-fish ships sea-shepherded peppered with extra sails

Rewrite history, liberty needs a better bell

Maybe harder irons and carbon fibers that never fail

Smarter science mixed with a odd alliance of fairy tale

Or maybe just a metal pail you hit with steel tools

To announce that you've had enough and dropping out of SEAL school

Just like trout jumping out their house to let their gills cool

Cuba-scuba couldn't take the temperature of my skill pool

Yeah, I said it feels cool to kill fools

Slipping through the cracks like when you try to grill gruel

Techno Viking water bottle and not following pill rules

Will have you off the throttle when you should be modelin' chill mood

Roller skater maker or are you just cobblin' wheel shoes

Overweight taster of kings food that kills crews

Oblivious feather-weight baker who autographed cakes whenever his quill moves over your milieu

Simple as a Buddhist monk in a temple standing in some heel groove with the abbot, practising stillness

Real Steel til' he realize his realness

Defeat Samsara, achieves nirvana and brilliance

Yeah!

## References

1. ↑ "Lupe Fiasco | Genius"
2. ↑ "Hip Hop by the Numbers (@HipHopNumbers)". *Twitter*. September 6, 2018.
3. ↑ Coleman II, C. (January 17, 2015). "Lupe Fiasco "Mural"". *XXL*.
4. ↑ Kearse, Stephen (February 3, 2015). "Lupe Fiasco: *Tetsuo and Youth* Review". *Paste*.
5. ↑ "Lupe Fiasco's 'Tetsuo & Youth' Is a Return to Form". *XXL*. January 22, 2015.
6. ↑ Hunte, Justin (January 20, 2015). "Lupe Fiasco - Tetsuo & Youth". *HipHopDX*.
7. ↑ McCarthy, Sean (February 6, 2015). "Lupe Fiasco: Tetsuo & Youth". *PopMatters*.