Quotations from Chairman Fred

## Song by Lupe Fiasco featuring Bishop Edgar Jackson and Nikki Jean

"**Quotations from Chairman Fred**" is a song by Lupe Fiasco, released as the 22nd track from his album, *Drogas Wave* (2018). It features guest vocals from Bishop Edgar Jackson and Nikki Jean. The title references to Fred Hampton and the book *Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung*. Hampton was the deputy chairman of the Black Panther Party, while the book held statements by Mao Zedong, who was the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.

## Background

Fiasco has referenced to Hampton in the relationship of fire and water:

> What is the nature of water? It replenishes. It is necessary for survival. It is essential to well being. Meditating on the quotations of Chairman Fred and his identification of water as a weapon of choice should lead one to assess what water is. Water is not a passive substance. It is heavy and dynamic. It is resilient. It can take many forms and states. It can be solid and soft. It is diverse. Diversity is the key to mitigating risk. Fire stops at the beach unless there is oil on the water and then it is not the water that is on fire but the oil on top of it. Water is powerful and has the ability to shape the world. Fire also has its attributes. It brings warmth. Fertilizes land. Keeps away the darkness. If water is polluted fire can be used to purify it and make it safe to consume through an intermediary of some sort of course. These intermediaries are key to what that tone of the relationship between water and fire will be. A person should have a knowledge of the attributes of both water and fire as well as the intermediates through which they can relate and find balance. For too much water can flood as too much fire can burn a city to the ground. Etc... 🌊
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On Twitter, he quoted, "...you best put out the fire with water," which derives from the full quotation: "We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity."

## Lyrics

**Lyrics**
[Verse 1: Lupe Fiasco]

Uhh, I exist, spoken in a confident voice

Can world shift and continent hoist

Look under for the plunder

A rich man's song that gets sung for a sum out the lungs of a stunner

But life turns to a station and a hustler to a hummer

Went from speaking and now not even sinking

The game is karaoke 'til it tries to punish poke me

Kinda throw me words slowly, fade degrading in the foley

Waving metal sheets make thunder

Fooling I was younger; fool me when I'm older

Fool me now, screw me down to the sofa, taking Soma

Drinking soda, eating vulture, tweeting vulgar

Playing Madden getting fat and getting cultured with the quotes

In the hopes people will get the jokes

If it rains you will get the float

But only if they're still building boats

[Interlude: Dr. Eric Thomas]

But your values system says you believe in sleep

More than you believe in grinding

Your values system says you are a consumer and not a producer

That you're spending more money than you're making

Why? Because you're a consumer, you're reading all the books

And you're saying everything the books are saying

But those books are not in alignment with your values!

And you're gonna go to the next level

Your values are gonna have to change

[Verse 2: Lupe Fiasco]

Uhh, Drunken Fist versus Praying Mantis

Was it God's plan or man mismanaged to turn New Orleans to Atlantis?

They lie in the streets to lambast

The black land swam at like a HE MAN in a bathtub

Fire! Cup up the bad blood

Hope hand tugs come right after the lackluster backrubs

Or half structured or tech hubs or wack love

That's stacked as if chance in community chest

God said, "Don't you ruin me yet

Until I give them everything and there's just two of these left"

Black bumper slow fades into a vista

Rapid cuts a stock footage which freezes on a listener

Give me love, lovers

I read it like blood color on the head of a flooded structure

Can't keep the duck rubber under, fundamentally it's buoyant

It rises like court rooms to swoon for your enjoyment

[Chorus: Nikki Jean]

Every single word you said

Will you say it to me?

Well it stays with me

I heard every single word you said

Will you say it to me?

Well it stays with me, hoohh

[Verse 3: Lupe Fiasco]

Trap music meets trapezoids, fake his own death

They roll rocks like asteroids to the crest

Think outside the box, I wrap a toy in a cheque

Then watch a sissy fuss with a boy in a dress

Mad at the world, in a voice of a man

With a bag of a girl, she just avoids the success

It's what he said, or what she said

Double entendre no matter how you play it

Then he takes the sex tape and destroys the cassette

And puts the ribbon in the sky like the limited of eye

Then prepares to utter, what's been a symbol in its side

Against the ticker tape scene in a Silver Lake dream

Sorta orders the lungs to unmilitate screams

Shouts to a forged son with imitate beams

In a blue sky filled with pornographic strings

Getting caught up in the trees, I still believe in Jesus!

[Interlude]

Our purpose is to ensure

That literature and art sit well

Into the whole revolutionary machine

As a component part

That they operate as powerful weapons

For uniting and educating the people

And for attacking and destroying the enemy

And that they help the people fight the enemy

With one heart and one mind

[Chorus: Nikki Jean]

Every single word you said

Will you say it to me?

Well it stays with me

I heard every single word you said

Will you say it to me?

Well it stays with me

[Outro: Bishop Edgar Jackson]

There was a man who wrote many things

But Carlyle said, um, that we could not be ruined

Because no lie could live forever

William Cullen Bryan said, "Truth crushed to earth, would rise again"

And James Russell Lowell, made it more plain

That we would not be ruined or destroyed

Because he said that, "Truth, forever on the scaffold, lies forever on the throne

But that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown

Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch, above his own"

These powerful scriptures were also used by the man

In whom we celebrate his birthday today, Dr. Martin Luther King

And Dr. King told us to practice non-violence and the power of love

Non-violence and the power of love has brought us thus far

The agape love that we have for ourselves

That we have for our people is the reason why our people

In this particular diaspora called, North America

Have not been totally ruined

We have not been totally destroyed, we have not been exterminated

So therefore, uh, my dear brother, um, Wasalu

We call you, we thank you for what you've asked me to do

And we shall continue to study to show ourselves approved under God

Workman that needn't not be ashamed

Rightly this dividing the word of truth

And so at this time, in this city

Where young men's lives are not worth much

In this city where our people have been discriminated against

And kept from the resources which we

Rightly deserve as a majority of people in the city

We are dependent upon the most high creator of the ends of the world

That I call Elohim Jehova

And we are dependent upon him to keep us from falling

To keep us from being ruined, to keep us from being exterminated

And we thank the Almighty

For the privilege of being here with my niece

Is to impart these words

And I hope it would be of assistance in this project

God bless you and thank you

## References

1. ↑ "Lupe Fiasco (@lupefiasco)". *Instagram*. September 29, 2018.
2. ↑ "Lupe Fiasco (@LupeFiasco)". *Twitter*. September 30, 2018.