Is Lupe Fiasco just not cool enough for hip-hop?

Disclaimer: This blog entry is NOT dissing Lupe Fiasco, read that again if you have to. It’s just examining why he came out and flopped regardless of a huge buzz and good music to back it up.

Let’s face it: This world is dictated by what’s cool. Some of us are cool without trying hard, some of us dedicate our lives to it (“Son I just copped the limited edition 1988 James Worthy Dunks”), and those who aren’t cool secretly hope to make it there one day or live in some fantasy world where they are (the goth crowd for example, outcasts to society but cool in their own world.) Off the top of my head the only two hip-hop artists I can think of who don’t care whether they come off as cool or not are MC Paul Barman (a personal favourite of mine) and Sage Francis (who sucks). MF Doom doesn’t care about getting mainstream rotation but he cares about whether his audience thinks he’s cool, if you get my drift. El-P cares that his label puts out music that the backpackers consider cool. Pretty much anyone not trying to be cool probably won’t ever get any attention whatsoever.

Lupe Fiasco’s “Food & Liquor” seemingly had a heavy buzz due to “Kick Push”, but it came out and did dismal numbers. I bought the album, the beats bang and the lyrics are on point. Why did he flop? I’ll try to examine this without blaming the dreaded “lack of support from the label”

Here’s a formula I’ve worked out (hopefully the days of making “girl” records are out the door, so I won’t include that audience in the equation)

If the internet loves you (Tanya Morgan, MF Doom, Little Brother, Ghostface, Got it For Cheap Vol. 1 & 2) you’re lucky to have an audience of 50,000 tastemakers who might put other people on to what’s new and good. I’m one of those trusted 50,000.

If the hood loves you, there’s a shot at you going gold (Mobb Deep circa Loud, Wu-Tang circa ’93-97, M.O.P., Camron circa Rocafella, “Grindin” by The Clipse)

If white people love you, you’re on your way to multi-platinum – when I say white people I don’t mean backpacker white kids (who will pretty much go to any show and support that mythological “real shit”) I mean the MTV TRL audience. “Hey Ya” didn’t take Speakerboxxx/The Love Below to 5 million sold because Funkmaster Flex was dropping bombs on it.

The more of those fan bases you get to love your music, that’s how many more units you might move (Game sold 5 million with his debut, 50 Cent went diamond his first time out, Jay-Z is a glob al superstar)

Bringing all of that back to Lupe’s potential audience:
The internet – They love him, his mixtapes got heavy burn. He’s all the rage this year on hip-hop message boards looking for a good lyrical alternative to the trap, flossing, gun busting and hoe pimping.

The hood – Most of the hood is trapped in their ghetto world (shoutout to Janus) and isn’t trying to hear much outside of what they understand. Kanye has the world in the palm of his hand, but a cameo on “Touch The Sky” just wasn’t enough. The beat for “Kick Push” was undeniable, but the topic material is stories about skaters. If Jay-Z had that beat it would have been a monster. “Daydreamin” was way too left field for the ghetto, and while in a club last month “I Gotcha” came on and I had to remark how it was too lyrical for that setting. That’s a hat trick of isolating this audience. A bad ass woman recently sang “If your status aint hood, I aint checkin for you”, get with the program. I understand Lupe wants to educate and bring substance, but he needs to pull a Lauryn and add a figurative ‘motherfucker’ so the ignant niggas hear him.

White people – You kind of have to monkey it up for them to love you. Again I’m not talking about white kids who love Boot Camp Clik and the GZA. I mean the ones who loved “Big Pimpin” because the accompanying visual had Dame Dash pouring champagne on bikini clad hotties. The ones who dance like strippers when Ludacris’ “Money Maker” comes on (I witnessed this first hand). Hell, go on Youtube right now and search for any hip-hop song that’s considered hot right now. I 99.9% guarantee there’s this type of Caucasian that I’m explaining, on a homemade video making a shammockery of that song in the name of fun. You can’t have ‘wild and crazy white people fun’ to “Kick Push”, you just nod your head to the beat and feel it.

Skaters – They tend to be so self-absorbed and quasi-revolutionary that they don’t care enough to buy albums, even if there’s a song celebrating their culture.

In Sum: In 2006 if you’re not niggerish enough to reach the ghetto and white people don’t see the appeal (where’s your catchy hook and cool dance?), it’s looking slim for you. Punchlines that people have to think 10 seconds about? Look at where that got Ras Kass. Name dropping designer clothing that the average person hasn’t heard of won’t cut it unless you’re about to drop an album called Kingdom Come. Trying to enlighten people drove Mos Def & Talib Kweli away from being considered “conscious” and has damn near driven David Banner out of his mind. All in all I support Lupe Fiasco because he can rap, his production team is incredible and with his debut he made a sincere effort at reaching people’s minds. I just wonder what kind of market there is for him.