Kitty Empire 

Lupe Fiasco: Food and Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt 1 – review

Rapper Lupe Fiasco deploys pugnaciously mass-market tunes inflected with righteous fury, writes Kitty Empire
  
  


F&L II momentarily threatened to be rapper Lupe Fiasco's final album after an ugly Twitter altercation with another rhymer, up'n'comer Chief Keef, found the highly evolved, practising Muslim appalled by the violence of the younger generation. The beef is over, but F&L II would still make a proud swansong. Standout single Bitch Bad examines how language shapes attitudes with forensic nuance (and piss-taking Auto-Tune). The video, meanwhile, tackles the minstrel mechanics of commercial hip-hop. The tunes are pugnaciously mass-market, with debts to Kanye West. Throughout, though, tracks such as ITAL (Roses) and Audubon Ballroom come inflected with righteous fury and weary humour.

 

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