Lupe's Fiasco and Hip Hop's Culture of Violence

            Last week, rapper Lupe Fiasco announced on Twitter that after his next album, slated to be released on September 25, he would retire from music. He said this as a reaction to a threat on Twitter by fellow Chicago rapper Chief Keef. A few weeks earlier, Lupe had this to say in an interview by a Baltimore radio station: “Chief Keef scares me. Not him, specifically but just the culture that he represents, specifically in Chicago…the murder rate in Chicago is sky-rocketing and when you see who’s doing it and perpetrating it they all look like Chief Keef”. Chief Keef responded by calling Fiasco a series of derogatory names and claiming he would smack him when he saw him. Lupe then responded with a series of tweets noting his discouragement saying “But my heart is broken and I see no comfort further along this path only more pain. I cannot participate any longer in this … My first true love was literature so I will return to that … Lupe Fiasco ends here”.

                I can understand Lupe’s frustration. Lup has always made music that was counter-cultural and made the listener think (God forbid music making us have to think…) and as a result, his music has never been widely popular as far as the mainstream is concerned. While having every excuse for being a product of the culture and environment he was raised in, Lupe chose another route. Lupe Fiasco, like Keef, grew up on Chicago’s westside, which was replete with gangs and violence. Lupe could have chosen, like many other rappers, to make harder music, taking the “I’m rapping about where I’m from” route.  However, he made a conscious decision to stay above the fray because as he put it six years ago, “This isn’t cool. There’s nothing cool about how I grew up. There’s nothing cool about the projects”. Nonetheless, many rappers like Chief Keef decide to glorify these lives of gang violence and savagery, in large part due to the money-hungry record labels that could care less about how many youth are killed each year in Chicago as long as they get their cut.

                Lupe’s voice is more needed in hip hop now than ever. Labels and radio stations are more hit-driven than ever before and hip hop needs a balance; it always has. While NWA was pushing their gangsta revolution, there was the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff talking about the teenage trials of the day. When Snoop and Dre were taking us to Deathrow, Public Enemy was calling us to “fight the power”. There has always been balance in hip hop, but that balance seems to be fading in today’s music. Lupe Fiasco provides that balance by accepting a calling higher than making hits and stacking dollars. His calling is education. He wants the listener to think about what they’re listening to and about the things they value most.

                 As Lupe put it, in some respects hip hop is as good as it’s ever been. It’s more technically flawless; the beats and production are better; the lyrics are as clever and witty as ever, but it lacks one essential component: substance. The substance in the music is perhaps at its worst since the inception of the art form. It is replete with aggression, sexuality, and materialism, which are the three main components of the downfall of a nation or society. The young black community is on pace for genocide and hip hop is providing the soundtrack. So even though I know he will never see this, I hope Lupe continues to fight the good fight. Be not discouraged by ignorance and opposition, but be encouraged by those young minds that you have touched. His voice provides the prophetic balance that calls hip hop to be better and more responsible. He lets us know that we do not have to be products of our environments but that we can transcend our environments and rise above our circumstances and make a difference in this world. So it is our responsibility to be more cautious about what message we support with our money and attention. The violence and the killing HAS to stop, and hip hop MUST cease to be the soundtrack to the genocide of its own people. Let us rise above like Lupe and be voices crying out in the wilderness of mainstream media.

Shalom

PEACE be unto you

How Far is Too Far?

                Ok, I cannot hold this blog post any longer. I don’t know how many people will care about this particular post but I have to get it off my chest. The question is, how far do we go in order to reach the lost? To what extent do we make ourselves “available” to the unsaved in order to reach them? Before I endeavor to answer any of these questions let me back up and explain where they come from.

             Christian hip hop artist Lecrae is currently positioned to be perhaps the most important artist in the history of Christian rap. The mainstream exposure he has attained in the larger hip hop world is unprecedented. First, he was a participant in the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards Cypher, and was the first “Christian” rapper to do so. Several things set him apart from the other emcees: his lyricism and flow were impeccable, and he boldly proclaimed the name of Jesus Christ and was 100% “unashamed” as is his mantra. This was probably the beginning of Lecrae’s mainstream rise. His album sales shot up on iTunes, mainstream hip hop magazines and sites such as XXL, the Source, and allhiphop.com began scrambling for interviews and stories to discover just who this young “Jesus-spitting” artist was and whether or not he was the real deal. All the sudden, this Houston-born rapper who was at the top of his respective totem pole was now placed at the bottom of a much larger pool.

            The next thing that began to catapult Lecrae to mainstream notice was his recent release of a mixtape entitled Church Clothes. What was so special about this mixtape? For starters, the day it was released, it was a trending topic on Twitter. No, not a passing, local trend, but a worldwide trending topic. The next thing that set this mixtape apart was that Lecrae worked with well known secular producers such as Don Cannon, 9^th Wonder and Boi-1da.

            Furthermore, with the release of this mixtape, Lecrae began to proclaim that he no longer wanted to be “boxed in” by being labeled a “Christian” rapper. He wanted to be known as just another rapper in the world of hip hop that rapped according to his particular niche and convictions. His argument stemmed from the fact that artists like Lupe Fiasco and Freeway aren’t known as “Muslim rappers”, nor is the Wu-Tang Clan known as a “Five-Percenter” group. If they aren’t so labeled and categorized he felt it was not fair to box him in as a “Christian rapper”. It is key to understand that Lecrae was not saying he no longer wanted to boldly rap about Christ, but that he didn’t want the label of “Christian rapper” that has, for many years, carried a very negative connotation, to limit the expanse of his message. Church Clothes was still very much a Christian album and the message of the gospel was in no way compromised.

            Now Lecrae is gearing up for the release of his 6^th studio album, Gravity. This is perhaps the most important album of his career. His goal on this album is not to make music just for people that are already believers, but to reach out in a powerful way to non-believers; to make his music accessible to the mainstream while not conforming to it. The big controversy that arose from this album (which hasn’t even been released yet) is that there is a notable collaboration with known secular rapper Big K.R.I.T. Finally, it was revealed this week that Lecrae would be featured on Saigon’s upcoming album.

            So now the stage is set, and we can ask the previous questions again. Lecrae claims that he is not adjusting the content of his albums, but the coloring if you will. The sound is more accessible, and the message is more palatable to the mainstream listener. But has Lecrae gone too far? Is having a popular secular artist featured on his album or agreeing to feature on a secular artist’s album going too far? I say absolutely NOT! I think Lecrae understands what it takes to reach this generation of postmodern, agnostic, church-hating, Christ-lovers. It isn’t preaching and it isn’t a traditional OR contemporary church service. It is relationships. This generation (The Mosaics, Millennials, etc) is HUGE on relationships. In order to get anywhere with them one must first build significant relationships with them. By interacting with secular artists and producers, Lecrae is building relationships and impacting change. Some say this is compromise…I disagree. Jesus too was labeled an infidel for “entertaining” the presence of “sinners” and “undesirables”. But Jesus knew the difference between “hanging out” and reaching people where they were. Christ’s goal was always to engage people in order to bring them the message of salvation and I believe Lecrae’s goal is the same.

            We do not know the long-term effects of Lecrae’s relationship-building endeavors. I mean, what if Saigon or Big K.R.I.T. were to accept Christ like former Clipse member Malice (now No Malice) or 106 & Park freestyle star Jin? If these guys will not seek the council of a typical pastor, why shouldn’t Lecrae be their pastor? I do not doubt that if these guys needed council or help that they would reach out to Lecrae because he has made himself accessible. We should all be accessible enough to reach those in need. Perhaps Lecrae is exactly what hip hop needs. Perhaps he was raised up for such a time as this.