If you listen to rap music, I'm guessing at some point this summer, you heard something about Lupe Fiasco and his highly anticipated debut album Food & Liquor. If not, here is the quick back story: Lupe Fiasco is a Chicago rapper best known for being a practicing Muslim, skateboarding enthusiast, and Kanye West protege ... although not necessarily in that order.
He first popped up on the scene when he took Kanye's "Diamonds" track and flipped into a political tale of enslavement and civil war in Sierra Leone on a fantastic track titled "Conflict Diamonds." One result of "Conflict Diamonds" was the song launched a bit of a pop culture obsession with the topic, culminating in Raekwon taking a trip to Sierra Leone to see for himself, as well as Warner Brothers producing a Leo DiCaprio film titled "Blood Diamond." The other result is that Lupe caught the ear of Kanye. West decided to not only do his own socially-conscious remix of the track (see below), but also to bring the young Chicago artist into the fold as his rap apprentice.
(It should be noted there is some level of controversy surrounding this whole "Diamonds" business. Kanye's first "Diamonds" track eventually became titled "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" to accompany the "Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix)" which featured Jay-Z and appeared on Late Registration. Kanye's first track was all about how great diamonds are and how awesome he himself is (like a lot of his tracks).
After Lupe flipped it around and talked about kids getting killed over these "conflict diamonds," Kanye decided he liked the new approach and went that direction - shooting the video with that theme and rapping about conflict diamonds on the remix, blatantly and liberally borrowing from "Conflict Diamonds" in the process. Lupe is gracious about the incident now and I guess all is well that ends well.)
Once Lupe was in the mix with West, it was only a matter of time before the buzz started building. He did a mixtape track with Jay-Z ("Sittin' Sideways"), dropped a song on the NBA Live '06 soundtrack ("Tilted") and made a guest appearance on "Touch the Sky" from Kanye's Late Registration. He even made XXL Magazine's "2006 All-Stars" roster before he'd released his first album.
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