Lupe Fiasco
By Tanner Jackson

Imagine a world filled with so many contradictions that it’s near impossible to tell left from right, up from down and right from wrong. A culture at war with itself, where style out duels sense, where personalities are stronger then persons. Now imagine a voice in the midst of that world, a tune different from everything that is around it. Just identifiable over the monotonous beat of the daily grind, the voice grows louder by the minute. It began as a soft tune, innocent untouched, now has turned into a notable, familiar tune with words that add meaning and answers to life and its struggles this soft beat now a world wide phenom is Lupe Fiasco.

Growing up into big family living in the midst of one of America’s largest cities Chicago. The young Fiasco was raised into a progressive Muslim family, he was originally turned of by rap because of its vulgarity and its descriptions of women didn’t portray him as a Muslim artist. Though other Muslim artists Nas and Ice Cube helped inspire a young Fiasco that a Muslim can make it in a world full off degrading words and symbols. Fiasco’s lyrics are stimulated from his own political and religious views. These views are stemmed from his father’s participation in the Black Panthers and his Muslim upbringing giving no allegiance to a flag or section. Due to his childhood, his views on politics are very tarnished, although only tarnished in the eyes of American political parties.

Fiasco’s song ‘Words I never said’ its lyrics are direct attack on the administration of the United States of America. Through his lyrics, Lupe Fiasco is trying to speak out to the people and let them know what is really going on in the world and how they should pay attention because they play a huge part in it. The lyrics refer to numerous socioeconomic and controversial political issues. He talks about the corruption within the world and how we all see it and yet no one speaks out against it. Lupe writes about the war on terror, the media, and the silence in the people. His outspoken nature is a direct result of his radical resistant government parents.

In the chorus “It's so loud inside my head with words that I should have said. As I drown in my regrets, I can't take back the words I never said” Lupe is saying how he regrets not speaking his mind earlier, and that all these thoughts he has kept in his mind are eating him alive, so he finally expresses all of them in this song.
In the first verse, Lupe writes the lyrics “I really think the war on terror is a bunch of bullshit, just a poor excuse for you to use up all your bullets. How much money does it take to really make a full clip? 9/11, building 7, did they really pull it? Uh, And a bunch of other cover-ups”. In these lyrics Lupe is trying to express his anti-war feelings. He feels the war on terror is and American excuse to dominate the Middle East’s oil and to lower civil liberties. The lyric referring to money and a clip can hint that the philosophy of the US government has been that the war is the best way to make money and how the economy thrives on it. These lyrics also lead to the conspiracy theory behind 9/11 and the war. This could be a result because of his religion and its conflicts within the American society and its stereotypes of Islam.

Another song by Fiasco ‘Bitch Bad’ is a song which depicts the word bitch in the many forms that it is used in today’s society. The song starts with a beat that reflects the sound that is used in many of today’s popular party songs. The words in the song represent a stereotypical light on ‘bad bitches’. Fiasco highlights 3 significant points that is the basis of the song, ‘Bitch bad, woman good, lady better’. By producing this song, Lupe Fiasco points out the significance and impact that the term has on modern day adolescence. Fiasco also wanted to make an attempt to steer people in the opposite direction from the normal stereotype of the well-known and