Lupe Fiasco "Food & Liquor" (2006)
Lupe had grown up with parents who exposed him to a range of experiences
and knowledge. This, juxtaposed with the experience of growing up in a dangerous
neighbourhood helped shape his music and world-view.
After a deal with Arista records fell through, Jay Z helped Lupe land a
contract with Atlantic and get started on his debut album. Lupe
explained that the title was in reference to the 'food and liquor'
stores that could be found all around his neighbourhood and other
similar hoods. He stated that it represented the balance of the two
sides of people. Food was the good, but liquor (with Lupe being a
Muslim) represented the evil.
While the album starts and ends in meandering fashion ("Intro" and the
12-minute long "Outro") the rest of it is interesting stuff.
"Kick Push"
almost has a Dan the Automator feel with its retro cinematic swells of
strings and horns, but actually backing quite a sweet story about
skating romance. It's cleverly juxtaposed later on by "Kick Push II"
which focuses on the street drug trade.
"The Instrumental"
starts off almost sounding like the quiet part of a nu-metal track...
which is not surprising when I then see it's produced by Mike Shinoda
from Linkin Park. It does have a good groove to it though with
interesting production sound, little swells of strings popping up among
guitar loop and keyboard parts.
"Pressure" (feat. Jay Z) has a 70s funk and rock backing. "He Say, She
Say" is glorious strings. "I Gotcha" has a jazzy keyboard part to it.
Another of those hip-hop albums that (at 72+ minutes) could possibly have stood to lose a track or two, but other than that, I dug this.
