The Evolution of Lupe Fiasco's Abstract yet Extraordinary Raps
A look into Wasalu Jaco's trajectory in the music industry.
Wasalu Jaco, better known by his stage name “Lupe Fiasco” is declared as one of the most lyrical and talented songwriters in the rap game with his album being a jumbled mix of Abstract Hip Hop in terms of lyricism full of nerdy media references and topics, Jazz Rap is terms of atmosphere, feel and production (especially more these days with his 2024 release, "Samurai") and Pop Rap with his songs having poppy structures with very fun, addicting and catchy hooks, for example, his grammy award winning single “Daydreaming” Featuring Jill Scott, along with “I Gotcha” Produced by Pharrell Williams and his biggest song, “Kick Push” produced by long time collaborator, Soundtrakk.
(Kick Push Music Video) | (I Gotcha Feat. Pharrell Music Video) | (Daydreaming Feat. Jill Scott Music Video)
Along with that, he also does an abundance of random stuff in his free time such as collecting Manilla bracelets and being a literally samurai with swords!
But today we’re here to talk about music.
Lupe’s discography consists of 9 studio albums, 2 EPs and many official and unofficial mixtapes with them all releasing from when he released his first song while in a Hip Hop Group called “DaPak” in 2000 while signed at Arista Records, all the way up until the big 2025 with his EP titled “Ghotiing” (it’s pronounced “fishing”) where he raps about sculptures that are present around the MIT University campus (he also works at this University where he teaches Rap Theory & Practice).
Many full time rappers and musicians who stay in the game for over a decade, tend to master, morph and mould a new style, whether it be in terms of production or vocally switching up their vocal key, flow or lyricism with Lupe being no different!
To me, he has four distinct eras of rapping within his career, and I will explain all of these eras! Why? Because he's currently a top 3 rapper of mine and I have been very invested in his discography and evolution as an artist. So without further to do, let’s skate on to the first era!
The "FNF" Era (2001-2008)
This period was Lupe’s legendary grind and rise up to hip-hop superstardom transferring from the label Arista to the illustrious and infamous Atlantic Records, with him releasing his hit debut album “Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor“ (recorded from 2003-2006; executively produced by Charles Patton and rap icon JAY-Z).
Stream “Food & Liquor” here on (Apple Music) (Deezer) (Soundcloud) (Spotify) (Tidal)
Before that record, Fiasco had the Fahrenheit 1/15 mixtape trilogy ("The Truth Is Among Us", "Revenge of the Nerds" and "A Rhyming Ape") in the mid 2000s alongside a feature on KanYe West's hit single "Touch the Sky" off the LP, "Late Registration". Afterwards in 2007, Lupe followed up his debut with his incredible and well acclaimed album “The Cool“.
To me, during this era, he showed so much more love and noise to his label within the songs themselves, yelling "FNF UP!", "FNF Radio!", "1st and 15th!"constantly, but more importantly, he came into the game crazy with silky smooth flows, rapping with a shit load of random, nerdy and very specific references in his verses with incredible wordplay, with that sticking throughout the rest of his career for the most part.
His voice being more high pitched at the time also added to his nerdiness and charisma! For his first two studio albums, he crafted an incredible mix of abstract hip hop and radio pop rap in terms of production, hooks and lyrics without dumbing down his message which was very hard to do back then and especially now.
Overall an immaculate way to show off his skills to the masses and diehard hip-hop heads!
Many classic Lupe tracks originate from this era with some fan favourites being his lyrical masterpieces from Fahrenheit 1/15 Part 1, “Failure” and “Twilight Zone”, songs that are so dense in content that fans had to make lyric breakdown visualisers just so someone can understand it (I highly recommend you watch the ones by user TimesNuRoman).
Stream “Dumb It Down” here on (Apple Music) (Deezer) (Soundcloud) (Spotify) (Tidal) (Music Video)
The story of this song hilarious! According to Lupe, the track was originally meant to be extremely abstract and spacey with the instrumental (produced by Soundtrakk) heavily inspiring him to go with that theme. Once he sent the song to his higher-ups at Atlantic, they told him that the track wasn’t that accessible, extremely enigmatic and cryptic, so they asked Lupe if he could “dumb it down” and a lightbulb came out of Fiasco’s head!
...
He changed nothing about the song except for the hook, making the song self aware about itself and making it work extraordinary well, getting one of his best friends Gemini on the hook complaining about how his raps are too much!
“Yeah we heard Mean & Vicious nigga. Make a song for the bitches nigga! We don’t care about the weather nigga! YOU WOULD SELL MORE RECORDS IF YOU DUMB IT DOWN!”
Meanwhile Lupe is in the corner of the room rapping to himself:
“And I’m mouthless, which means I’m soundless... Now as far as the hearing, I’ve found it. It was as far as the distance from the earring to the ground is but the doorknockers on the ear of a stewardess in a Lear. She’s fine and she’s flying I feel I’m flying by ‘em, cause my mind’s on cloud nine and in a mine at the same time! Pimps see the wings on the Underground King-”
Absolutely phenomenal song out of every track from this era.
My Favourite Songs Off Each Project:
The Truth Is Among Us: Failure, Twilight Zone, Ooh
Revenge of the Nerds: Outty 5000, Lupe The Killer, Glory
A Rhyming Ape: I Don’t Feel So Good, Happy Industries, Heat Under The Babyseat
Onto what many would deem "Lupe’s worst era".
The Simplified Era (2009-2012)
In terms of rapping, I feel like during this time period when the higher-ups at Atlantic were torturing the shit out of him, Lu sounded exhausted lyrically and vocally which aligns well with some of the depressing and suicidal lyrics that were written during this time due to how he was treated by his label, his friend Chill being sentenced to prison and his father unfortunately passing away during the creation of “The Cool” with Lupe making a bonus track on the disc dedicated to him named “Fighters”.
I compare Lupe’s rapping before and after this era and just think that his lyrics and wordplay here were way more minimalistic which honestly, didn’t go well with how lazy he sounded over the beats he was performing on for the most part, high energy instrumentals like "Strange Fruition" produced by Soundtrakk were never given their full potential due to Lupe's energy on the microphone (thankfully, his lyrics heavily make up for it).
Obviously there were still gems such as “Double Burger with Cheese”, secret classic “Go To Sleep” and bars like “Lu don’t moo no cow herds you only herd lions” on the loose single "Shining Down" featuring Matthew Santos.
Stream “Go To Sleep” here on (Soundcloud) (Spotify) (Apple Music)
(Music Video [unofficial])
It makes sense why some fans at the time were starting to ditch Lupe for other conscious rappers with mainstream appeal such as J Cole, K Dot, Ab-Soul, Jay Electronica and more.
Either way I still adore this era, even if I and others think it’s his weakest.
My Favourite Songs Off Each Project:
Lasers: Out of my Head, Coming Up, Words I Never Said
Friend of the People: Double Burger With Cheese, SLR, The End of the World
Food & Liquor II: Strange Fruition, Hood Now, Lamborghini Angels
Next up is arguably Carrera Lu’s lyrical peak…
The Tetsuo & Drogas Sessions (2013-2016)
After Food & Liquor ll, Lupe started recording an abundance of music with a lot of it releasing as under Atlantic Records or on Lu’s Soundcloud. "Testuo & Youth", his 5th studio album released in 2015 forcefully thank to a hacker group that demanded Atlantic to give the record a release date or else, the EPs "Lost in the Atlantic" and "Pharaoh Height" released independently in 2014 and 2015 respectively, a throwaway album of singles and scrapped songs titled "Drogas Light" released in 2017 so Lu could finally get out of his label deal with Lu’s personal favourite work, "Drogas Wave" (released in 2018) being a two-disc LP featuring interlinked songs (on the first disc) that he saved for himself until he was eventually freed from the Atlantic Records Slave Ship.
Stream “Adoration of the Magi” here on (Apple Music) (Deezer) (Soundcloud) (Spotify) (Tidal) (Music Video)
This is personally my favourite era of Lupe’s rapping as "Tetsuo & Youth" and "Drogas Wave" are the complete opposites of what the simplified era was with him basically being the "FNF" era of himself on steroids, “Mural”, “Adoration of the Magi” and “King Nas” are prime examples of his penmanship during the mid 2010s.
Lupe spazzed crazy on almost every beat from those two albums with his rhymes, alliteration, wordplay, references, storytelling and world building being phenomenal I admire it so much as it helped me learn how to rap significantly better. It is so heartbreaking knowing that most Hip-Hop fans (even some diehards) underestimate Fiasco’s pen game simply because they tapped out after he release the polarising Lasers. A lot of users online think Lupe Fiasco and only hear “Kick Push”, deeming him as a “skateboard rapper” but he is so much more, making some of my favourite introspective, reflective, abstract and anecdotal songs ever!
"Alan Forever”, “Jonylah Forever”, "WAV Files", “Imagine” and “Stack that Cheese” off Drogas Wave all come to mind and are tracks you must listen to as soon as possible! … FUCK THAT PLAY DROGAS WAVE IN ITS ENTIRETY!
The production present during this era complemented him perfectly too with him always sounding so energetic and alive on the tracks, even when he’s melodically singing in a sad tone.
There are so many tracks to pick from as most of my favourite songs are from this era but to condense it to three...
My Favourite Songs Off Each Project:
Drogas Light: Promise, Jump, Wild Child
Drogas Wave: Alan Forever, Imagine, King Nas
The Freestyle Era (2020-2025)
Stream “Dinosaurs” here on (Apple Music) (Deezer) (Soundcloud) (Spotify) (Tidal) (YouTube)
This is kinda cool but definitely clear as his 2020s rapping style definitely doesn’t feel as extravagant as the era that came before but when you’re as skilled as Lupe in rapping ability, doing freestyles doesn’t really matter as most won’t realise because of how well it’s performed along with how the concept, idea and or message of the song is so layered that it would be weird to even think that one could freestyle it off the dome, let’s not forget that he freestyled/recorded Drill Music in Zion in only three days! It’s crazy to think about considering the density of that record.
To me this era shows how far he has come in his skills of rhythm and poetry to the point where rapping is so effortless for him that he can just create immaculate, dense and fun projects without frying his motherboard... along with killing Royce Da 5'9 in a 4AM freestyle.
If you’re looking for classic lyrical Lupe, your best bet for this era is definitely Samurai, recorded in 2020 and released in 2024, that LP has monstrous tracks such as Cake where Lu is spitting like an rapid AR gun, you would be believe that the track was written but there’s an livestream of his crafting the verse in real time off the dome, you would not expect that when tapping into the final master.
Despite being 20 years in the game, this emcees pen has not dried up one bit and I’m confident that it never will, whenever Carrera believes it’s time to retire, he will go out as one of the strongest emcees of our time, being almost 50 years old and rapping like a kid who is eager and overly energetic to rap despite being so laidback about everything he raps!
My Favourite Songs Off Each Project:
Drill Music in Zion: Naomi, On Faux Nem, Seattle
Ghotiing: 3 Piece Flavour, Alchemist Flavour, Muse Flavour
Samurai: Palaces, Mumble Rap, Outside
Wasalu Jaco is an inimitable artist that deserves more praise than most musicians within any genre! I hope more flowers get thrown his way, even if he accidentally generates internet drama sometimes.
If you have listened to Lupe Fiasco’s catalogue...
What are your favourite songs from him?
What era do you think is his best?
And what how would want see him perform onward in his career?
For me? I believe that he can spit anything in the booth… and always exit the studio with the microphone in flames.
-
JIXCO 2025-2026
