Lupe Fiasco

Food and Liquor wraps its tales of estrangement and isolation in gorgeously addictive pop packages. Producer Kanye West offers Fiasco a bed of breathtaking, panoramic soul on "Daydreamin'," and the Chi-Town rapper matches the track's lushness with a meditation on the morality of hip-hop that is more impressionistic and metaphorical than it is pedantic. This trick is repeated again on the lonely and sublime "Hurt Me Soul." Lupe is the rare hip-hop artist who is deeply humanistic and unwaveringly honest, and this may very well be the strongest hip-hop debut of 2006.

For many fans, the first sign that Chicago MC Lupe Fiasco's long-delayed debut album might
be something special was the single "Kick, Push." Over smooth, jazzy horn samples, Fiasco
tells the story of a kid learning to ride a skateboard as a metaphor for struggling to find
one's way in life and love ("He said, 'I would marry you/But I'm engaged to these aerials and
varials/And I don't think this board is strong enough to carry two' "). It's a creativ... More >