Lupe Fiasco

I like hip hop, and I am a feminist. WHAT. No. Seriously. I love it. I see it as a language of rebellion, a language of hope. My friends have come to expect and hate my hip hop rants. I like socially conscious hip hop, but I also like some of the mainstream stuff. I like a good beat, a nice flow, and some linguistic acrobatics. It's hard to find the whole package. Sometimes I'll love the beats, but the lyrics will be lame, or I'll like the lyrics, but the beats are lame.

Yeah, there's some misogyny (women hatin') in hip hop, but that's present in many genres (even the self-labeled political business has a covert parade beneath the image). Anyway. I like Lupe Fiasco. He's a young bird associated with Kanye West and Jay Z. He's got some great lyrics, stellar beats, and a B Boy flow (a throwback to the sing-songy 80s bits). Still, there are parts that kind of remind me of spoken word night (not slam poetry exactly but people who'd sing parts of their poems: did you all have that?). His lyrics have a way of sticking with me: it's something to do with his rhymes and his flow (delivery, cadence, matching the words with the beats, etc.).

Anyway, two videos of two tracks I love:



"Daydreamin'" featuring my girl Jill Scott



"Hip Hop Saved My Life" featuring Nikki Jean