via The LupEND Blog

It was all good for Lupe Fiasco just two albums ago. By 2008, the Chicago MC, co-signed by Jay-Z and brought on the Glow In The Dark Tour by Kanye West, had released two critically acclaimed albums, Food & Liquor and The Cool, and built on a reputation as a nimble lyricist with a political bent forged by a series of excellent mixtapes by demonstrating that he could write more traditionally radio-friendly singles ("Kick, Push," "Superstar") without forsaking his essence.

But those albums were only moderate commercial successes, leading Atlantic Records and Fiasco to squabble endlessly over what would eventually become 2011's Lasers. The struggle seemed to sap Fiasco's talents (Lasers is a mess of awkward collaborations and half-hearted you-can-do-it anthems that seemed like an ungainly swing at pop, despite Fiasco passing on what would become label mate B.o.B's "Nothin' on You"; Fiasco's last widely praised project was a 22-minute mixtape, Enemy of the State, released in November 2009) and embolden him politically (Fiasco, an avowed non-voter, called President Obama "the biggest terrorist" in 2011, has allied himself with Occupy Wall Street to the point of rapping "New gang alert, hashtag Occupy," and became one of the first rappers ever to look like an idiot in a dispute with Bill O'Reilly).

But Atlantic got what it wanted in Lasers, an album Fiasco confessed to hating: a hit. It debuted at No. 1 on Billboard, spawned two top-40 singles ("The Show Goes On" and "Out of My Head"), and re-established Fiasco as a source of lucre for the label while giving him a forum for his Alex Jones-caliber conspiracy theorizing—"All Black Everything" imagines a counter-factual world in which the African slave trade did not exist but rap still somehow evolved in the same way, while "Words I Never Said" allowed Lupe to indulge his 9/11 truther fantasies ("9/11, Building 7, did they really pull it?") and self-mythologize ("I'm a part of the problem, my problem is I'm peaceful") over leaden Alex da Kid production. With "Around My Way (Freedom Ain't Free)," released Monday night, Fiasco proved that he and Atlantic understand the template for his future commercial success—rap on pop tracks and continue to vomit incoherent political screeds—but have completely lost the plot when it comes to critical respect.

More >>

Off the top of my head, I can come up with more "controversial" stances Katy Perry has taken than I can count on one hand: "Ur So Gay" being mean, homophobic, and seemingly aimed at Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz; "I Kissed a Girl" being shock-Sapphic and heteronormative; "You / PMS / Like a bitch / I would know" in "Hot N Cold"; the Sesame Street debacle; the unparalleled mastery of the Maxim mien to optimize titillation; the use of "Last Friday Night" to hop on Rebecca Black's comet and put on nerd drag; the use of "Firework" to hop on the It Gets Better wave; the uncomfortably xenophobic "E.T.," and specifically a remix in which one of the most famous black rappers of the moment was turned into a lascivious, rape-y beast; the microwaved breakup "rage" of "Part of Me" getting timed to a) the end of a very public relationship, b) the re-release of an album, and c) the Grammys in which Adele's heartfelt kiss-offs were venerated. Her debut album was named One of the Boys; her "California Gurls" had a Snoop Dogg verse because casual misogyny and watered-down Golden State triumphalism fit, and "Gurls" because she decided to make it the least convincing Big Star tribute ever.

So why is Katy Perry not going all the way when covering "Niggas in Paris," and instead doing Karmin-style genre tourism? C'mon, Katy: We know what you're saying when you say "ninja," just like Reggie "Combat Jack" Osse did when he took the Voice's Tom Breihan to task for using "ninja" as a substitute for "nigga" in 2006. And you even admit in the opening seconds of your BBC performance that things are going to get embarrassing!

More >>

XXL's Freshman Issue cover. Click to enlarge.

As traditions go, XXL's annual "Freshman Class" issue is neither all that time-honored or worthwhile. The magazine's been putting rappers it calls freshmen on its cover since 2008, but hasn't exactly been kingmaking or future forecasting in doing so: 2008's list featured Crooked I and Joell Ortiz, half of what would become Slaughterhouse, now doing hyper-lyrical rap over araabMUSIK beats; Rich Boy, who all but disappeared after the success of "Throw Some D's"; Lil Boosie, who has caught more charges than he has released albums since; Papoose, last seen insisting to deaf ears on Twitter that he is the reigning king of New York; Lupe Fiasco, who broke through with 2011's watered-down Lasers, an album he hates; Saigon, who was Jay Electronica before Jay Electronica and dropped a long-gestating solo debut in 2011; Young Dro, a T.I. lieutenant who never blew up; Plies, now a workmanlike Florida street rapper; and Gorilla Zoe, known to most beyond the Cocaine Blunts corner of the Internet only as a guy who was on Yung Joc's "Coffee Shop."

The predictive value of the list hasn't improved since, with abundant misses (2009's Charles Hamilton and Cory Gunz, 2010's OJ da Juiceman and Pill, 2011's Lil Twist and Fred tha Godson), premature calls (B.o.B was a freshman in 2009, but blew up in 2010; Curren$y and Wale showed up on 2009's list, and Big Sean and J. Cole got the look in 2010, but none of the three found their niches until 2011), and just a few right name, right time selections (Kid Cudi in 2009, Meek Mill and Kendrick Lamar in 2011). And worse still, for some, are the out-and-out whiffs: where was XXL on Drake and Nicki Minaj, two of rap's biggest rising stars of the last three years?

But that doesn't make it a bad list, or a bad exercise; it just makes it Sisyphean. And that's part of why the XXL list will be with us, good or bad, for as long as the magazine exists. Here are five more reasons why the magazine will keep publishing it—and why we'll keep lapping it up.

More >>

"That was back in the days, Acura days," Drake raps at the end of both verses of "Under Ground Kings." It's half of one of the most revealing couplets of Take Care, his masterful second album, and it's a callback to his come-up, a transition in roles from Degrassi's Jimmy Brooks to a promising rookie rapper from Toronto.

You can see some of that in a segment from the MTV Cribs-style Degrassi Unscripted from 2004, which features a skinny, then-18-year-old Aubrey Graham tooling around in an Acura ("It's a nice first car, for, like, a teenager, I guess"), sneaking forbidden chocolate to his grandmother, and putting his massive music collection, his many dog-eared rhyme books, and his nascent rap talents on display for the world to see. It's goofy, sure, but it's one of the formative documents of Drake's stardom: He may seem like a silver spoon-fed product of entertainment industry nepotism, but he dreamed of rap stardom, and worked to be good enough to deserve it.

Take Care is more than proof that he is; it's as good a rap album as 2011 has had.

More >>

"Make Me Proud," the new Drake track that premiered on Funkmaster Flex's show last night, is virtually guaranteed to be a hit. It's a song about and for women, who have been a crucial part of the Canadian MC's fanbase since "Best I Ever Had." It's got a distinctive sound—clean, deep drums and bass, a synth effect that simulates a landing strip—thanks to Toronto's T-Minus, one of the few young locals Drake's relying on for his sophomore album, Take Care. And it's got a catchy hook and a verse from fellow pop-rap icon Nicki Minaj, bragging about the condition of both her real estate portfolio and her vagina as only she can.

It's also got all of the things that make Drake the most loathsome pop star of the current moment.

More >>

J. Cole stands in the intertwined shadows of two of rap's biggest figures: Jay-Z, his label boss/idol/mentor, and Drake, the LeBron James to his Darko Milicic. This is true both in terms of the long view and on Cole's debut album, Cole World: The Sideline Story, out today: Cole is shown up on his own terrain by both Jay, who turns in a uncharacteristically vicious verse on "Mr. Nice Watch," and Drake, who steals dawn sex ode "In the Morning" despite sounding like he regrets the last three whiskeys and tossing out a bizarre anecdote about his aunt riding equestrian.

The guests have the effect of pulling the talented Cole in particular directions; "Mr. Nice Watch" finds him flaunting newfound wealth, while "In the Morning" has him doing a loverman act. This phenomenon isn't new; since he became the first member of Jay-Z's Roc Nation label in early 2009, Cole has starred on the rugged Kanye West posse cut "Looking For Trouble," given Miguel's arresting "All I Want Is You" the voice of a player with a soft spot, and lit up Jay-Z's "A Star Is Born," a song explicitly designed as a coronation for him, with a verse that blended narrative deftness and winning, winking braggadocio. But when Cole is left to his own devices, he can't quite figure out how to turn all of the pieces that make him compelling into a cohesive whole.

More >>

Yesterday Billboard reported that Lil Wayne's Tha Carter IV—the hyperactive MC's proper followup to 2008's Tha Carter III, which moved a million copies in its first week—might go on to sell as many as 850,000 copies in its first week out. That's an impressive number for a host of reasons, not the least of which is that not many chart theorists were expecting its week-one sales to even pass the 436,000 first-week mark of Kanye West and Jay-Z's recent album Watch The Throne, let alone nearly lap it. I called on two Wayne watchers to offer their theories on this album's blowup: Andy Hutchins, who gave the record a rather lukewarm review in this space shortly after it dropped; and Chris Molanphy, who made some predictions regarding the album's first-week sales. Gentlemen?

More >>

I used to think Lil Wayne was the best rapper in the public eye. Not the best rapper alive, as he brayed consistently while becoming the genre's most transfixing artist by deploying lunacy, brio, and awesome technical skills on a series of mixtapes and guest verses in the run-up to 2008's Tha Carter III, but the best rapper at playing both the old game of Maximize Your Radio Saturation! and the new game of Which Blog's Comment Section Can I Inspire Fanatical Devotion In? Weezy was firmly a 21st-century superstar, maybe rap's first, because he was more productive, more insane, and more entertaining than the field, and he got there by combining the youthful arrogance and above-average proficiency of his days as Cash Money's wunderkind with a promethazine-and-weed-induced weirdness that made him reliably off-kilter and amusing. If you didn't love Lil Wayne when he was on that tear, you missed out.

And given Wayne's exploits of late—specifically, the execrable Tha Carter IV, out today—you may have missed the boat entirely. Nearly all of the attributes that once made Wayne great seem to have deserted him, leaving a husk of an artist with diminished heart, soul, and mind.

More >>

It's way too early to have a critical judgment on Watch The Throne; didn't you read the rules? But since Kanye West and Jay-Z's colossal collaboration plopped into the raging waters of Internet opinion early Monday morning, I've been watching for ripples. Here are ten new things that Watch The Throne might bring to music and the music industry in the near future.

More >>

Jay-Z and Kanye West are not like us mere mortals. These are celestial bodies, ones who can sample seminal Otis Redding tracks ("Try a Little Tenderness") and not worry for a second about clearance. Hell, Hova isn't even worried about cops anymore, bragging "I got five passports, I'm never going to jail" on "Otis," the latest peek at the two rap titans' forthcoming collaborative album Watch The Throne. And Kanye isn't even worried about hell, bragging that "Jesus Walks" saves him.

It would likely be an odd position for virtually anyone—speaking from the throne, removed by years and floors from the struggle of the uphill phases of life—and it's even odder for these two unqualified successes. Jay-Z hustled a long time ago and his legendary "I'm a business, man" line (from another collaboration with Kanye, natch) is two wars ago; Kanye has as strong a string of five albums to start his career as any rapper, and he's still got room to grow. They now face one of the upper class's convenient quandaries: How can they to make things relevant to the average Joe or Joanne when their lives are spent in different realms?

More >>