A few years in the making,
Lupe Fiasco
's
Food and Liquor
follows a fruitless association with
Epic
(as a member of
da Pak
), an aborted solo deal with
Arista
(which yielded one promo single), a handful of guest appearances (
tha Rayne
"Kiss Me,"
Kanye West
"Touch the Sky"
), and a leak of an unfinished version of the album that set the official release back to September 2006. Still only 25 years old,
Fiasco
-- a Chicagoan of Islamic faith who owns a number of black belts -- sounds wise beyond his age, rarely raises his voice, projects different emotions with slight inflections, and is confident enough to openly admit his inspirations while building on them.
It Was Written
is his touchstone, and there are traces of numerous MCs in his rhymes, from
Intelligent Hoodlum
and
Ed O.G.
to
Nas
Jay-Z
.
Pharrell
(aka Skate Board P) might've considered suffocating himself out of envy with his Bathing Ape sweatshirt when he first heard the album's lead single,
"Kick, Push,"
dubbed a skate-
rap
classic well before
hit shelves. Like nothing else in the mainstream or underground, its subject matter -- skater boy meets skater girl -- and appealing early-'90s throwback production finally broke the doors down for
's solo career. Wisely enough,
doesn't turn the skating thing into a gimmick and excels at spinning varying narratives over a mostly strong set of productions from
1st & 15th
affiliates
Soundtrakk
Prolyfic
, as well as
the Neptunes
,
West
Needlz
, and
Mike Shinoda
. There are strings, smeary synthesized textures, and dramatic keyboard vamps galore -- templates that befit heartbreaking tales like
"He Say She Say"
and casually deep-thinking reflections like
"Hurt Me Soul,"
where the MC confronts some of his conflicting emotions: "I had a ghetto boy boppa/
boycott/'Cause he said that he never prayed to God, he prayed to Gotti/I'm thinking golly, God, guard me from the ungodly/But by my 30th watchin' of
Streets Is Watching
, I was back to givin' props again/And that was botherin'/'Bout as comfortable as a untouchable touching you." Deserving of as much consideration as the other high-profile debuts of the past few years, up to and including
The College Dropout
just might be the steadiest and most compelling
album of 2006. ~ Andy Kellman