Socially conscious Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco recently sat down with the Chicago Sun-Times publication Splash to talk about growing up on the West Side and his current efforts to create social change in his city. Lupe discusses his parents and home, violence in Chicago, and the duality of of the human condition, as represented in his latest album Food and Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1. Check out some of his thoughts below and peep the link at the bottom to read the full article.
Lupe on the duality of food and liquor and the human condition:
“I think food is good; I think liquor is bad. It speaks to the human condition. I think everybody has a little bit of good and a little bit of bad.”
On growing up on the West Side of Chicago:
"We lived right on Madison, and from the alley all you’re seeing is a burned-out building. But if you walk up a block, you see the Sears Tower. So you knew that it was a way out; there was the Emerald City in the distance...We knew from an early age that the city was bigger than just our block.”
On his home, which surrounded him with:
“a collection of National Geographics and a poster of Malcolm X and a bust of the Sphinx — that was our house in the ghetto.”
On his recent partnership with After School Matters on the Little Man Project to bring a hip-hop music curriculum to inner-city schools:
“It’s music, art, theater, all these multimedia things,” he says. “One kid’s going to write the score, another kid’s going to write the raps, another’s going to stage it, another’s going to act...It gives people an incentive to stay alive, to do better for themselves, to participate in something.”
