State Champ Radio Lupe Fiasco
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Lupe Fiasco has long owned the distinction of being one of the sharpest lyricists in Hip-Hop, and also showed and proved that he is adept at the art of battle. During his set at Coachella over the weekend, the Chicago rapper put any rapper who wants to test his pen on notice in a defiant speech with folks online reacting in kind.
I’m going to break the wall here and state that I feel that Lupe Fiasco might very well be the best on-paper lyricist in modern Hip-Hop. Songs like “Mural,” “The Cool” and countless others demonstrate his immense ability as a writer but also reveal the deep layers of his skillset.
As I’ve written about before, the quick back-and-forth between him and Royce Da 5’9 was largely ended by an inspired Lupe Fiasco on the track “Steve Jobs: SLR 3 1/2” which I still believe was largely freestyled or, at the very least, delivered in one take. Everyone should know and understand that Lu is a dangerous MC if one is a student of this game.
During a pause at his set at Coachella, Lupe addressed the crowd as only he could and let off a profanity-laced barrage by saying that under no uncertain terms can any rapper on the planet take him out when it comes to rhyming.
“Hear me clearly when I say this and I mean it from the bottom of my heart. When it comes to this art, and I quote, I will battle any motherf*cking rapper. Anywhere. Any motherf*ckin’ time,” Lupe said to an uproarious crowd.
This declaration from Lupe has the culture in a bit of a daze considering the mock meat shenanigans between Drake, Rick Ross, J. Cole, and Kendrick Lamar with K-Dot the only one putting a strong bullet on names while the antics are front and center from everyone else. Even proponents of battle rap culture like Aye Verb got involved and seemingly called out Lupe via X but that was shut down somewhat quickly.
However, Lupe did join Aye Verb in a Twitter Spaces conversation and explained his position on Kendrick Lamar and other rappers.
On X, we’ve got some reactions to Lupe Fiasco putting the game on notice, Aye Verb’s Twitter Spaces chat, and more.
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Photo: ANGELA WEISS / Getty
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Source: ANGELA WEISS / Getty
For years now Lupe Fiasco and Kid Cudi have been embroiled in a weird and unnecessary beef, and though the former seems ready to bury the hatchet and move on from the conflict, Lupe Fiasco isn’t letting anything go too easily.
Over the weekend, Cudi tried to take the high road and attempted to squash the drama between the two rappers by taking to X, formerly Twitter, and apologizing to Lupe saying that he “love’s” him and hopes he can “find it in ur heart to get past this.” He even went out on a limb and told his fans that Lupe actually “love me y’all don’t get it twisted” and that the Chicago rapper is only “beefin’ w himself at this point.”
Seems like those kindish words weren’t enough for Lupe to accept the olive branch that Cudi extended. He responded on X saying, “this ain’t enough…you need to talk to me.” Obviously Lupe wants to air out the situation personally (privately?) with Cudi. Cudder also publicly said he sent him a DM, which left fans scratching their heads.
Thankfully for everyone, the two apparently did actually get on the horn and hashed things out with Cudi tweeting, “Just talked to Lupe. Had a great talk. I know I was wrong and told him I shouldn’t have did that f*ck sh*t I did.” Lupe responded to the tweet with his own two cents saying, “Sincerely appreciate it my guy… peace & blessings.”
The “f*ck sh*t” that Cudi is referring to is when he criticized Lupe for offering fans a personalized verse for $500 a decade ago. While it seems like such a small thing to break a friendship over, whenever you knock someone’s hustle, expect some kind of repercussion to follow.
Still, we’re glad to see the two back in each other’s good graces. Maybe we’ll get a collaboration track from the two sometime in the future.
What do y’all think of Lupe Fiasco and Kid Cudi finally squashing their beef? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Lupe Fiasco is continuing his journey in higher academia. He announced that he will be taking part in a fellowship at Yale University.
The Drill Music In Zion rapper broke the news to fans last Thursday (March 30) through his Twitter account. “Proud to announce I’ve been chosen to be a Saybrook Fellow at my OTHER favorite school in the whole wide world outside of MIT…@Yale,” Lupe Fiasco wrote. “Shout [out] to Tom Near for nominating me to a place where against all odds two Chicagoans found a home in the Ivy League.”
Tom Near is Saybrook’s Head of College in addition to being a Professor and the Chair of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale, and Bingham Oceanographic Curator of Ichthyology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History.
The Saybrook College Research Fellowship at Yale was created to enable students and fellows to discuss and examine topics in informal spaces. “The Fellowship is intended also to provide students and Fellows with opportunities for discussion in an atmosphere less formal than the classroom,” their website states. “They represent a considerable potential for informal discussions of your interests, academic or otherwise, but you must seek them out and make your interests known. You will find that they are eager to meet you.”
This will be the second Ivy League teaching stint for the Chicago native, who recently completed teaching a course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) entitled “Rap Theory & Practice: An Introduction.” “[T]he MIT relationship was formally initiated through someone who had a connection to one of the professors at MIT, Dr. Nick Montfort. I mentioned my interest in studying computational poets and trying to look for somebody who worked in that space,” Lupe said in an interview last year.
He continued: “The connection was made, and all of a sudden, I was at MIT. At first, it was, ‘Come for a day.’ Then ‘Come see the school, get a tour.’ Then to, ‘Come speak at a class.’ Then it’s, ‘Oh, yo, come be part of a research group.’ Then it’s, ‘Oh, come be an artist-in-residence.’ Then it’s, ‘Oh, come be MLK Visiting Scholar for a year.’ It was just incrementally building over time, so it’s a result of a five-year engagement.”
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