Lupe Fiasco - The Cool

December 18th, 2007

I’m going to keep this short and sweet, Lupe Fiasco is a beast. The concept for The Cool album is amazing. Especially since “The Cool” was my favorite song by him, it really threw it into something new. Concept albums are great, especially with people like Lupe Fiasco on top of it. It expands on the character (and adds several) from song and develops a story line. From Lupe Fiasco and Pitchfork,

“I expand on the story, I introduce two other characters, the Game and the Streets. The Streets is a female. She’s like the action personification of the streets, the street life, the call of the streets. The Game is the same way. The Game is the personification of the game. The pimp’s game, the hustler’s game, the con man’s game, whatever. Then they’ve got supernatural characteristics. Like the Cool, his right hand is rotted away. The only thing that rotted away was his right hand. It represents the rotting away of his righteousness, of his good. And the Streets and the Cool kind of have a love affair going on. So she’s represented by this locket. And the locket has a key and it’s on fire. And as a gift to the Cool on his rise to fame, she gave him the key. And the key represents the key to the Streets. So she wears a locket around her neck at all times. And the way the story goes, she has given that key to tons of people throughout time. Al Capone, Alexander the Great, whatever. She’s giving them the key to the Streets. Fame and fortune– but also the prices. The Game, he’s represented by a stripped-down skull, a skull with dice in his eyes and smoke coming out of his mouth. The billowing smoke is actually crack smoke. It’s not a full concept album; it’s more spread over like five [tracks], really abstractly.”

You can see clearly what path it’s taking. The albums is just solid and I’d recommend all of you to go grab it.

The Cool’s Tracklisting

1. Baba Says Cool for Thought - Lupe Fiasco
2. Free Chilly - Lupe Fiasco,
3. Go Go Gadget Flow - Lupe Fiasco
4. Coolest - Lupe Fiasco
5. Superstar - Lupe Fiasco, Matthew Santos
6. Paris, Tokyo - Lupe Fiasco
7. Hi-Definition - Lupe Fiasco, Pooh Bear, Snoop Dogg
8. Gold Watch - Lupe Fiasco
9. Hip-Hop Saved My Life - Lupe Fiasco, Nikki Jean
10. Intruder Alert - Lupe Fiasco,
11. Streets on Fire - Lupe Fiasco
12. Little Weapon - Lupe Fiasco, Nikki Jean
13. Gotta Eat - Lupe Fiasco
14. Dumb It Down - Graham Burris, Lupe Fiasco,
15. Hello/Goodbye (Uncool) - Lupe Fiasco,
16. Die - Lupe Fiasco,
17. Put You on Game - Lupe Fiasco
18. Fighters - Lupe Fiasco, Matthew Santos
19. Go Baby - Lupe Fiasco,
20. [CD-Rom Track]