Lupe Fiasco - "The Cool"
 

Coming off the heels of his ground-breaking debut "Food & Liquor," Lupe Fiasco outdid himself in this, his full-length sophomore album.

"The Cool" kept, and even improved upon the sound that made "Food & Liquor" an amazing album. His lyrical delivery comes across as extremely confident (similar to Kanye West), and his beats consist of lots of bass (per the usual hip-hop beat), mixed with synthesizers and some horns and pianos, creating a sound that I can only describe as amazing.

His lyrics always tell a story. While listening to this album, it seemed to me that Fiasco was making this album to make good music, not to sell records.

In "Gotta Eat," he compares the life of living on the street and making ends meat ("getting cheese", "eating", "seeds", etc) to a fast food restaurant.

"Dumb It Down" speaks to black america, and how the music industry holds them down. He addresses how mainstream rap dumbs people down with their trash lyrics such as "make it rain," "pourin champaign," etc.

"Intruder Alert" is oneof the best rap ballads that I've heard in many years. It addresses the pain and struggle of the world and its individuals, and how the world needs to change for the better. It encompasses the story of a young girl who has been raped, a recovering drug addict, war and famine in africa, and many other issues.

This album is a welcome breath of fresh air on the rap scene. Out of the 19 tracks on "The Cool", I only found 3 that didn't sufficiently warrant space on my MP3 player.

Overall rating: 9/10
Favorite Song: Gold Watch
Favorite Lyric: "And my most coveted thing is my high self-esteem
And the low tolerance for them telling me how to lean
See the most important parts are the ones that are unseen
See the wings don't make you fly and the crown don't make you king" - Gold Watch

Oojay writing a review ?

Hell really must have frozen over.

Nicely written too. :)

I LOVE The Cool.

i felt it had some unnecessary tracks but was still easily a number 1 pick

lupe is definately doin it... i need to grab this album still.

The Cool album was def one of my favorites Lupe is def doin his thing!!!!

Very well written review! got this album a few weeks ago and even though its not my favourite Genre anymore its never out of my CD player. Its getting so hard to find something different and fresh in Rap/Hip Hop, but Lupe Fiasco is certainly the closest thing to "fresh" that is in Hip Hop today

I think your review gave the album more credit than it deserved, but that's just me.

In Gotta Eat, he characterizes a hamburger as a supervillian that's going around and making America obese. he was taking a jab at the fast food industry.

You also forgot to mention the whole "Cool" storyline that covers a few tracks in the middle. I think he should've just made the entire album a concept album.

My favorite track is Streets on Fire. I'm still trying to figure out that song. Streets is Cool's girlfriend but is she on fire as in on a streak of killing people. There's a part when he says different people are the causes of the deaths. bah
I have to listen to it more to figure it out.

OT: hey djchameleon, where is your avatar from? :yikes: