March 23, 2011

Album Review: Lupe Fiasco - Lasers (Atlantic)

False illusions of Hip-Hop tales with his under par third studio effort

4 / 10 To force his third album’s release, Lupe Fiasco picketed the US office of his own personal Beelzebub, Atlantic Records. The label kept his creation hostage until he added a few hits to further line their pockets. That’s Lupe’s take, anyway.

The truth is they put this damp flannel to their ears and heard a lot of corny rhymes about virtuous living set to mass-produced R&B synth sounds. Save for the brief reprieves of the barbed, anti-everything ‘Words I Never Said’ and the historical rewrite of ‘All Black Everything’, ‘Lasers’ walks a fine line between conscious hip-hop and sleepwalking.

Chris Parkin

4/10

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