To force his third album’s release, [a]Lupe Fiasco[/a] 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