It’s been over 2 years since Lupe Fiasco released his Grammy-nominated album Food & Liquor 2: The Great American Rap Album. Soon after its release, Fiasco announced his next project as Tetsuo & Youth. Now, in 2015, after an ongoing conflict with his label Atlantic Records over creative differences, the album has finally been released. This is thanks in large part to the hacker group ‘Anonymous.’ In late 2014, the group threatened Atlantic Records to announce the release date of Lupe’s upcoming album within 24 hours, or risk a full-fledged hacking of their system. The threat work, and a January 20th, 2015 release date was announced on Atlantic Record’s Twitter account within the time frame.
Now that Tetsuo & Youth has finally arrived, it’s time to dig into what Fiasco has in store for us this time around. From the first track, it’s very clear Lupe has made a nice structure for his album, separating the tracks into four separate ‘seasons.’ After an introduction into the ‘Summer’ portion of the album, Lupe gives us a song nearly 9-minutes long of non-stop rhymes in the song ‘Mural.’ The remaining ‘Summer’ tracks like ‘Dots & Lines’ as well as ‘Blur My Hands’ give the album a powerful start.
We are then brought into the ‘Fall’ portion of the album, which begins with a dark and lengthy track titled ‘Prisoners 1 & 2.’ While the song was not much to my liking, the creativity behind the song may require multiple listens in order to fully grasp the material. The rest of this season gives us songs that are quite significant like ‘Little Death,’ ‘No Scratches,’ and ‘Body of Work,’ which all are major stand-out tracks for this album.
The ‘Winter’ portion of Tetsuo & Youth takes quite a left turn with the song ‘Chopper,’ which has a slew of features, mainly from lesser-known artists. The final four songs of the album (‘Deliver,’ ‘Madonna (And Other Mothers In The Hood),’ ‘Adoration of the Magi,’ and ‘They.Resurrect.Over.New’) take the album to a grand conclusion. The only odd thing hear is that Fiasco does not create any songs for the ‘Spring’ season besides an outro signifying this final transition.
Needless to say, Lupe Fiasco has proven his potential to create an artistic spectacle with Tetsuo & Youth. Many fans of Fiasco have looked to compare all his new releases with the material that made him famous (i.e. Food & Liquor, The Cool). I think it’s fair to say that this album can match up with those benchmarks established by Lupe early in his career. Fiasco has finally returned to these peak levels. While albums like Lasers and Food & Liquor 2 are both solid albums that deserve your attention for different reasons, Tetsuo & Youth is on another level.
With that said, it’s sad to think that this may be the final major release of Lupe Fiasco. His contract with Atlantic Records is now over, and according to recent interviews, the rapper plans on stepping back from the spotlight. If this is Fiasco’s final album, he has surely made a grand exit on a very successful career.
Must-Listen Tracks: ‘Mural,’ ‘Body of Work,’ ‘Madonna (And Other Mothers In The Hood),’ ‘They.Resurrect.Over.New’
