Complex

Complex
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Media entertainment `
Founded	2002 (2002)
Founder	Marc Ecko
Website	complex.com

Complex was founded by fashion designer Marc Ecko in 2002 as a bi-monthly magazine. It eventually grew into a media and entertainment company focused on youth culture. American rapper Lupe Fiasco was featured in their December 2005/January 2006 issue. As part of their Web Exclusive, he was interviewed in December 2007, with photography by Fredrik Skogkvist. He was featured on the cover of their August/September 2008 issue, promoting his sophomore album, The Cool. Photography was done by Matt Doyle and artwork by Reas. In 2011, as part of an April Fool's joke, they announced that Fiasco had left Atlantic Records and signed with Maybach Music Group.

Interviews

2007

Complex	You had a song on your first album called "The Cool". Tell me about the concept behind it.
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, it was produced by Kanye West and it was about a hustler who gets killed and comes back to life and digs his way out of his own grave and then goes back to like the neighborhood that he grew up in and eventually winds up, at the end of the song, getting robbed by the same gun that he got shot with by some little kid. So it's very macabre, very dark but I always wanted to do that record, to tell that story of somebody who comes back to life, that kind of manifested itself into "The Cool". And "The Cool" went on to be like the inspiration for the next album. I thought that storyline, that kind of macabreness, that kind of spookiness, you know, leant itself to be even deeper, to be just like one part of a whole kind of storyline. So I put a little bit more thought into it and kind of expanded on it.
Complex	So would you say that this album is darker than your first?
Lupe Fiasco	Oh yeah, it's much darker just on the strength of the situation that I'm in, in life right now is kind of a happy period. It's a lot of success but it came with a lot of sacrifice and having my pops pass away and just recently having an aunty pass away and then having a friend pass away, Stack Bundles, a rapper in New York who got murdered out here and then to also have my partner get locked up, to get 44 years, all that stuff came along with the situation. It made the setting for me a more darker because I'm a little bit sad.
Complex	Did all of that happen between albums?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, it happened towards the end of Food and Liquor, kind of towards the end of the promotion for that, like the whole time we were recording Food and Liquor, we were on trial and you know, going through the motions of court with my partner and my father was in and out the hospital during the whole situation.
Complex	Do you vent about those specific issues directly on this album?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah actually I do. I think I probably tell them through the story of "The Cool". As far as the resurrection, you know, it's kind of like a reach that I would love to have my father back or I would love to have my partner out of jail which, hopefully he'll be getting out soon. I wish that process was actually real and could actually take place.
Complex	When you mention that macabre kind of feel to the album or even to that song in general, a few movies come to mind like "From Hell" or "Jack the Ripper". Do those also tie into those songs or is that the feeling that you're trying to bring to it?
Lupe Fiasco	I think in a certain way. It's a little bit more serious, you know in this approach as opposed to the first album where everything was a bit more playful and I think that comes directly from just the mood that the album is in.
Complex	People, at least I thought the idea of Food and Liquor, was going to be something that like blurs the line between so called conscious rap and the street or just like for hustlers and rap nerds.
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, this album is more street, I get to tell my street story through these characters. In "The Cool", there's another character, and to go back, talking about the maturity and the whole thing, it actually comes from like being cool. You know, the clothes that I think are cool and things of that nature but a lot of the stuff comes from that. Like I think, you know, button-up shirts with the collar up, safari shirts are cool, you know, and this is cool and that's cool but as far as the street story and stuff, I build up these characters to tell these stories. Like there's three main characters: The Street, The Game, and The Cool. The Street is the actual personification of the street, you know, if the street was a walking, talking person, what would it look like? It would look like this. Then The Game, is the personification of the game, the hustler's game, the pimp's game, the Mack's game, the prostitute's game, you know and what would she look like? The Cool, to me he has two levels: there's the real, kind of Fonzie ["Happy Days"] cool and then there's the kind of destructive, chasing the cool?trying to be cool in the streets, you know, I'm cool because I got a gun, I'm cool because I sell drugs so that character is represented in two ways. He's represented on both sides, he's represented as this fresh, young, cool, fly, money-getting type of dude who everybody likes and then he's represented also, on the other side as this zombie with a rotting, dead hand who freshly digs his self out the grave.
Complex	Oh, so this is that character from the first album making a second appearance?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Complex	Do you think that characters like that, they try too hard? That they don't actually see that quote, unquote coolness in them? That they have it naturally but they do all these other things whether it's like hustling in the streets or trying to deal with fast money, that they're trying too hard to achieve that cool when they already have it.
Lupe Fiasco	I don't know, some people already possess it. I think it's the arguments to be had or the discussions to be had about it. Is it something that is just in you and it's from your environment or is it something that you're born with because I know, there are two type of people that are cool to me in the world, like the coolest people were the nerds in high school. You know after high school, all those people who were nerds and you they got the coolest jobs with the coolest type of people, they could do the coolest things, they could build a computer from scratch, as opposed to all the popular people in school, now they're in the service industry, they're working in retail, the stuff they do isn't cool, or even they fell into the whim of the streets, you know they fell off into doing drugs or whatever or when they were doing drugs in high school, now they're the uncool people. Now they got ten kids and all types of other stuff as opposed to focusing so I think they were chasing that cool in high school and they'll be represented by the hustler freshly dug out the grave, rotting hand and the whole thing as opposed to the other type of cool person who was the nerd at one point, who kind of stuck to his goals and when he got out of high school, his life blossomed, he could relate to more people, a kind of all-around nice guy.
Complex	What about The Game? Can you describe that character?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, The Game, he's a very dapper, he has dice for eyes and he had bullets for teeth. Actually there was a cipher for BET with Papoose and Styles P and the verse that I kicked was actually the physical description of The Game. "The game as the belly of a beast/ blunts for fingers and hollow tips for teeth/ wire taps for ears/ Nike airs for feet/ blaspheme for cribs?/ a system for a heart/ and rap music for beats" etc, etc, etc. So I put as much physical, as much as that stuff as I could into him so he breathes crack smoke. If you go back and listen to that song, every kind of line that's in that song is some physical characteristic. They're all real characters, like Kadeem Hardeson actually plays The Cool, and there's a few other actors, a few people out of Hollywood that we cast to actually play the other characters as well, so they're actually real people.
Complex	Sort of like interludes on the album with those people's voices?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, actually the way the album is structured is that story because I didn't want to get to heavy into it, like I put a lot of thought into from behind the scenes so from me like trying to explain it, it may come out kind of complex because it is. It's a deep storyline. It'll probably be a little bit more easy to follow on the album once everything's done and all the songs are down and people see the characters but me trying to describe is like, wow, because there's a lot that goes into it. On the album, I didn't want to get hammered down into just doing a full concept album because to me full concept albums have their flaws because you're chasing, trying to tell a story and you might not even know how to end it. So you might just do something just to end it and it might be kind of wacky or whatever. So what I did, I just focused on five records, and tried to tell that story in five records and some of them I direct, actual line for line, word for word what the character would say and some of them I'm more abstract, describing the character or describing the influence of the character. But it's [the story] over like 5 or 6 records plus the album has records like "Superstar" or me just talking about what happened in the past year and just rapping to be a rapper or whatever but it's 5 stories that I like directly focus on the storyline of "The Cool."
Complex	I think having those interludes will help explain those songs because you know sometimes like when you get so wrapped up in a song you may have to go back and listen to it.
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, it's so much, we're going to tell it across so many different mediums like we're doing a vintage radio show, kind of like the throwback Vincent Price, "War of the Worlds" kind of situation for it. Like there's toys, there's all kinds of craziness for it, where the story is going to get told on as many levels as possible, and the music is just like one of those mediums. There's a comic book, that's just one of the mediums that you can get it and feel it on another level, like you can read it or you can listen to it as a story then you can listen to it as music then you can actually play with it as a toy, you can actually wear it as a shirt.
Complex	Cool.

2008

Complex	Your fans have a perception of you as this well-read scholar.
Lupe Fiasco	No, no, I'm a dummy. I'm Discovery Channel smart, for real. My real learning and education came from my mother and my father, them teaching me to be interested in thinking. My mother would pull me inside, and we would discuss Middle East politics when I was 12, 13.
Complex	So when you have a song like "Dumb It Down," does that seem contradictory? It seemed like you were trying to reach a certain... demographic, right?
Lupe Fiasco	The dumb-ass n****s in the hood.
Complex	So you think that was the best way to talk to them?
Lupe Fiasco	[Laughs.]
Complex	Because I've heard people who are "dumb- ass n****s in the hood" be like, "I feel like he's talking down to me," like, "Why not just be on some Tupac shit and go straight at me?"
Lupe Fiasco	Tupac went over people's heads, too.
Complex	But Tupac was basically like, "Black people, you're in trouble." Like A, B, C, D. Your shit was, like, Ichabod Crane and.
Lupe Fiasco	Well, this is what people don't understand: On the original beat, the hook was saying "Space, space, space, space travelin'." And so I'm fittin' to just rap the deepest raps that I can think about. My A&R was like, "Nah, the hook is weak. Put another hook on it." So we was in the studio like, "Aight, aight, we need to dumb it down," hey hey hey, that's it, 'dumb it down.' It wasn't as contrived as people may think.
Complex	The first album was dope, but you had a lot of people in the hood like, "Yo, this motherfucker is on some smarty-arty shit. I'm not really tryin' to fuck with it." But now it seems you kind of crossed over into both worlds.
Lupe Fiasco	That's because of "Superstar."
Complex	So more people know you, but I remember you saying that you're three albums and out, is that still the case?
Lupe Fiasco	I'll keep performing, you know? I doubt if I'll make any more albums.
Complex	Rapping is your passion, but you're gonna stop after one more album?
Lupe Fiasco	I don't understand who wrote the rules, you know what I'm sayin'? Because Jay-Z had 12 albums or LL had 12 albums? Why would people want to question my passion?
Complex	Because if people stop, it's usually because they don't want to do it anymore, because they lost their love of it.
Lupe Fiasco	Usually. Now how unusual am I? Like, real talk. How unusual? I'm the most unusual rapper in the rapping business.
Complex	You're one of them.
Lupe Fiasco	And I'm not even talking about "Yo, this dude just wore a bathrobe," I'm talking about "He looks like this lame-ass nerd n****, but he carries himself like he's this fly-ass, gangsta n****. This n**** did a song about robots, dog."
Complex	So are there gonna be no more Lupe solo albums? Is there a CRS project that you're working on?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, the CRS project hopefully will come before my last album. So that will probably be the next thing that everybody kind of goes into.
Complex	I heard you were the one that actually gave the sample for "Us Placers" that was out there.
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, I produced the record; Pharrell came up with the name and the idea. And "Us Placers" was the first song that's like, "Yeah, this could work."
Complex	You're like the rap Rat Pack.
Lupe Fiasco	The Backpack Rap Pack.
Complex	When you came in at 18, rappers trying to be fashionable weren't the mainstream; rappers were still wearing Rocawear and shit.
Lupe Fiasco	There's cameo videos of me with two Rolexes and Rocawear sweatsuits.
Complex	So how does it feel now to be the dude who's emulated on the street everywhere?
Lupe Fiasco	There's billions of people on this planet. There's been lines around the corner for Supreme for years before me and long after me.
Complex	Let's talk about Fall of Rome, to come out with a clothing line yourself, it just has to be flawless.
Lupe Fiasco	Ask my friend, Virgil. We was talking one day and he was like, "Yo, what's your trunk?" Before the clothes, Louis Vuitton's claim to fame was the trunk. So it was like, "What's the thing that you do naturally outside of every other thing that you do?" And I tell stories.
Complex	How does that translate into clothing?
Lupe Fiasco	I give my clothing a story. I create a purpose for it, you know? The theme for the season coming in October is the Fall of Rome, it's the fall of decadence. It's the absence of gluttony, just simple. So it's black.
Complex	Everything's black?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, everything's black. And the logo for it is this broken statue that was pushed down when Rome was invaded; it represents the decay of beauty. And that nothing lasts forever. So it starts to get like my raps where everything becomes a metaphor for something else.
Complex	Are you going to wear Fall of Rome exclusively once it comes out?
Lupe Fiasco	Yes! [Laughs.] That's how it's supposed to be. You don't see n****s on the Bulls rockin' a Celtics jersey because the shit matches their shoes. When your game is to sell clothes and for people to believe in your brand and to push your brand, you keep your game face on. And if your game face is Billionaire Boys Club, it's Billionaire Boys Club. If it's Bape, it's Bape. That's one of the things I love about Nigo. It's like, "This is me. I'm engulfed in it. I'm every part of it. I am it."
Complex	Are you the kind of dude who buys something and if someone asks you where you got it, you're like, "I can't tell you?"
Lupe Fiasco	Nah, I tell them what it is. I like to share with the world. It's nothing for me; this my girl right here, she'll tell you. It's nothing for me to just take it off my back and give it away. [To friend] He gives shit out? Friend: Yeah, all the time.
Lupe Fiasco	Every day. Here, you like these? Have them. I don't need to have it to own it. I don't need to own it to have it. It's not that deep and at the end of the day, it's not that important.
Complex	If it doesn't mean anything, why not just rock a white tee, some no-name jeans and
Lupe Fiasco	If you're informed, you make an informed choice. You know? You understand the quality of certain things and you understand the history of certain things, and there's nothing wrong with that. You have people in in a lab like, "Yo, I only use test tubes that are handblown in Italy." Like, why?
Complex	Because they're the best.
Lupe Fiasco	Because they're the best test tubes in all the business. So if we going shopping, we going to Paris. Or we going to SoHo.
Complex	The Good Life.
Lupe Fiasco	Every life is good, man. This doesn't make life. It's a lifestyle. It's a style of life. Style is what you are, but everybody has life. And everybody's life should be good. Some of the happiest people in the world have nothing. Nothing. And they find happiness in being in the world. They wear the world with a smile. I feel bad for all the people standing in line with all that shit on and they not smiling. And somebody walks past who knows nothing about it with a smile on his face got the freshest shit on in the world.

2010

Complex	How did the Japanese Cartoon EP come about?
Lupe Fiasco	Well, I've always been a fan of all music. My favorite songs aren't hip-hop songs, they're songs from Queen like "Somebody To Love." Hip-hop is just something I actually know how to do. But I always had aspirations to participate in other forms of music. Once I got to create some hip-hop, it was like, "Okay, what am I going to do now?" So my artistic side was like, "Yo, let's do some rock music." The true inspiration for Japanese Cartoon is the band Joy Division. You ever watch footage of Joy Division singing? [Joy Division's lead singer] Ian Curtis is like a straight nerd. And he [doesn't look] like the rock and roll type. But when he got on stage, he became a completely different animal, like he was having a seizure on stage. When he was performing he just threw himself into the performance, but when he came off stage he was a mild-mannered person. Japanese Cartoon is like a tribute to Joy Division and Ian Curtis. And it actually came about quite secondhand. I was actually writing songs to hopefully present to Matthew Santos, who was working on his album at the time. It was kinda like my two cents. And it was good. It wasn't great by any measure, and it wasn't terrible by any measure. But it was just weird. The creative process for me to create that type of music, I had to put myself in a whole other zone. I only felt comfortable doing it in a British accent or some other kind of subdued version of my own voice. Simply because I don't like to hear myself sing. So to get comfortable [hearing myself sing], I sang in another accent. I still don't know how to play any instruments. But the guy in the studio, Graham Burris, did. But we didn't have a drum set, so he had to beat-box the drums. And he could play the bass, so he played a bassline on one song. And that's how you get [the song] "ARMY." Then it went from making songs for Matthew to being its own thing. Like, "this is Japanese Cartoon." With me singing in a fake British accent with this motley crew of guest engineers and guest studio musicians to play on this record by request. So that's the band. And over time as we did more records, I got more comfortable hearing my own voice so the accent started to go away. On songs like, "Crowd Participation" and "You Are Here," I'm not using the accent. Those are songs later in the recording process, [when] I'd stopped using the accent. But I felt it would have been an injustice to go back and re-sing all the songs. I felt that people should get the whole Japanese Cartoon experience as it was. So anyway, my stepfather who is true-blue British—and this is another reason I keep throwing out the British, because I want to somehow rightfully say I can use a fake British accent since I have British family members who are white, a part of the punk scene, and working for EMI. My stepfather was a studio engineer for EMI and he knows The Ruts—or at least the surviving members—and I sent him the music with the British accent. The Ruts [are] very similar to The Clash, but mostly fixated in Europe. They're my favorite punk rock band. I like them more than Sex Pistols. The response that came back from The Ruts was, "Why isn't it more aggressive?" and "Can we come over and play with you guys?" So I got this acceptance from a lot of musicians and people that I looked up to. So instead of them giving me the thumbs down or, "Nah, I think you should do something else," which is what I got from my record company, I got this motivation to do it. So once I got that, nobody couldn't tell me nothing. It was the same reaffirmation I got when I first came into the music business—I rapped for Jay-Z, and Jay-Z was like, "You're nice." So I got the same reaffirmation doing Japanese Cartoon.
Complex	When the public first heard about Japanese Cartoon, you denied being in the group. What was that about?
Lupe Fiasco	What that was, I didn't know if I really wanted to do it. I set up a Myspace page, and this was when I was like, "Aaight, I want to put it out but I don't want to promote it through Lupe Fiasco." I didn't want it to be viewed as a Lupe Fiasco side project. I wanted it to be like, "Here's this band out of nowhere." [That way] I can get an honest opinion. I didn't want to get, "Man I like Lupe, but that's wack because he's not rapping," or a "Lupe, everything he do is dope!" I wanted a true reaction to it. What happened was Busy—who works at Atlantic and is a part of me becoming who I am today—put the link to the Myspace page on his blog. And the kid who runs the Lupe blog just happened to check it out by chance and he was like, "That sounds like Lupe!" And it was a wrap from there. And me denying it was me just like, "Nah, that ain't me. I'm not British." But it didn't work. They was like, "Nah, that's you." But then you had people who were like, "Man, I'm telling you that ain't Lupe!" For me, it was an ill piece to the band with the anonymity because I was denying it and why would I deny it? But it was more so because it wasn't finished and I didn't really know if I wanted to do it and I didn't want it to be presented to the world in that controversial way. I just wanted it to come out and people got on to it and one day we did a show and I come out like, "Oh my God! It's Lupe!" I would have preferred to have that than have an Internet scandal. This is one of the downsides of having a fanatic fanbase that I love so much. It just came out from two sources that came out that were dedicated to Lupe. Busy's blog, they know he's my man and he's a part of my crew. And they did it from the official source of all things Lupe Fiasco. And it was kind of like, "Yeah, that's Lupe." And I was like, "That's not me!" And they was like, "Yeah, it's you." Now I'm like, "Yeah, it's me."
Complex	So what is Japanese Cartoon?
Lupe Fiasco	Japanese Cartoon is my lifeblood. That was my Plan B. If Lupe Fiasco fails and Lasers never comes out, I have to do something. I still have to make music. I still have to go out and tour. I want to make music as good as Radiohead, as good as Coldplay. I can make hip-hop as good as anybody. But you get bored with that and you want new challenges. And for me, this is a new challenge.
Complex	You mentioned Japanese Cartoon being your Plan B, let's talk about Plan A. A second ago, you said "If Lasers never comes out." Will it not come out?
Lupe Fiasco	It could. The situation with me and my record company has gotten to the point where it's just like... we're really at our final straws. People could say it's me, that "Lupe doesn't want to make popular music" or "The label has got to have records that they can sell and Lupe is not giving them the records they want to sell" and XYZ. I'll meet a fan on the street and we'll have a full conversation about it. There's maybe six or seven people walking around who know the whole story with their mouths wide open and their jaws to the floor as to why Lasers has been held up to this point and why it's not coming out. I can't tell you that. We're in a space where we're still negotiating and some stuff isn't meant for the public.
Complex	Do you see the record coming out any time soon?
Lupe Fiasco	God willing. I literally put it in God's hands. You know what, Lasers is a record I poured my heart into. I was actually making my own music, in the studio making the songs, and rapping on them. And at the same time, making the music more acceptable. Not making it more poppy, but making it more popular. Putting it in the position where more people can understand it but at the same time still satisfy my hardcore fanbase.
Complex	Like the people behind the petition?
Lupe Fiasco	Right. That fanbase who wants to hear stuff they can't even understand, who like puzzles. But at the same time, I felt like I was doing myself a disservice by having all of this stuff that I wanted to say that I thought was right to the people who are the scholars, the Cornel Wests of the world, but it was getting lost in translation. So I was like, "I'm going to make it untranslated." And give you the message in the raw and hopefully you'll pick it up. To me, I found that medium and I was happy with it. But the market forces were not. And then the fixers, they weren't happy with the fixers either. So, God willing. Until then... Japanese Cartoon.
Complex	As far as putting out stuff to the fans, why not just go on the mixtape circuit and give your fans something to go on?
Lupe Fiasco	I think it burns you out. I had this conversation with Kanye when we were doing the CRS project: I don't like to do a bunch of records just to do it. I want every record to have a purpose and mean something. I don't want to do it to satisfy some perceived demand. If you give into everybody's demands, then what are you left with? I always came into the music business saying, "It's 50% me and it's 50% y'all." So let me make my 50% and then you can have it. I didn't want to get caught up in the "put out a mixtape every month" because I think it cheapens you as an artist. I ain't even gonna front, I think it cheapens your work. People are happy, fans are cool, some people aren't cool. But I'm not doing it for the Internet dudes on the message boards who don't like nothing. Who are always comparing you to somebody else. I'm not doing this for you to have one more piece to play in your game of "this rapper is better than this rapper." I'm not in competition with nobody. I want to make good music for my fans who want it, who enjoy it, who learn something from it. And that's what it is. And in this instance, Lasers has been done for two and a half years. I was ready to give it to you two and a half years ago. The reason I did Enemy of the State was out of desperation. Releasing these records now is out of desperation. This isn't out of my feeling like, "Oh man, I got to satisfy my fans." And this isn't coming from some artsy place. These are acts of desperation. I don't want to do desperate acts, I want to make music because I want to make music.
Complex	You keep referring to it as Lasers, but on the Internet now people are saying the record could be called Food and Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album. Is that not a real title?
Lupe Fiasco	When I said that I was going to do an album called The Great American Rap Album, I did it. Lasers is one project.
Complex	So you have two albums already done?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah. I make music every day. [Laughs.] Half of the next Japanese Cartoon record is done. When I say Lasers has been done for two and a half years, what do you think I've been doing since then? I've been sitting back and making more music. I get beats every day from every producer. People want me to feature on their songs, and favors for favors, and all this other craziness. Lasers is one project on its own. It's its own project, sitting being done, waiting to be released. And I'm in talks with doing the record after this one. So I'm constantly creating. But that doesn't mean I'm constantly releasing.
Complex	A number of songs have been out from you in the past 12 months like "I'm Beaming," "Shining Down," and "What You Want." Are those songs from Lasers or The Great American Rap Album?
Lupe Fiasco	Everything that has leaked between "Paris, Tokyo" and "Go To Sleep" was for Lasers. "Go To Sleep" is Food and Liquor II. [It was released] simply because I was in the position where I wanted to put out some music. Nothing was officially released off Lasers. Nothing. Not "Shining Down," not "What You Want," not "I'm Beaming." Everything that came off of Lasers was leaked or stolen. We didn't put out anything. The reason the songs are iTunes and we shot videos for them is because we felt like we're going to lose these records. It's like we paid $80,000 to $120,000 dollars for this record. If we gonna pay that much we might as well follow though instead of letting it get lost on the Internet. Our hands were forced. We felt like half the album is out in the midst of finishing it. So it's like, we're not feeling to put out any records. For what? A record to beat the record we already got out? It doesn't make any sense. If the record leaked, then we're going to chase it. I'm not happy about it, but so be it. In the midst of all that you get this stalemate with the record company. And it's like, "Well I got to do something." So out of desperation, you get "Go To Sleep," which is a record from the next record. Lasers is its own project, it is its own sound, its own mood. Food and Liquor II is completely different. So I don't want to keep just dropping records. To be honest with you, if I could just stop I would stop. If I could just stop and let everything clear the air and let everything settle, then I would literally stop. But it's just my movement has so much momentum and it's so self-fulfilling sometimes that even when I do stop, it keeps going on without me.
Complex	Are you now actively pursuing the release of Food and Liquor II?
Lupe Fiasco	Nah. People were saying they wanted a Lupe record, so here's a Lupe record, from me, not some dude leaking it. Like, "Here's a good, solid, Lupe Fiasco record that's official and that's from me, that I like, that you'll like, and I'm gonna shoot a video for." You can treat it as an underground record, as a mixtape record, as a no-single, as a first single. I don't really care. I'm not trying to dictate what I want that song to be. But it's my first act of control in the last two and a half years. Just to summarize, Lasers has been done for two and a half years. I started on another album after that, with features on it and all types of craziness. But everything was supposed to be in time. What messed up the schedule when Lasers didn't come out when it was supposed to. So you get this backlog. And then Lasers kinda prematurely leaked out because of all these songs leaking. It's kind of like an unclear moment of what Lupe Fiasco album-wise is going to be. So I would just say stay tuned. Don't believe anything unless I tell you. Please don't believe anything anybody says unless I say it from my official Twitter page or my official UStream page. I'm like one of three people who actually know what's going on. In the meantime, we're going back on tour. We'll see you guys out there on stage. There might a Japanese Cartoon tour coming up too.
Complex	But don't you want to release Lasers? You made the album because you wanted to make it, right?
Lupe Fiasco	To be 100% honest, if it comes out, it comes out, if it doesn't, it doesn't. It's not going to affect me either way. That doesn't mean I don't like hip-hop, that don't mean I don't want to be a rapper. It just means that I know what everybody else doesn't know about that album. I know the dark side of that album. Nobody else knows the story. It's a dark, deep, twisted, nasty story that people lost their jobs for. It's like Lasers, that's one album that got disrupted in the business process. It's a great album, but that album may not come out. But here's Food and Liquor II. So what's going to make you happy? What's truly going to make the people happy? I'm giving you another album. I'm already past it. I'm not sitting around, "Oh man, I want Lasers. Why don't they put out my songs?" Crying. For what? You go in and put out another record. And that's what I did. If God wills it to be, we'll be talking about Food and Liquor II. And if Food and Liquor II doesn't come out, we'll be talking about Food and Liquor III. [Laughs.] If Food and Liquor III doesn't come out, we'll be talking about Food and Liquor IV. If that doesn't come out, we'll put out The Cool II, The Cool III. I'm never going to stop. I love music. I'm never going to stop making music. I just did a whole punk rock album. So when the business overshadows the music, then I'm done. And I'ma step away from that, which is what happened to Lasers. All people see is music. It's a music business. The music is beautiful and great. I love to perform it, and I love to go around the world, and I love to sing it and say it. But I hate to pick up my phone when I get off stage to talk about the music business! I hate to be looked at as the villain. I can't control my perception to the public but I try not to be a villain. My greatest fault is that I refuse to backbite others and put others on front street to the public. Because if I did that, I would be justified and vindicated with everything that I'm saying. But I'll be doing myself a personal injustice in something I don't believe in. If somebody wants to come to the plate and talk about the stuff that they're doing behind the scenes as to why XYZ isn't happening, then so be it. But I'm not going to put people on front street. That's why I don't do dis records or any stupidness like that. I'd rather to talk to somebody personally, and if they still motivated enough to tell the public what's going, then so be it. If not, then I'll take the L, publicly. And I don't mind taking the L. I don't really care.
Complex	Earlier, when speaking on Japanese Cartoon, you used the phrase, "If Lupe failed." Has Lupe failed?
Lupe Fiasco	I don't know. How do you define success?
Complex	How do you define it?
Lupe Fiasco	No, how do you define success? Am I arguably one of the best rappers in the world? Do I am have a massive, rabid fanbase? Do I have a Grammy? Do I have multiple Grammy nominations? Yes. Am I constantly on tour? What else can I say that could be a measure of success? How many Ferraris do I have? Do I have my own clothing line? Yes. Am I respected by every single noteworthy artist, rapper, producer in the game?
Complex	On the flip side, do you have an album out?
Lupe Fiasco	Whoa, whoa, whoa. See, that's even greater. Even with me without having an album out, am I still in the public consciousness?
Complex	Yes, but for how long?
Lupe Fiasco	Whoa, hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Are you doing an interview with Lupe Fiasco right now? "Who doesn't have an album out" about an album that's not out? What does that say? I'll [give] you a definition of what people say success is. People say Jay-Z is successful. Why is Jay-Z successful? Because he has his own clothing line, he has a collection of Ferraris, because he's worth millions of dollars. Because he has connections to everybody around the world, he goes on fantastic vacations, and he sits front row at the Louis Vuitton fashion shows. I do that too. Now let's talk about rapping. Is Lupe Fiasco not revered? Did Jay-Z not stop his show because at his show there was a girl wearing a "Hip-Hop Saved My Life" T-shirt in the front row? So he stopped his show to point out that I was standing at the booth and said, "That's one of the greatest writers of our time." And that's Jay-Z. You could do that with Kanye, Pharrell, and Drake, who called me a legend in my own city. And that's Drake, he's way bigger than I am. So let's look at that. Then let's go to our garages because we want to go out to the club. What are you driving? You're driving a Benz or something. Let me take this Ferrari I'm gonna drive today. And that's not to boast. That's to show people, what is success? And I don't even care about the cars. I drive them to the grocery store. I drive them to the masjid to make salah. I don't care about none of that. All of that material success and what people quantify as being successful means nothing to me. I'm satisfied, I'm happy. My family, my friends, and everybody is happy. I'm at the best time of my life. It's Ramadan. But people always want to bog it down with "success." Success is a very dangerous thing and I think we have to be very careful about when we dictate what success is for somebody else. Because you don't know what it's like. I'm happy with two albums. You may not be good with two albums, but who are you to tell me to put out three albums? I can tell you, "Man, you need to quit Complex and go work for Rolling Stone. But who am I to tell you that? If you feel comfortable, and you feel happy, and successful at your job, then that's success. You define that as success, then that's success. Success is not a general thing. It's a personal thing. It's a personal attribute. So let's look at success is for me. When Jay-Z told me I was nice when I was 19, I was done. That was success for me. I didn't want much. Little kid from the hood who wanted to be a rapper, my idol at the time told me I was nice. I was done. And I used to say that to people, "Listen, Jay-Z says I'm nice, so I don't need to rap for you. I'm good." [Laughs.] I don't really care about the five mics, I don't care about the XXL ratings—not the magazines, I mean the ratings. I don't care about Pitchfork's 8.1 or 6.2 or whatever, The Rolling Stone's five stars or four stars. Jay-Z said I was nice, so as a rapper I'm good. And I'm better than you. And I can really rap. And you'll even say that I'm better than you. And just when you think that I'm not... go to sleep!

2011

"The Show Goes On"	There's nothing really to tell about that record, to be honest. I didn't have nothing to do with that record. That was the label's record. That wasn't like I knew the producer or knew the writer or anything like that. That was one of those records the record company gave me, [they even gave me] stuff they wanted me to rap about. It wasn't like, 'Hey I did this and I went to a mountain and found inspiration and it was this.' [Last April] I was backstage at a show at the House of Blues in L.A. and the president of [Atlantic Records] came to me and said, 'Hey check this out, I got this song.' He played 'Show Goes On' for me on the iPod. I was used to it because they presented me like ten other songs in the same fashion or via email. So for me, at that point, it was just another record like, 'Is this a song you want me to do?' There was nothing special about it for me at that point. It was like, 'You know we still want off the label, right?' That was the conversations we were having.
Why He Hates Lasers	One thing I try to stress about this project is, I love and hate this album. I listen to it and I'll like some of the songs. But when I think about what it took to actually get the record together and everything that I went through on this record—which is something I can't separate—I hate this album. A lot of the songs that are on the album, I'm kinda neutral to. Not that I don't like them, or that I hate them, it's just I know the process that went behind it. I know the sneaky business deal that went down behind this song, or the artist or singer or songwriter who wrote this hook and didn't want to give me this song in the first place. So when I have that kind of knowledge behind it, I'm just kind of neutral to it like, 'Another day, another dollar.' As opposed something like The Cool, which is more of my own blood, sweat, and tears, and my own control. With this record, I'm little bit more neutral as to the love for the record. The [fans] came and put their lives on the line in some instances—because you never know what could happen, it could have been a stampede. I look at that as very inspiring and motivational. That was one of the only reasons the label got on the phone and wanted to have that meeting, they seen the outpouring of support and the critique that was beginning to mobilize via the Internet. CNN, MTV, and Village Voice was picking up the story of the protest and actually interviewing the kids and the kids was speaking their piece. And it wasn't the most glorifying things that they were saying. I think that, as well as the pressure of the business itself, where it was at a point like, 'Look, Lupe is not going to come into the building at all.' It was periods of stalemate where I wasn't going into Atlantic Records. I had nothing against the average employees—a lot of those people are my friends—but the executive attitude was something I did not like.
"Words I Never Said"	The first day I heard it, I went into the studio and recorded it. The song had a bridge we took out because initially, the song was supposed to be about a relationship, like a boyfriend/girlfriend, Drake song or something. And I'm like, 'Nah, I'm going to talk about world affairs.'
"Out of My Head"	There's 'Never Forget You' [featuring John Legend] —which is another record I had nothing to do with— which became another bargaining chip, like, 'Yo, after 'Show Goes On' there's going to be this other record that you had nothing to do with.

2012

Complex	You were rocking a leather jacket with a dope camo lining inside the hood last night, who makes it?
Lupe Fiasco	That was Takahiro Kuraishi.
Complex	The collaboration with Takahiro Miyashita of Number (N)ine and The Soloist?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah. He did a collaboration with Kazuki Kuraishi from Phenom, and Creative Director for Adidas Japan. He was like, Hiroshi Fujiwara's right-hand man. He started a line with Takahiro, so they do The Soloist and Takahiro Kuraishi, which is more outerwear.
Complex	Do you favor Japanese designers?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, I think moreso Yohji Yamamoto, when it comes to overall Japanese fashion, it would have to be Yohji. But then Junya Watanabe, then Rei Kawakubo, and probably Mihara Yasuhiro. There's a brand called Kiryu, I don't know the designer, but that's like high-fashion. Then you come into streetwear and urban wear: I like Kazuki Kuraishi, then SKATE THING, and Big O. On down to Tet, Neighborhood, and even down to BAPE.
Complex	You mentioned your love for Yohji, and pretty much every other piece you're wearing is Y-3. You're also rocking some heavy jewelry, who makes them?
Lupe Fiasco	The rings are Hysteric Glamour and Chrome Hearts.
Complex	Are you a fan of Chrome Hearts?
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah, I think Chrome Hearts is the new luxury. I think when we look at luxury, we're still stuck in the Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Hermés kind of world — which to me is old luxury.
Complex	And on the other hand, you have items like the Comme des Garcons champion rings…
Lupe Fiasco	Yeah. When you get into what is gonna be the new luxury for today, it's Chrome Hearts. The extravagance of it, the materials, the silhouettes that they make — it's all new. The other stuff hearkens back to the Victorian age — it doesn't speak to me.
Complex	Do you think Japanese designers will be the focus of the future?
Lupe Fiasco	I think it's gonna progress in this world. You see it in things like Rick Owens. You see the influence of Yohji, particularly, over everything. But, you trace Yohji back to Vivienne Westwood. A majority of Japanese designers, even Neighborhood, even Nigo, even BAPE, all come from Vivienne Westwood. If you look at that being the prototype of it, it's just one big cycle, feeding off each other. Now you see a lot of the Japanese stuff influencing everything from streetwear on down. The most prized streetwear is Japanese streetwear, still to this day. Shit made in Japan is dope, because the quality's there. Look at things like Converse Japan and Levi's Japan, what they make is way doper than what Converse America or Levi's America makes.
Complex	Having traveled a lot, do you think your style has a sort of global perspective?
Lupe Fiasco	There are certain pieces like rastafarian hats, which are definitely from that world, my affinity with Yohji — I'll wear anything Yohji makes, be it Yohji or Y-3, and that's Japanese. But at the same time too, I like motorcycle jakcets and jean jackets too, and those are American.
Complex	The other day I saw a camo motorcycle jacket from your collection Overthrow, sold at Don C.'s RSVP Gallery, can you tell us about that brand?
Lupe Fiasco	There's Trilly & Truly, which is the main brand, and there's Overthrow, which is all leather goods. I'm trying to feed off the Chrome Hearts energy, so to speak.
Complex	What about your Vans collaboration from last year? What influences went into that?
Lupe Fiasco	I love vintage sports cars. So for that one particular collaboration, I just took the Ferrari F40 and was like "take this, and make this a shoe." And the other side was wanting to use different prints, wordly prints that I think don't get much shine that speak to a heritage of something other than western. More indigenous societies, cultures, and stuff like that. So we did a piece called the Native Tongues, where we took different pieces of cloth from different tribes and civilizations and made it into the tongue of the shoe. I also needed something technical that I could perform in. I kept pushing that. All the little things that happen on stage — it needs to be entertaining and have a level of showmanship to it. That was the aspect I was most involved in, from the tech side, to the breathability side, to the appearance, but it all has to be functional.
Complex	You were named Vans OTW advocate recently, but it seems you've been rocking their shoes for years. How natural did the relationship with the company feel?
Lupe Fiasco	I was wearing more Vans than any other shoe, and I have thousands of shoes. I was wearing them just everyday — out of simplicity, ease of wear, and pricepoint. I feel bad wearing Lanvins and destroying them, but with Vans I don't really care. I've worked with shoe brands before. I've worked with Reebok, Adidas, and even Y-3. I've always been in and out of that world of being a brand advocate, but this was a little bit easier because it was like "I'm already doing it." Even if we weren't building a relationship together, I would still be wearing them. You could just come to a show and shoot me performing and I'd be in some Vans.
Complex	What's your favorite pair?
Lupe Fiasco	My most remembered pair are Vans Syndicates. Some Sk8-His that I was actually skating in. That was my first lesson in like "maybe I shouldn't skate in these." They were more a fashion shoe, and I put two big ollie holes in the side. I was like "Oh well." But those are my most remembered pair.
Complex	So do you plan on continuing to explore the technical side of shoemaking for Vans, or put your own aesthetic taste into the shoes?
Lupe Fiasco	As an artist, I need them to make a shoe that I can wear on stage, that works for me on a functional level, less about fashion. It should be fashionable, but at the first point, it should be functional. That's been something that I've been pressing on them since the beginning of our relationship. It's like "we need to focus on this, because I think it's something that'd be revolutionary."
Complex	What kind of advice do you have for guys that aspire to be stylish?
Lupe Fiasco	I think you should wear what makes you feel good. Wear what you feel comfortable in. That's it.

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