Ebony

Ebony
Category	Lifestyle
Founder	John H. Johnson
Frequency	Monthly
Language	English
Website	ebony.com

Ebony (stylized in all caps) is a monthly magazine that focuses on news, culture, and entertainment. Its target audience is the African-American community, and its coverage includes the lifestyles and accomplishments of influential black people, fashion, beauty, and politics.

Articles

2006

Rooving to Tchaikovsky, reading his mother's National Geographic collection, passing out Black Panther flyers on Chicago's lakefront and kicking and pushing his way on a skateboard are a few of Lupe Fiasco's childhood memories. And while it may sound like Fiasco grew up in the tranquility of quaint suburbia, that's far from the truth.

"I grew up in the 'hood, like the 'hood, 'hood, the real 'hood. Prostitutes on the corner, gangs, drive-bys, blood stains in the hallway," says the 24-year-old artist who also holds four black belts in martial arts, two in samurai swords. "The 'hood, that was the environment, but it was juxtaposed with a really strong family."

Born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, the Chicago native was born and raised on the city's West Side. His mother was a gourmet chef and his father was an "engineer, karate man, musician." Both were Muslim. The eclectic blend led to a very interesting background for Fiasco, which is evident in conversation. And it also radiates throughout his lyrics on his hot Atlantic Records single "Kick, Push..." on his and debut CD, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor, which was co-executive produced by Jay-Z.

While many music fans are just getting to know Fiasco, top-level music industry exectives are already familiar with what he can do. While this is his third record deal, it is proving to be a much sweeter arrangement because his CD is distributed by Atlantic through Fiasco's production company, 1st & 15th Productions. "Every move that I make, I make it with my company because even through I love music, I also love business," he says. In addition to the 1st & 15th label deal with Atlantic, there's also 1st & 15th BMG Publishing, FNF Studios and Righteous Kung Fu, a design initiative that focuses on fashions and other items. Fiasco also is a spokesperson for Reebok.

Though Fiasco is now emerging as a force in hip-hop, surprisingly he didn't like hip-hop when he was younger. "I used to hate hip-hop... some of the first hip-hop that I was introduced to was really vulgar...," he says. "And as a kid, we couldn't curse; we got whippings for cursing. Then girls were taboo; [and in some hip-hop music] they were talking about doing all this wild, outlandish stuff with girls. Quite honestly, it was embarrassing."

As Fiasco got older, he was exposed to more positive and social conscious hip-hop that prompted his involvement. "One thing that I am careful about and one thing that I don't want is to be the poster child for Islam," says Fiasco, quickly pointing out that his faith is the foundation for his ethics and morals.

Much like Fiasco's life, Food & Liquor is a complex blend of musical work. "I'm kind of happy this album has no real form to it... You can't pigeonhole me into this arena or that arena because it's always a song on the album that's just as powerful as "Kick, Push..."

2008

Ask this cerebral, super speedy rapper to define Black music and, for once, he goes silent.

We decide to return to that question after talking about other things, namely his summer concert tour with N-E-R-D, Kanye West and Rihanna, his hit album. The Cool, and plans to retire after album number three.

Seriously.

"It's gonna be a massive effort," says Lupe Fiasco, 26, of that album, which he is already writing. "I'm looking at it like Lord of the Rings. It's gonna take a couple years to make it. People will be like, damn, now you can leave. I already got a concept out for the end."

Final, then, here's what Fiasco says about Black music:

"Black music is the Black experience in America. It goes back to songs like Negro spirituals that were actual maps, songs that actually had a message in them. It's no different than now, because hip-hop is the map for a lot of people."

2012

EBONY: Why is this cause, celebrating a social activist like Aung San Suu Kyi, important to you?

LF: I think it is important that you have people from all different vanguards, from all different walks of society and different viewpoints to be focused on the struggle for equality and democracy. We need as many champions for the cause and as many events as possible to help keep this in focus.

EBONY: Chicago, your hometown, has been in the news lately for the rash of violence and killings. How is Aung San Suu Kyi's struggle tantamount to what is happening in Chicago?

LF: I think human rights violations, mass murders, wherever they may take place, all stem from corruption, a failure in the system based on greed, a want for power, trickling down, as it was in Suu Kyi's Burma. In Chicago, you have an absence of strong family units, and that absence gets filled by gangs. You have a failure in the school system, after school programs and other social programs to help keep kids off the streets. Amnesty International speaks to that in some way, by keeping these issues in the forefront. We are all unified in our intention to keep things peaceful and positive.

EBONY: You have been very vocal about the fact that you don't vote. But Suu Kyi brought about change and forced democracy by people voting her into the presidency. How can you be a positive proponent for change by not voting? How do you reconcile that irony?

LF: I think you have to ask yourself does voting work on the level that you are trying to effectuate change; that is the conversation you must have. Voting changes some things, but those grand sweeping changes that most of us are looking for, those do not happen by voting. All the big revolutions, whether it's the Industrial Revolution, the Arab Spring, those changes happened by economic and social shifts brought about by the people's voices and those things weren't voted for. Most of our changes today are brought about through technology, not by voting.

EBONY: Do you seek to effectuate change through your music? Is music then, your medium?

LF: Yes, music is my medium, just by default because I have to talk about something. Once you exhaust the material things, you seek to learn, you talk about new things. I don't do that consciously for people to "follow me" because I prefer critical thinking. I want people to ask questions, what am I agitating? What am I getting you to think about? I hope to get you to challenge your point of view, maybe gain a different point of view, just to think.

EBONY: Let's talk about your new single, "Freedom Ain't Free", what's your message there? What are you trying to get people to think about?

LF: I question the concept of freedom. Is freedom really "free"? You have to pay for everything; everything comes at some type of cost; are you just going from one form of subjugation to another? As I said, I am just making statements. The song is a collage of different scenes through American history, and American pop culture. The struggles of Native Americans, the black community, the white community, the struggles of the far reaches of the U.S .empires.

EBONY: Lastly, tell me about the concept behind "Great American Rap Album, Part 1."

LF: I don't want to give too much away just yet, but is basically about my perspective of America and rapping. Just those two things: you will get songs about rapping and songs about America.

And with that, the celebration of freedom began.

2013

EBONY: What were you trying to convey with the BOUND pop-up art installation?

Lupe Fiasco: Well, at once its an exercise in duality, recognizing duality, that's how I work. Working in irony and in ironic situations. This one particularly had to do with museums so all the photos are taken at museums around the world. And specifically, photos that are taken of me "breaking the rules" of that particular museum. So I might touch something in a "do not touch" zone—you're kinda breaking the rule on the surface, but you're not really [breaking it]. You're not because the sign is meant to say 'don't touch the art, don't touch this… don't touch the picture, don't touch the sculpture.' For me, I took it as more like, I'm going to just touch this..and it started off as personal joke for myself and then as I started going out to different museums, seeing different signs, different versions of different signs, different fonts of signs and logos and etc and then just completely off the wall instructions for you like yo, keep 18 inches away from all the paintings et cetera, et cetera. Its like, c'mon! Ok, now I came up with different ways to kinda break those rules, so if it was a 'do not cross' [sign], for instance, I would create a little cross, then put the cross down then take a picture of that. If it was a 'do not photo' sign, 'no photography allowed' sign… I would take a photo of the 'do not photo' sign. That would break the rule in a sense. Then it became to provide a service where it was like, hmmm…maybe if the museum had done this, then this wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't have touched this, ya know. I wouldn't have even touched this sign, I wouldn't have even broke the rules in a light-hearted way, I wouldn't have been able to do it all if that 'do not cross' line was a mouse trap or if it was barb-wire or if it was broken glass or if it went to the point to be a little more absurd, if this picture had AIDS. Just imagine walking up to a painting [that said] if you touched it that you'll have AIDS. And then kinda take those methods of how to protect the paintings and them create them. So that's why you have the "do not photo" section protected by a "voodoo, alter situation." You have the crucifixes 1 and 2 protected by the power of Christ. You got the "please keep off" protected by mouse traps..rat traps or what have you. So its all of these pairings of these kind of photos and you see me personally breaking the rules. You actually see the hands of the artist breaking the rules, touching the 'do not touch' sign, but then coming back and trying to reinforce for you not to touch it, but in a very real way. By saying 'hey, this photo is actually connected to this car battery and if you touch it it'll electrocute you.' Maybe if the museum did that in the first place then I wouldn't have touched it. So that's the crux of it, but within that there's a deeper meaning about institutions and the institutions of the art world. Why do these things have value? Are they valuable because they are protected? Or are they protected because they are intrinsically valuable.

EBONY: Explain the greater meaning of these pieces.

LF: Every piece, whether it be the title of the piece, what I use to execute the piece with, what I paired the installation piece with it, has a deeper meaning beyond that. It all has layers to every piece if you choose to investigate and sit there with it like you would sit there with a piece of art. But what you're looking at as opposed to looking at a painting, you're looking at a rule that was used to protect the painting. Now that floor got put on the wall. Now take this floor as art. Are you willing to do that? Can you do that? Is it accomplished because its in a gallery now? And its framed, and its behind a mat, and it has lights on it and their is a critique off it and there is art critics and collectors, is this now art?

EBONY: Where is your creative place?

LF: My creative place has always been duality, metaphor, simile, entendre. Whether I did that with words or did that with a story or did that now with pictures and then paintings and sculpture. For me, it doesn't matter what the medium is. It still comes back to that honest, creative force within me– which is being able to manipulate and give things a certain context..to look at things from a certain point of view, which gives them something based as this. I admit some of the subject matter is very based, in some aspects its very boring until you give it the context. And the context of it is what makes this…i'll say what makes this penny worth a million dollars. Because you gave that penny the context. You gave that penny a million dollar context. In the same way you can take a million dollars and make it worthless if you put it in a particular context. If you got a million dollars on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean, its worthless. But if you put a penny in a frame in a museum and say "I rubbed this penny on the shoulder of whomever." now that penny is worth a million. So it's that idea of value, what creates value, and why we appreciate things.