House

HouseEP by Lupe Fiasco and Kaelin Ellis
Released	July 24, 2020 (2020-07-24)
Genre	Hip hop
Length	22:28
Label	1st & 15th Thirty Tigers
Producer(s)	Kaelin Ellis Lupe Fiasco

House (stylized in all uppercase) is the debut extended play (EP) by American rapper Lupe Fiasco and record producer Kaelin Ellis. It was released through 1st & 15th Entertainment and Thirty Tigers on July 24, 2020. It was preceded by the lead and only single, "Shoes," which was in tribute to Ahmaud Arbery. The EP features guest appearances from Virgil Abloh, Crystal Torres, and Graham Burris.

The cover artwork is a painting done by Peter Gellatly—the father of Fiasco's friend, Sky Gellatly—who died from COVID-19.

Dedication

Written in loving memory of Gregory Jaco and Peter Gellatly

Description

The story of Lupe Fiasco's new EP with Orlando producer Kaelin Ellis is the sort of tale that can only exist in our hyperconnected age. Ellis tweeted a video of a beat and someone replied, "Get this to @LupeFiasco somehow," and it eventually made its way to the Chicago MC, who dropped the clip into GarageBand and freestyled over Ellis' hypnotic, bass-heavy production. That song became "LF95," the closing track from the duo's new EP, House. Lyrically, Fiasco proves why he's one of the best pure rhymers in the game, reflecting on everything from mass extinction to the modeling industry to COVID-19. Louis Vuitton artistic director and part-time DJ Virgil Abloh assists on "SHOES," powerfully meditating on the footwear he would have designed for the late Ahmaud Arbery. House is distinctly for our moment, but with the power that Lupe Fiasco and Kaelin Ellis conjure together, it's bound to outlive this cultural era as well.

Acknowledgements

Sky Gellatly:

If sound is a structure, rhythm can be a family.

The first album that I remember my parents letting me buy was Prince's Purple Rain. In the early 1980s, I remember going into a formica-clad department store in upstate New York with my mother and father—actually in search of Thriller. At that time in my life I was wearing pleather pants and penny loafers somewhat regularly. I was singularly dedicated to the rarefied occurrence that, in the oft chance or if so enticed or asked, I could "Moonwalk" in full regalia for any living human. I might have even had a silver glove at this time.

On this fateful day, a sub-five-foot-tall, "Little Mr. Sunshine" version of myself skipped into the cavernous music section of Caldor Department Store in Wappingers Falls New York. Fluorescent lights hummed above. Albums were everywhere; everything was vinyl. Vinyl in artfully designed sleeves. Vinyl tiles on the floor. Vinyl likely as the fabric of my shiny pants. "Dad, where is Thriller?" I asked. "Right over here, in the main display" he said. Now, I remind you that I ventured to the store on this day with intense focus. I don't think I wanted anything more adamantly in my life up until this point other than perhaps a Luke Skywalker Star Wars action figure or perhaps a Toho-brand Godzilla. Sorry, I digress. So, on this day, Thriller just so happened to be on display next to Purple Rain—an album that I had neither seen nor ever heard of before. In the end, MJ laying coyly with a single baby tiger was no match for the visual of Prince on a motorcycle-stoic, albeit also lavender-ish and with billowy shirt-ing—jetting from a cloud of smoke. But, alas, there was loaded meaning around the motorcycle.

"Occasionally you will buy a record that you didn't know you wanted because of the cover… but the key point is, you've never not bought a record that you wanted because of the cover." - Peter Saville

In June of 1974, my father and grandfather—with their friend Denis Minervini and several other sailors, traveled to Nicaragua to sell a boat to affiliates of the Nicaraguan Government. As context, both my father and grandfather—as well as my uncle and brother—are are lifetime merchant marines; I actually more or less grew up in New York harbor on tugboats and tankers as a child, doing menial maintenance jobs on vessels during my breaks from school. Back to Nicaragua. After successfully delivering this vessel from New York Harbor to Nicaragua in July of 1974, weeks before Nixon's resignation, my father and and grandfather rode their motorcycles through the jungles of Central America en route to Miami. My father shared this story with me many times during my childhood: the trip of a a lifetime. I have vivid memories of the trip as if I was on it myself. Sleeping in hammocks on the side of the road amidst evenings full of humidity, insect hissing, and the deep ominous hum of the jungle. Passing armed Sandinista soldiers on the sides of dirt countryside highways, and in the thick of verdant jungles. And even the fateful moment when as they were about to leave Central America to fly on a cargo plane back to Miami (sans their motorcycles because of cargo weight limits) the chief inspector of this random airstrip in Central America miraculously allowed their motorcycles to be bordered on the plane. Apparently both the inspector and my grandfather were wearing Mason rings. As fate would have it, the money earned from that trip ended up being the actual money that was used to buy the plot of land upon which my childhood house was built.

Now back to the music. My motorcycle riding, oil painting, master captain of a father taught me many lessons about life through manual labor and music. He told me that "bass is something you should feel" as a result of him seeing Bob Marley perform once in Poughkeepsie New York. He summarized his general disposition in life with the line "who am I to blow against the wind" referencing a lyric from Paul Simon also a derivative build on Bob Dylan's line "The answer, my friend, is blowing' in the wind." Music colored my father's life, and so did it mine. Growing up in a small apartment in Brooklyn for part of his childhood, and in a dilapidated rural house in Maine for the other, my half Greek, half Filipino grandmother always played the piano. The grace of God brought music into my family. The love of music from all walks of life kept it there.

As a kid, my dad, mom and brother played an eclectic assemblage of music for, or around me. Sound danced every day out of the foam-fronted floor speakers in our house. I was mesmerized by the complexity of voice from The Neville Brothers, the power of love from Van Morrison, The Temptations and George Benson, and how to stand up for something from Jimmy Cliff and John Lennon. When I listen to these songs, songs that sometimes would play when I was playing with dinosaurs as a kid, or on road trips with my family traveling on a fall weekend down the serpentine turns of the Taconic Parkway, it brings me Home. These are the transcendent, emotive moments colored by music. The motors of my cycle.

Several years ago, I was able to see a video of Lupe's father from the 1990s, shot by a graduate student at Northwestern University that had surfaced online. In one section of the video, Lupe makes an appearance, roughly 13 or 14 years old, in his father's office at The Tornado School of Martial Arts a community-focused school that Mr. Jaco owned and founded in Chicago after returning from Vietnam. It was a refuge for for kids, a beacon of solidarity for discipline, and a school of Truth. Lu's father, in this rare scene, is talking to his associates, Lu looking on in full smile and spherical spectacles. With the camera intensely focused on him, Gregory Jaco proceeds to pull out a rare holding from his personal quiver his bagpipe and starts playing masterfully. I was never able to meet Lupe's father, but in that moment of hearing him play his bagpipes, and seeing the context, I instantaneously understood my friend that much more. Hearing is seeing with feeling.

And if rhythm can be a family, songs can be a Home.

Lupe Fiasco:

Thank you.

Kaelin Ellis:

Thank you to My Parents, Kerry and Katherine, for sticking through the long nights of sounds and creating, my neighbors for putting up with our early morning jams, Goodforlife.org and Lupe Fiasco for taking a chance. Thank you to the Florida underground music community!

Background

According to the Vulture, the record was completed within a week. Fiasco shared in an interview, "My creative process is very simple: Either I can rap to it or I can't. If this beat is inspiring very basic words, then I move on. If some beats are just really good, then I'm willing to come outside of my comfort zone. For Kaelin, that was a process. The first beat was just something like, Yeah, I can rap to that. As I heard it, it was like, Mm-hmm, yep, yep. Mm-hmm, got ideas. Yep, let's do it. […] When he sent more beats that would eventually become the EP [I was like], Oh, I can rap to this. Oh, I can rap to that too. There were others that I couldn't rap to, but for the majority of his work, I found beats that I could rap to."

Singles

Title	Date
"Shoes"	July 15, 2020

Cover artwork

The House artwork features "The Glass House" painting, created by Sky Gellatly's late father, Peter, who died of COVID-19. The text surrounding the painting was inspired by Columbia Records jazz album covers, including Dave Brubeck's Time Out and Charles Mingus' Mingus Ah Um (1959).

Critical reception

Dylan Green of DJBooth praised the production, where "Lupe's voice zig-zags through Ellis' rich live instruments with ease. He should consider keeping Ellis on speed dial for his next full-length album." Green added in respect to Fiasco, "[Showcases] his loosest and most free-flowing in years. When he's not tethered to an overbearing concept—and when paired with the right producer—Lupe's thoughts can still be intriguing enough to build worlds around."

Track listing

All tracks written by Kaelin Ellis and Wasalu Jaco, except "Homme Made" and "Shoes" written with Virgil Abloh. All tracks produced by Ellis and Lupe Fiasco.

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Homme Made" (featuring Virgil Abloh)	1:36
2.	"Dinosaurs"	3:48
3.	"Sledom" (featuring Crystal Torres and Graham Burris)	5:10
4.	"Shoes" (featuring Virgil Abloh)	6:44
5.	"LF95"	5:10
Total length:		22:28

Personnel

• Abel Garabaldi – mixer
• Benson "Sw8vy" Bazilme – keys, additional instrumentation
• Crystal Torres – featured performer
• Graham Burris – featured performer
• Kaelin Ellis – producer
• Paul "GFL Paul" Mifsud Jr. – bass, additional instrumentation
• Peter Gellatly – cover art
• Rickey Y. Kim – art direction
• Sky Gellatly – text
• Virgil Abloh – featured performer, writer
• Wasalu "Lupe Fiasco" Jaco – writer, co-producer

Gallery

@lupefiasco: "The original and the identical.
HOUSE & THE HOUSE c/o @skygellatly
Cc: @kaelinellis"

• November 3, 2021
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