List of quotes pertaining to the Chicago-born rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur, Lupe Fiasco. Known for being outspoken, didactic, and at times, "controversial" by the media, he is a pioneer of the conscious hip hop movement. Acknowledged and praised by fellow peers early on in the game, his music taps into commentary on the sociopolitical landscape and occasional concepts that provide insightful observations of the world and the people.[1]
"Where wick only buys juicy juice and kicks / It's a trip 'cause the youth is usually used to this / And that's strength, and you gotta be strong / When the drama's on your back and your clothes don't match" – "Life" [2003]
"He just sits, and watches the people in the boxes / Everything he sees, he absorbs and adopts it / Mmm, he mimics and he mocks it / Really hates the box, but he can't remember how to stop it" – "The Instrumental" [2006, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor]
"This life goes passing you by / It might go fast if you lie / You born, you live, then you die" – "The Cool" [2006, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor]
"The books that take you to heaven and let you meet the Lord there / Have become misinterpreted reasons for warfare / Reread them with blind eyes, I guarantee you there's more there / Rich must be blind 'cause they ain't see the poor there" – "American Terrorist" [2006, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor]
"I'd stop feeding all of the nonsense / I'd starve all of it / I'd have them put the black experience on Mount Rushmore" – "Up to Me" [2007, The Rush]
"Man, I really miss my pops / Hope that God watches over him and that he's on top / That there is no more disease and that he's alright / That he's one of the generals inside the army of the light – "Fighters" [2007, Lupe Fiasco's The Cool]
"Melt the change and make a ring, take that ring and make a bracelet / Take that bracelet make a chain, look how far my necklace hang / Connect that chain up to a crane, pull the game up by the brains / Could not move it just with brains, so, I had to use some bling" – "Yoga Flame" [2009, Enemy of the State: A Love Story]
"I think that all the silence is worse than all the violence / Fear is such a weak emotion, that's why I despise it / We scared of almost everything, afraid to even tell the truth / So scared of what you think of me, I'm scared of even telling you" – "Words I Never Said" [2011, Lasers]
"Much too late to even feel like trying / Can't understand what I'm saying? / Can't figure out what I'm implying? / If you feel you don't wanna be alive / You feel just how I am" – "Beautiful Lasers (2 Ways)" [2011, Lasers]
"White folks act like they ain't show us how to traffic / All that dope to China, you don't call that trappin'? Breaking Bad, learned that from a TV / So don't say it's politics when you see me" – "Deliver" [2015, Tetsuo & Youth]
"That's a loss for the class and a score for the rifles / Three hots and a cot and some cops / Trying to find dinosaurs in the Bible / It's all quiet in the jailhouse / Then they ride in to find the empty cells out" – "Prisoner 1 & 2" [2015, Tetsuo & Youth]
"That love's not a lie, it just likes to lie low / Likes to hide right there in plain sight / And you got to find it with your eyes, closed" – "It's Not Design" [2017, Drogas Light]
"My bones is why the beach is white / Why the beach is white 'cause they bleached us light / So I'm goin' back home, I took a leap last night / So I'm walkin' on water 'til my feet just like Jesus Christ" – "WAV Files" [2018, Drogas Wave]
"Pause for applause, evolves to what was never here / Born to death, born to die / Form the flesh, form the eyes / A veritable storm of winged forms swarms the skies / Marital norms unperformed but the porn survives / In the dorms of the scorn, they keep warm supplies" – "Mural Jr." [2018, Drogas Wave]
"Man does not become superior 'cause you connect him to a cape / Nor does become inferior because you connect him to a ape / I never wanted my life to be a collection of some dates" – "Ms. Mural" [2022, Drill Music in Zion]
Spoken by Lupe Fiasco[]
"I like Tupac. The only album of Tupac's I really, really got into was All Eyez on Me. That was my Tupac album that I really liked. As an MC, he's just all right to me. He makes more of an impression as just the figure that he was. He was the James Dean-type individual, where his persona is what really appealed to people. […] That's what we were on, lyricism, so it was Jay-Z, Nas, Pharoahe Monch, and Wu-Tang Clan, different people where it was straight, straight lyrics. This was when we were 15, 16, 17, and if you wanted lyrics, then Tupac was just whatever." – Fiasco recalling music he grew up listening to[2]
"I always know that I'm capable of changing. On one hand, if I change for the worst, I don't want to be remembered. If I change for the better, I just want to be remembered as 'He did not lead them astray.' Not the multi-Grammys and his songs, his accolades and what he's achieved on paper. It's 'He did not lead them astray.' That's my fear, to lead astray, to create the cycle, the butterfly effect of me being the role model, the example of you doing wrong. I always say that if I tell a lie on my records, and I sell a million records, I've told a million lies. […] My father's last words via my sister to me, were: Tell the truth. Tell Wasalu—that's my real name—tell Wasalu to tell the truth. And that congealed, everything that was loose in my life, it became concrete and became solid with that, with his dying words. And so it's like okay. Taking that on means that I take everything that comes with it. There's this truth and telling the truth you take. That's a battle, that's a war that you just waged against the seen and the unseen. And there's an army of lies, there's an army of untruth on the other side of the battlefield. […] It's nothing whimsical about that. And the truth affects, the truth hurts. The truth destroys, it may destroy the facade. But people love the façade, deeply. And when you come with the sledgehammer of truth to start knocking down the statues and pushing down the the cities and stuff like that, you create enemies. You open yourself up to a whole gambit of enemies, the enemies with the friendly faces. The enemies who on the surface, you know that they're enemies, and you also start to bring out the enemy in yourself." – Fiasco at the Festival of Faith and Music[3]
"I hate this record, the process of making this record, and I love this record. What I had to go through was not fun, the ugliness I saw in people. But I love the manifesto, that the message got out, that fans protested for four hours in front of the label's New York headquarters and demanded attention." – The creation of Lasers and Fiasco Friday[4]
"It was very empowering; I was silently empowered. You've got 250 chanting and screaming kids, and beyond the number it's a group of people—17 and 19 year olds—who put that together and got permits and noise ordinates and car pools and plane tickets. To see people mobilized like that … it wasn't something that I got behind or instigated—it was something that they did on their own. So it was very silently empowering, a vindication in some instances, but at the same time to, humbling. It was something that made me feel like it's bigger than me." – Fiasco discussing the fans' protest[5]
"I have an understanding of Queen and the way Freddie Mercury did his harmonies. I know what tablas sound like, because my father played a lot of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. I can't play any instrument for the life of me, but I know what I want to hear." – Fiasco on the show Weekend All Things Considered[6]
"That's what inspires me, to see people who are brave, who live their music, and not only that, but who are talented and have a certain degree of quality and seriousness when they approach the creation, production, and execution of their music." – Lupe to Teen Vogue about artistry[7]
"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." – Responding to the question of the importance to celebrate social activists[8]
"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." – Fiasco talking about his role in change[8]
"Chicago's the murder capital. The dudes in that video are in prison, a couple of fed cases, and then there's ghosts. You see people that, that ain't there. […] You gotta get out. Stick to what you know and get out. Because if you stay here, you gonna die, and you not gonna die for anything heroic, you not gonna die for anything meaningful. You gonna die for something that is worthless and nobody is gonna remember your name." – On MTV's RapFix Live[9]
"My moms and my pops told us when we were little kids, 'You don't say the pledge of allegiance.' More from a religious kind of thing, halfway. You pledge your allegiance to God and that's it. Being Muslim and things like that, you don't pledge allegiance to no flag. My father was a Black Panther, my mama was super intellectual, left-wing, the whole kind of situation. So it's that layer on it too. Not yet, you don't pledge allegiance yet, we're still working on this place."[10]
"I honestly don't think people know what political means. This is not a shot to you or anyone else, even myself. We just paint that on to things that speak to society, but that's not political. Political is, 'I want a revolution.' 'I want to change the government structure.' And I don't think those records necessarily do that. I think people like to slap that on anything that is outside of the realm of shaking their ass in the club. There are no mentions of Democrats or Republicans. I don't look at [the songs] as political. I look at them as social portraits as opposed to political diatribes." – Discussing the label of "political" music[11]
"The main idea of my art … It is to resurrect! When I'm doing the work of the "resurrective" is when I'm in my flow state. It is the best thing I know how to do. Walking between worlds and being the medium. Bringing things back to life." – Discussing his seventh studio album, Drogas Wave[12]
"That idea that rappers fall off isn't from the rapper, it's from the audience. The audience falls off. Rappers just get better and better and better and better. […] You said rappers fall off—no, rappers don't fall off. They don't get worse at rapping. What happens is the audience changes, they lose interest. The dopamine, that wash of neurotransmitters that you got that first time you heard it, it tapers over time. Does weed fall off? Nah, the weed is just as strong as it was when you smoked it the first time, in terms of its biochemical properties. But your brain has become used to it, and requires higher and higher and higher and higher dosages to achieve that same effect that you had when you hit it the first time." – Talking about rappers' audiences[13]
"So you get Food and Liquor, right, which is about the extremes, but you've got to have the liquor, not just the food. Trying to live food all the time and be super positive, or be super negative and live in the liquor—nobody's life plays out like that. So why would you try to create pieces, or build a career, that focuses solely on one pole? It's not true to me, it's not true to reality. So I understand that fans may feel a little bit betrayed by certain aspects, or feel like the rug was pulled from under them, but I have to remind them, as I remind myself, that I've been very blunt and open about who I am and where I come from since I started." – Lupe to The Ringer[13]
"Yeah, it's hard being a Lupe fan. I don't say that gesturally; that's integral, that's a real thing. I have an inner circle of people who are super influential, super focused and super keen on trying to change the world. As much as I can speak to them and rock with them, I never had that (in music). It seemed like some of the relationships in the music business can be superficial sometimes. Me being the black sheep and getting blackballed, and all this other stuff." – Addressing relationships in the music industry[14]
"I will always be fighting to make the world a better place so that will never stop, even if I decide to continue to make music and stuff like that. I'll still make music, I just don't feel like I have a career in the way in the way that I did before. […] Specifically with music, what is the promise of music at the end of it, exposing yourself to all of that madness? All that madness is what it takes to have a career. I just felt like my time is up, in terms of music in a commercial sense. But I still got whole albums, that are just kind of sitting, for me, that I sit and play or they're half-recorded and I sit and have to rap it to myself that will probably never come out." – Reflecting upon his music career[14]
"My producer, Soundtrakk, caught COVID-19. This is the guy who made "Kick, Push" and "Superstar" and "Paris, Tokyo." Without Soundtrakk, there's no Lupe Fiasco. He had it and was in a coma, and other homies who are super-close to me that haven't said it publicly, but they call me, like, 'Yeah, I got COVID, bro. I'm fucked up.' These are people I've done records with, and now it's real for them. I think when Scarface caught it, and when Slim Thug caught it, it was like, Oh shit, the OGs can catch it? And, unfortunately, Fred the Godson passed away—rest in peace—and another brother caught it and unfortunately passed away. So we had figures in the community [affected by it], and I think there's certain people who silently are just turning a corner, like, 'This shit is real.' As much as you don't trust the government, when your grandma catches it, when I catch it, when one of our favorite rappers catches it, we have to at least [face] certain facts. When it comes to a virus in the world that is actively killing people, we've got to be a little bit more careful with what we say." – Discussing the impact of COVID-19 on the hip-hop community[15]
"I care about rap, but I don't care any more about the business side or selling records. I've always been a storyteller. When I was in the third grade, I wrote a play about a warring cat and mouse. I will be rapping right until the day I die." – To Financial Times[17]
"Diamonds are shiny and fun for about an hour, right? But there's also a dark side to how they are created. Have you ever seen a nightclub when the lights are turned on? It's fucking gross. The paint is cheap, it's sticky, the floor doesn't match the walls. But in the darkness, you would never know any of this. It's my job to shine that light and expose the dark side." – To Financial Times[17]
"I literally would not be rapping if it wasn't for Jay. And rapping the way that I rap at the level that I rap is all due to JAY-Z as a lyricist. So I studied Jay deeper than probably some people do superficially. I consider myself to be a peer of JAY-Z on many levels." – Lupe talking about his respect for Jay-Z[18]
Spoken about Lupe Fiasco[]
"Everybody is stale right now, so he's refreshing to me." – Jay-Z for the 2006 Rolling Stone cover story
"One of them young n****s, Lupe Fiasco, I'll listen to anything he do. That n**** really cool as a muthafucka. He's fun and it ain't just about being lyrical, 'cause some idiots get scared off that road." – Nas for the April 2007 XXL issue
"I like Lupe [Fiasco], and I think he should be an example for these young dudes, because he has lyrics, can tell a great story and can capture you; he's not on the bullshit, he's himself. That's the kind of music I like: When I sit down and write, I'm not afraid to be myself." – GZA[19]
"New Lupe Fiasco song is Action Bronson approved. Never thought I'd say that he's a better rocker than rapper. But good song!" – Action Bronson via Twitter[20]
"Hip-hop right now—there are certain artists who put hip-hop in a good state. There are a lot of talented people, and there's a lot of young talent coming up, like B.o.B, Jay Electronica, Lupe Fiasco and Drake." – Eminem to The New York Times[21]
"Slowly but surely it's turning that corner. Especially with the signing of Lupe, when he got on that's when the turn really started. So it's turning slowly." – J. Cole, on the resurgence of lyricism in hip hop[22]
"There's one artist in this game who has always had my back and had nothing but love to show, and that's Lupe Fiasco. Every time I see that man, it's nothing but love—I saw him a little after it, and he was like 'I'm worried about you, man, just checking in.' He's somebody who I know really genuinely gives a fuck." – Kid Cudi for his 2010 Complex cover story[23]
"I'm proud that @lupefiasco is from Chicago or the Congo as my boy Dart calls it! Lupe is a true rhyme sayer!!" – Common via Twitter[24]
"Me and Lupe rock more on just being brothers, man. That's somebody I can call up and chop it up with, if I'm goin' through it, or vice-versa with him. I consider him to be an uncle to my child. […] Whatever he needs from me, regardless if it be my mouthpiece of support, regardless if it means I need to be a soldier on the front-lines, it's 10 toes down." – Trae tha Truth to HipHopDX[25]
"Def a fan of your music @LupeFiasco ....I had 2 gone kick a freestyle off tha dome on greenlatern 2 ...just 2 prove real MCs aint dead" – Big K.R.I.T. via Twitter[26]
"i hate that people sleep on Lupe, he has some of the best punchlines and metaphors i ever heard." – Domo Genesis via Twitter[27]
"Lupe's dope, Lupe, he came out with a very innovative style, and um, and delivered some very heavy content early on in his career. And I uh, salute him." – Blu to KSJS & Strong Arm in 2011[28]
"He hit me on Twitter after the album came out, and just paid me compliments about it. I didn't know Lupe prior. I still don't know Lupe personally. I've always been a fan of him as an artist. He's just one of those people that you respect that hit you up like, 'Wow, I like what you're doing.' That's all it's been up until this point." – Frank Ocean to Complex[29]
"@LupeFiasco I fuk wit u and we support yo music we ask for da same #ceasefire" – Lil Durk via Twitter[30]
"I think that my brother Lupe is very sincere and genuine. I think that he thinks out loud. He doesn't feel any need to filter his genuine thoughts and sincere feelings from the public. He preaches it like he feels it. That's what we should want from artists. We should want people they give it to us raw and uncut and without filter. I support him. I think he's an important person for hip-hop culture." – Brother Ali to DJBooth[31]
"We gotta support the great hip-hop truth tellers. We gotta support Lupe. […] Lupe got my heart 'cause he got courage, he's fearless. Bold. Opinionated, but he acts on his truth. You see, that's a different thing, you see. […] You can appreciate the artistic contributions for a lot of different musicians. But the ones that have your heart are the ones who are full of heart and deep love in taking a political risk over and over and over again." – Cornel West on The Joy Daily Show[32]
"@LupeFiasco I don't say it enough in interviews or my music, but your a huge inspiration and the reason I make music. Thanks man." – Chance The Rapper via Twitter[33]
"[B]ut then you got beasts. You got Lupe Fiasco, Kendrick [Lamar], all these cats that can really spit." – Ice-T to Rolling Stone[34]
"The @LupeFiasco freestyle on @RealSway made wanna practice. #salute"[35]
"Lupe's a real disciplined and militant guy. He doesn't drink or smoke, or there won't be bad bitches in the studio. He's in there and he's working. When you get in, he's vibing. He's doing something. He's not just hanging out, which is what I like. I don't like to go in the studio and have a party." – Ab-Soul to XXL[36]
"He's definitely in my Top 10 now. I don't know why I wasn't paying attention […] he went in the booth and just spit the whole fucking song, dog. I promise you it was off the top of the head, no written. The whole song. Probably went back and changed like two fuck-ups. I've never seen that done before. Lupe is that guy." – Ty Dolla $ign to Complex[37]
"Lupe why you go so fucking hard on your new album #SaluteMyDawg 💯💯💯" – Waka Flocka Flame via Twitter[38]
"[Lupe] was able to bring a different point of view to Chicago rap that hadn't been seen yet." – Sir Michael Rocks to The Boombox in 2014[39]
"Lupe fiasco mural???? Damn BRUH killed that shit SMMFH" – Scarface via Twitter[40]
"One of the first albums I ever bought was Food & Liquor from Lupe, y'know. […] That for me, it sounded like a full like album y'know, there was a story to it, there was a meaning behind certain songs. Like "Kick, Push" was a sick song, it had its place on the album. That's something I want to accomplish." – Jazz Cartier to 247HH[41]
"Anybody who knows me knows my favorite rapper is Lupe Fiasco. This album, The Cool … it was my favorite album of his. If I hear any song it reminds me of my college days and having that tournament run that we had back at Davidson. It's just a classic for me. Still have it on my playlist now. Big shout out to Lupe. [I] appreciate all the inspiration." – Steph Curry in 2018[42]
"I'm in the crowd and I'm seeing N.E.R.D. performing on stage, Lupe Fiasco, my absolute favorite, it was the coolest. Lyrically, he was light years ahead of everybody." – Vic Mensa recounting his moment of attending a Glow in the Dark Tour concert[43]
"Chance and Lupe are supercomputers, bro. […] Lupe is super gangster, lowkey." – Kanye West on Drink Champs[44]
"It's Lupe Fiasco's The Cool. [I'm a] huge Lupe fan. I think that album—I don't know how many Top 10 lists that album would come up on, but that for me [is No. 1]. The time and place too. And he's an amazing artist." – Steph Curry in 2023[42]
Dialogue[]
Cornel West: "'Lift Every Voice,' because when you lift your voice you can define your reality in the face of what other people are telling you is their reality imposed upon you, so that's the thing […] how do we keep this tradition alive and how do we pass it on to the younger generation? I know Brother Lupe Fiasco is here somewhere, where's Brother Lupe at? There he is, there he is, there he is, Brother Lupe, good to see you, good to see you. Little brother, we were just talking together and saying, of the younger generation you've been very important in terms of Kanye and the other folk, but how do you see yourself in this continuum of ensuring that the power of words remains at a quality but also connecting it to the freedom fighting that we were talking about?" Jay-Z: "Just by protecting the integrity of it, you know, first of all, and by pushing it, expanding it. And for me, you know, rap is entertainment at some point, you know, it's entertainment, but it's based on our realities, and we can take it anywhere we want in fantasy, but at some point it has to be some sort of truth, some sort of integrity, some sort of pride to making music. That's what I love about Lupe. […] Some of the things that are said are just mind-boggling. If you sit down and really listen to some of the things that this young man has said, it's like you can't believe it." – Cornel West and Jay-Z live from the New York Public Library[45]
ScHoolboy Q: "Lupe tHe cool is still 1 of my fav albums Eva tHo...." Lupe Fiasco: "honored my G... @ScHoolBoyQ #Pullup bro when you got the time trying to finish off my #TDE collab list...:)" ScHoolboy Q: "lets do it"[46]
Records in My Life (RIML): "You first started writing when you were about twelve. So what was like, you know there must've been a couple of albums that said like, 'holy shit man, I gotta start, I gotta start writing...'" Denzel Curry: "There was only, there was only a couple albums, and those were the first two albums I bought. And they were both Lupe Fiasco albums, which was Food & Liquor and The Cool."[47]
N.O.R.E.: "Have you ever seen someone that remind you of you? Like you know what I'm sayin', like everybody bite your style and shit. Um, like, you say 'holy shit?'" Nas: "Uh, Lupe."[48]
Critical reception[]
"To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, [Hip Hop] must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Lupe's ironically been branded with both since his '06 bum rush. But there remains something noble about Chi-town's Guevara relentlessly waving his beliefs without fear of backlash. Someone has to shine a light on all the world's ills, right? If not Lu, then who?" – Justin Hunte, writing for HipHopDX[49]
"Whether you feel Lupe still has this respect or influence as an artist today, there's no denying The Cool's place in hip-hop history and it's overall influence on modern hip-hop music. From ideas such as garnering popular success with a concept album (see Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.D city) or being able to rise to popularity while still presenting conscious lyricism and having a dedicated fan base throughout everything, (see J. Cole's 2014 Forest Hills Drive). Lupe established the idea that an artist can generally stay true to himself and reach new heights of success in popular and mainstream circles. It helped continue the acceptance of experimenting with genre blending and crossover sounds." – Michael Hannah, writing for DJBooth[50]
"Unfortunately, Lupe may be too smart for his own good. He is great at crafting songs that make perfect sense on the surface while making allusions to history, video games and religion in the process. The majority of hip-hop songs can easily be deciphered with a little help from Urban Dictionary, but it may be another year or so before the full array of Tetsuo and Youth reveals itself as the artist truly intended." – Kellan Miller, writing for XXL[51]
In pop culture[]
"I'm the best rapper alive! Jigga man should've retired / I'm goin' after Kanye, Lupe Fiasco, and Nas" – Kendrick Lamar / "Monster Freestyle" [2010]
"All you n****s is faker than Lupe Fiasco claimin' he skateboards (Haha) / Yeah right, that n**** can't even ollie / Push him away on the dolly, not even Satan can stop me—what!" – Hopsin / "Sag My Pants" [2010, Raw]
"The show goes on 'til I start aiming the lasers / And Lupe'll soufflé half you motherfuckers" – The Game, "Uncle Otis" [2011]
"Shout and respect to Lupe Fiasco" – Yasiin Bey, "I Don't Like" [2012]
"He say, she say, who say that I'm not the next young Lupe" – Joey Bada$$, "Catharsis" [2012, Rejex]
"It's funny when you think a n**** blew up after Lupe" – Drake, "5AM in Toronto" [2013, Care Package]
"Ice skatin' like Lupe Fiasco (Skr)" – Young Thug, "See You" [2014, Rich Gang: Tha Tour, Pt. 1]
"N**** we grew up on Weezy F. Baby, Lupe and Jay-Z" – Wale, "Dummies" [2018, Free Lunch]
"I kick, push straight forward, I hear Lupe flowin'" – Lil Wayne, "Mahogany" [2020, Funeral]
"Chillin' at the crib bumpin' Lupe and Lootpack" – Logic, "Carnival" [2022, Vinyl Days]
"Shout out that boy Lupe one time too" – Logic, "Griptape" [2023, Inglorious Basterd]
"Kick, push, cracked like Lupe, shorty" – Juice WRLD, "No Coaster (Do The Most)" [Unreleased]
