Mural

"Mural"Promotional single by Lupe Fiasco
from the album Tetsuo & Youth
Released	January 17, 2015 (2015-01-17)
Genre	Hip hop
Length	8:48
Label	1st & 15th Atlantic
Songwriter(s)	Devan Hampton Kyle Davidson Simon Johnson Wasalu Jaco
Producer(s)	Quality Kid The Buchanans
Tetsuo & Youth chronology
‹ Previous	"Summer"
	"Mural"
Next ›	"Blur My Hands"

"Mural" is a song by American rapper Lupe Fiasco, the second track from his fifth studio album, Tetsuo & Youth (2015). It was released on January 17, 2015, as a promotional album single. It samples Cortex's 1975 song "Chanson D'un Jour D'Hiver" and is the first installment of his 'Mural' trilogy, followed by the future songs "Mural Jr." (Drogas Wave, 2018) and "Ms. Mural" (Drill Music in Zion, 2022). On the website Genius, it is his most-viewed song with him as the lead artist.

The track is often praised by fans, showing off the rapper's lyrical prowess and dexterity. According to HipHopNumbers on Twitter, they analyzed that the track contains 153 bars and 1,373 words, of which 785 words are unique. The song itself is presented as a mural, containing no hooks and is delivered as a stream of consciousness directly over an instrumental.

Background

On September 17, 2014, Fiasco named his track "Mural" as "the philosophers stone." Similarly, on October 17, 2014, Fiasco tweeted in response to Joe Budden praising his lyrical abilities, "Wait till you hear #Mural brethren…" On January 17, 2015, Fiasco leaked the song, three days prior to the LP's official release.

Critical reception

Paste wrote, "Lupe presents a towering wall of words, rapping for nearly seven minutes straight with few pauses and zero hooks, bridges or refrains. It also lacks a central topic, with the sheer breadth of the song seeming to be its main subject. As it stretches on, the somber instrumental and Lupe's unstrained voice meld together, becoming one sound. It's really not a particularly exciting song. In fact, despite its rich content, it is performed with a notable tranquility, a disinterest in excitement. This should undermine the song, but it actually strengthens it. Lupe wants to takes self-expression to its limits, so he commits to it fully, sacrificing even his own passion."

XXL's Kellan Miller described it as "a concrete reminder of the man's deft lyrical stronghold," while HipHopDX's Justin Hunte likened it as "'Dumb It Down' on performance enhancers." PopMatters called it a "dizzying track" that, being the introduction, leads the album "down into a almost a King Crimson-like level of progressive complexity." In a 2023 retrospect when naming Fiasco's "16 Best" songs, Okayplayer editor Riley Wallace remarked of the track, "a nine-minute master class in crafting intelligent, lyrically elite bars stripped of mainstream conventions."

Personnel

• Bob Horn – mixer
• Charles "Free Chilly" Patton – executive producer
• Chris Gehringer – masterer
• Devan "Quality Kid" Hampton – writer, producer, drums
• Jamal Johnson – recording
• Kyle "Keyz" Davidson – writer, producer, keyboards, recording
• Simon "Wiz Buchanan" Johnson – writer, producer, arranger, programmer
• Wasalu "Lupe Fiasco" Jaco – executive producer, lead artist, vocals, writer

Cultural references

• Top Cat is an animated sitcom, while Cat Chat was the first Internet / JANET talker, created in 1990.
• Johann Sebastian Bac was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period.
• Gambit is a fictional character in Marvel Comics, commonly in association with the X-Men. His skills include card throwing.
• Rain Man is a 1988 film directed by Barry Levinson. Reindeer are part of the Santa Clause legend, who pull his sleigh.
• British rock band Queen made the songs "Killer Queen" and "Bohemian Rhapsody," while Queen Elizabeth II is iconic for her wave, also wearing white gloves.
• Stacey Dash is an American actress who appeared in Kanye West's music video, "All Falls Down."
• Barbasol is a brand of shaving cream.
• Mally Mall is an American producer who received a nearly three-year jail sentence for being involved in a prostitution ring.
• Macaulay Culkin plays the lead role of Kevin McCallister in the American comedy film Home Alone.
• The Virgin Mary is the mother of Jesus, who is a central figure in Christianity and is also mentioned in the Quran.
• Three variations of 'OJ': orange juice, OJ da Juiceman, and O. J. Simpson.
• Toucan Sam is the mascot of Kellogg's Froot Loops and Uncle Sam, a national personification of the federal government of the United States or the country, was conceived on recruitment posters for soldiers in WWI and II.
• Count Chocula is part of the monster breakfast cereals line by General Mills Corporation.
• Contra is a run and gun video game, published by Japanese company Konami.
• Chinese chalk, also known as ant chalk, is an insecticide.
• Chicano is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans, originally used as a slur but was later reclaimed in the 1940s.
• American actress Alyssa Milano portrayed Samantha Micelli in the sitcom television series Who's the Boss?
• Michael Dudikoff is an American actor and martial artist who had a lead in the 1985 film American Ninja.
• Obi-Wan Kenobi is a character in the Star Wars franchise, who is a Jedi Master.
• Shinobi is a hack-and-slash video game published by Sega. The original series' premise focuses on Joe Musashi, who works to become a respected ninja of his clan. Sub-Zero is the title of two characters from Mortal Combat, depicted as two Chinese ninja brothers. Raiden is a cyborg ninja from the stealth video game Metal Gear.
• The Hidden Leaf and and The Hidden Sound Villages are two of the several ninja villages in Naruto, with the former being the titular protagonist's home.
• 'Saṃsāra,' meaning "wandering," is associated with the karma theory of transmigration/reincarnation. 'Nirvāṇa' is a concept in Indian religions, believed to be the highest achievement in some meditation disciplines; the supreme state of enlightenment.

Gallery

• Audio

Lyrics

"Mural"

[Verse 1]
We're all chemicals, vitamins and minerals
And vicodin with inner tubes, wrapped around the arm
To see the vein like a chicken on the barn
Top Cat chat, let's begin another yarn
That's flying saucer cheese, or is it chicken parm'?
But roosters don't fly like boosters don't buy
So what powers cowards to get them to the top
Just to fall asleep listening to Bach?
The ribbon in the sky is the ribbon that I drop
Dribbling the eye across the prism of a clock
That lacks meaning, but racks up stacks of fat reading
They catch Chief and wrapped up plants from trap dealings
Now what's a coffin with a scratched ceiling?
And what's the talking without the match feeling
That's buried living, And cherry picking
Every lemon from your berry system
Then proceed with the pack feeding
When I was young I had visions of another world
Sneaking looks at the porn stash of my brother HurL
Incense smoke made vortices and other curls
Casting calls from porn films and ad space for rubber girls
I like my pancakes cut in swirls
Moroccan moles and undercover squirrels
I like cartoons, southern cities with large moons
Faith healers, ex-female drug dealers and art booms
Apologize for my weird mix
What taste like hot dogs and tear drips
And looks like pantomime and clear bricks
And smells like shotguns and deer piss
They on their hunt, kind of salty that I'm going hard
First part of a party, that I throw in parts
One minute you're playing pool, next minute you're throwing darts
But that's how you do with a party that you throw in bars
I run the Gambit like I'm throwing cards
From Popular Mechanics to overdosing heart/hard
Paint cold pictures like Nova Scotia landscapes
Nerd gang, make Mandelbrot sets when we handshake
A word game back up plan that can dam lakes
Backup the wordplay ain't playing that the man's states
Means I can still be the man if the dam breaks
And when demand brakes I'm reflectious, what they can't face
My peers will still treat the mirror like it's a fan base
The unfettered veteran, the eagle feathered man of medicine
That hovers above cities like weather men
Or maybe weather woman
Whatever better to tell ya weather comin'
I prefer girls to reign all over the world
And not rain like, rain man or rain like rain dance
Or rain like a slight chance of rain when it's raining
Or rein like deer slaves to Santa Claus sleigh man
But Reign like Queens that reign over made man
And not Queen like Queen killer, rhapsody bohemian Queen
But Queen like white glove wave hand, and not wave hand, like it's a heat wave
So you make a fan by waving your hand, I'm talking wave, like you saying, "Hey man!"
And not hay for horses, and hoarse is like you almost voiceless
You gotta treat your vocal chords like it's a fortress
And treat every single one of your words like reinforcements
And especially when you're recording
Cause that's the portion that's important
When I was reporting that I was poor, but now I'm more than
It's still hooker heels on my sugar hills and sweet spots
Crying shames, make margarita rims from cheap tops
Deep plots, in floor to ceiling windows for my pee pots
A little scene, with the sickle swings, to make the wheat drop
And a hundred words, for them hummingbirds, that like to eavesdrop
And fan out like peacocks, with a parakeet that beat box
So the sun rise when the beat drop, and the sun dies when the beat stops...
Then it unties, then it relocks, then it relapse, then it detox
Then heat back like a heat pack on his knee caps of the weak spot
'Cause he want what we got, like yeah

[Verse 2]
Then forge poetry, like a young ornery Morrissey
Then spit it to the golden locks thots, who like their porridge all watery
Not scorching nor sorbet-y
From the steel orbitings, sorcerer of sorcery
Coming down gorgeously, just like a Stacey Dash waterfall
A more torturing, a water-boarding Barbie doll
A river of women like Brazilian Carnival
Swimming in feminine bikinis made out of Barbasol
Somebody give them the volleyballs
If you love her, don't ever send her to Mally Mall's
Homie, if she lonely she might end up in Macauly's claws
Coming out the closet over goblets, down at Mardi Gras
The fame, champagne, walk of shame lobby call
My rap position was black condition and activism
Ammunition for abolition, missions attacking systems
But they not apt to listen, unless it's dropping on Activision
Are we apps, or are we bodies filled with apparitions?
Operating applications, stuck inside an Apple prison
Chicken hackin' download updates that lack religion
Or are we more...
...Than soil tainting, disloyal changelings
Preoccupied with boy and Goyle chasing, and foiling other's royal saintings?
I sit back and watch the world through eye holes in my oil paintings
Uhhh! Ain't nothin' to it, but to do it
Unless you Virgin Mary, nothin' do it but the truest
Believe all that, unless you Jewish
Life is not a dictionary, it's a thesaurus
And I feel like a missionary, to a clitoris
The water bearer, heir of traditions, that I swear to never change
My chair position or conditions of my porridge
Submission for sedition against the religion of a chorus
Keep them golden weave thieves out the mothafuckin' forest
As I perform a nerd storm, I prefer my pictures in word form
Bury the hatchet like how a bird born
As I paint cold pictures, like Kool-Aid facing condensation
Having conversations with flavorful combinations
Slave to my concentration
So that's OJ da Juiceman, meets OJ with two hands
And two gloves, that's too snug, to judge who was, who drew blood
And, Lupe look at all these toucans, in a cemetery full of tomahawks
Giving middle fingers to the pigeons doing somersaults
Road runners don't fall off cliffs, they run across
Anomalies by the colony, flukes by the reservoir
Wildin' pursuers end up as poofs, on the desert floor
Levitating youths, who know the truth of where the fountain hides
Buckaroo roof painting tunnels onto the mountain sides
A thousand parts, a pound of heart, an ounce of eyes
Announcing now, the doubt in mouth, pronounces out a count of lies
Chocula Counts by the count of five
Refrigerator roof, full of animals and monsters
Incinerator chutes and the manual for Contra
Assorted memories from my childhood
Absorbing energy from the wild woods
Electronic combat Konami sign contract
Chinese chalk killing cucarachas on contact
Chicago, spray gun aficionado
Efficient spitting bridging divisions isn't Chicano
Who's the Boss? If it isn't Alyssa Milano
Dudikoff, ninja mission into the Congo
Polarize envy of the older guys
Black obi, shinobi hittin' Kenno in the face with all my throwin' knives
Sub-zero, Gaiden, hiding, Raiden in the pack as well
Sound village, Leaf village, wolf spirit, magic spells
Dodging Rain and catching hail
Faith seers need samurais to catch the L
Special research vessels made for catching whales
Filet-o-fish ships sea-shepherded peppered with extra sails
Rewrite history, liberty needs a better bell
Maybe harder irons and carbon fibers that never fail
Smarter science mixed with a odd alliance of fairy tale
Or maybe just a metal pail you hit with steel tools
To announce that you've had enough and dropping out of SEAL school
Just like trout jumping out their house to let their gills cool
Cuba-scuba couldn't take the temperature of my skill pool
Yeah, I said it feels cool to kill fools
Slipping through the cracks like when you try to grill gruel
Techno Viking water bottle and not following pill rules
Will have you off the throttle when you should be modelin' chill mood
Roller skater maker or are you just cobblin' wheel shoes
Overweight taster of kings food that kills crews
Oblivious feather-weight baker who autographed cakes whenever his quill moves over your milieu
Simple as a Buddhist monk in a temple standing in some heel groove with the abbot, practising stillness
Real Steel til' he realize his realness
Defeat Samsara, achieves nirvana and brilliance
Yeah!