Outside (2024 song)

Samurai track listing
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"Outside"Song by Lupe Fiasco
from the album Samurai
Released	June 28, 2024 (2024-06-28)
Genre	Jazz rap
Length	4:14
Label	1st & 15th Thirty Tigers
Songwriter(s)	Wasalu Jaco
Producer(s)	Soundtrakk
Samurai chronology
"Outside"
Media

"Outside" is a song by American rapper Lupe Fiasco. It was released as the seventh and penultimate track from his ninth studio album, Samurai (2024). The song, produced by Soundtrakk, includes co-production from Kush Baby, who provided the beat switch. In light of the battle rapper concept, the narrator seems to be reminiscing over their exploits, painting vivid imagery of their satisfaction with comparisons to food.

Background

In 2020, during his YouTube livestream "Searching 4 Beats," Fiasco actually played a snippet of the beat, still deciding on what to use. He said, "It's good for my purposes because it contextually ties this one section to this other section and then what the content shift that needs to occur, going into this next piece, and then it has like this really happy chorus part."

With the track listing being revealed, fans wondered if the 2023 song of the same name was on the album. On May 22, 2024, Soundtrakk confirmed via Instagram reply to a fan that it was new. Fiasco explained that "Outside" lyrically serves as the follow-up to "Mumble Rap," where the battle's over and there's voices. He added, "it was a whole scene where it was like she trying to get out of the club, people [are] talking to her and she's having these rap conversations with these people. […] It's like she's talking about who had the best verse. But somebody was outside waiting and that's why there's that gap in the third verse; you switch to the perspective of the person that's outside, waiting for them to come outside. And it was a weird filler piece, but I really liked the vibe of it and just laid it."

Soundtrakk recalled how the sample used was also weird, where one of his friends said it sounded like the Mario Brothers. He continued, "It was a jazz sample I chopped up DJ Premier style once again. Took a lot of pieces from all over the sample. I purposely did trappy, big 808 Lil Jon type of bass on it just to contrast the laid-backness of the sample. I think that's one of the slower records on the album. Most of the album, we kept it in the 90 BPMs. This one's like 83."

Personnel

• Abel Garabaldi – mixer
• Joey Fernandez – masterer
• Kush Baby – co-producer, drum programmer, synths, arranger
• Maxwell Steger – assistant mixer
• Nicolas Isaiah – drum layering
• Rudolph "Soundtrakk" Lopez – producer, drum programmer, flute, harp, strings, keyboards, arranger
• Wasalu "Lupe Fiasco" Jaco – lead artist, vocals, writer

Cultural references

• Robin Hood is a legendary heroic English outlaw from Nottingham.
• Tex Avery (February 26, 1908 – August 26, 1980) was an American animator and cartoonist. Notable work he did was for Warner Bros., essential in the development and growth of the famous animated characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and Elmer Fudd.
• Mr. T is an actor and professional wrestler, known for his mohawk and gold chains.
• Gangsta Boo (August 7, 1979 – January 1, 2023) was an American rapper. She was part of the Memphis hip hop group, Three 6 Mafia.

Lyrics

"Outside"

[Verse 1]
Post-battle love, daps and hugs
Raps can plug up holes unless their holistic souls dove off a nudge
And throwed off from shoves had from one god from above
To below, or kicking and screaming and drug to the show
Were you entertained not from robbing Nottingham plots?
Jauntily hip-hopping haunting bodyslam drops
From diction and calculation, put up your share of the taunting
Plus a thousand allowance payments, I'll be patient
Cow be tasting like your money in my pocket
Mixed with chocolate chips and chopped up chicken, and delicious droplets of mild sauce
That's a wild cost to risk over an opinion
I'll give you a little privacy to mull over your decision, ha

[Chorus]
Wait for me outside, I'll be gold
Wait for me outside, put 'em on hold
I'll be there in a minute, yeah
So just wait for me outside
I'm calm, but I'm finished

[Verse 2]
Judging quality like Australian airports
Souvenir shops can be a weird opt to undertake
A younger cake would avoid it altogether
Like a winter home, escaping for all the weather but bought a sweater
My business bone is connected to my ethics
In a series of daisy chain preferences that I filter things through, just like a checklist
In a much wiser bride pie with spouses on the top, such as, "I now happily apply these metrics"
To the setlist, on the surface, separates
But in the back of my mind, they go together like a necklace
It's like the wacker the rhyme, the more I'm drawn like a Tex Avery baby
To think maybe the genius in it is that it's not really good, maybe it could be
Would he have only suggested X and Y, and Z
And various other advice to him from me?
To animate the chains to the level of Mister T
And I get his gangsta boo like Memphis, Tennessee, ha

[Chorus]
Wait for me outside, I'll be gold
Wait for me outside, put 'em on hold
I'll be there in a minute, yeah
So just wait for me outside
I'm calm, but I'm finished

[Verse 3]
I didn't forget about you, that conversation just went longer than I expected
I reckon all kinds of structures to flesh it
Sometimes we send mixed messages like dyslexic texts
And get socially indebted via manners to carry on long after what's needed got completed
While trying to leave gets competed and repeated until your point is clear, or you're joining spears
Sometimes that happens when you're rambling about how your raps is better than theirs, ha

[Chorus]
Wait for me outside, I'll be gold
Wait for me outside, put 'em on hold
I'll be there in a minute, yeah
So just wait for me outside
I'm calm, but I'm finished