Skulls

Skulls by Lupe Fiasco
Released	TBD
Genre	Hip hop
Producer(s)	Soundtrakk

Skulls is an unreleased project by American rapper Lupe Fiasco, produced entirely by Soundtrakk. It was slated to be released in 2016 alongside Drogas Light and ROY. This was pushed back, as Fiasco explained, "We were hung up on a couple samples and producer negotiations and didn't want to mix without having everything clear. Also with this album we didn't want to try and replay samples that we had to remove because of high clearance costs so as to ensure we had the best product possible even though it means dealing with slow moving process of sample clearance and the higher costs associated with that."

In January 2022, he reported the record's status as "TBD" (To Be Determined).

Background

He described it as his "favorite" and a "from me to me" album, not intended for awards or critical reception. Originally planned to be the autobiography of American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, the idea conceived in 2012, Fiasco explained that Mickey Factz was doing something similar, so this idea was vetoed.

On February 9, 2017, he tweeted an unofficial cover artwork for the record alongside one for Drogas.

When a fan asked about it on Reddit, Fiasco responded in the thread: "It's an album I've been writing for a few years. I've only recorded a couple songs of it. It definitely won't be dropping anytime in the near future, if at all. I haven't decided yet."

On April 23, 2020, Fiasco disclosed more information about the project in a recorded live conversation with Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. During the album's creation process, he had reached out to Fab Five Freddy to gather research on Basquiat. When he told Factz of his project, the Bronx rapper revealed of their own project called Mouse, where Factz inserts himself into the 1980s New York scene to be a fictional artist of the era, meeting with fellow artists including Basquiat. Amazed by this, Fiasco decided it was marginally better than his and placed Skulls aside. As time passed, he felt that Basquiat's legacy was "safe" with all of the released media centered on the deceased artist, such as Virgil Abloh's 2018 capsule collection, but was motivated to finish the record. He added of the title itself, where it derives from a spectator who assigned one of Basquiat's untitled pieces as "Skulls."