Lupe Fiasco Review

When Lupe Fiasco first hit the scene with the critically acclaimed Food and Liquor, he was dubbed the savior of hip hop. A couple years later he drops The Cool, which I believed was the best album of the year, and thankfully there was no sophomore slump. Lupe Fiasco, in my opinion, has saved hip hop. 2007 saw songs like Crank That and Party Like A Rock Star become hits, songs with terrible lyrics about absolutely nothing, while CD's like Pharoahe Monch's Desire goes unnoticed. At least people had the decency to acknowledge The Cool, a semi-concept album that plays out more like a movie.

On to the actual show, I've never been to a rap concert before and I was quite excited to see how it would be. First off, I have to say the Nokia Theatre is very nice. Everything is high tech and the design is simple yet works well and the bathrooms are very nice and spacious, but on to the show. Lupe comes out with a full band as well as two backup singers and a backup rapper guy. The crowd was so diverse, blacks, whites, Asians, Hispanics, skateboarders, thugs, it was a nice mix of everybody. The set list is as follows....

Real
Touch The Sky
Feel Good Inc Flow
The Instrumental
I Gotcha
Sunshine
He Say She Say
Pressure (No Jay-Z unfortunately)
Kick Push
American Terrorist (Ft. Matthew Santos)
Shadows in a Shoebox (Santos solo with acoustic guitar)
Daydream
Interlude (Bishop G and Gemstones only)
Coolest (accapella)
Hi-Definition
Hip Hop Saved My Life
The Street Are On Fire
Rims and Tims (prelude to Dumb it Down, Lupe said a record executive wanted him using two words that rhyme and making a songs out of it)
Dumb It Down
Gold Watch
Paris/Tokyo
Superstar
Kick Push (reprise)
Jam Session

As you can tell we did not get cheated. Lupe put on a hell of a show. He played for about 2 hours and 10 minutes playing almost all of Food and Liquor as well as most of The Cool. Lupe had high energy the entire time telling little stories as introductions for each song. His backing band was great, seeing them play live with Lupe rapping over it gave a whole new prospective of what live rap music can actually be. Gemstones and Bishop G's interlude was awesome, they are both rappers on Lupe's label and they rocked the crowd with freestyles and some of their songs that will be on a CD coming out shortly.

The two most memorable songs of the night were Daydream and The Coolest. Daydream had so much energy, the crowd and all the performers onstage were jumping up and down it was something special. The Coolest was a different kind of awesome. Lupe was up there all alone rapping it along with the crowd and in the middle of the first and second verse picked up the pace tremendously, but the crowd stayed with him. He was so impressed that he spit the third verse out at Twista speed and only a couple of people kept up.

All and all the show was amazing. He really set the bar for the next rap show I go and see which probably will be the Glow in the Dark Tour featuring Kanye West, Rihanna, N.E.R.D., and Lupe Fiasco coming in April. If you haven't heard of Lupe you must check him out, and if you have heard of him and he's coming to a town near you I 100% suggest going to see him. He's a great performer. It's a shame he's "only got one more to go, L.U.P.end."