Discuss Samurai in detail.

Breakdown the tendencies, attributes, and skills of Lupe Fiasco. 

How conceptual do we want Lupe to get?---Do you want Lupe to rap from the perspective of a dinosaur or a cheeseburger? Do you want stripped down Lupe? Some of the underground heads have always maintained the feeling that Lupe gets credit for being high concept without actually achieving a high concept. This is a part of Lupe as an artist no one is neutral on. His discography forces a position. 

Does Lupe like his audience?---I really thought Lupe would take over the world. What I learned from Lupe is no matter how talented you are, even if you carry all the attributes your audience has been demanding, if you talk down to your audience…lecture not conversate…you will lose them. Hip Hop fans I know all have a point of disengagement from Lupe where he became too much and they walked away. Most of them didn’t walk away because he wasn’t the same emcee, it was because he pushed them away. 

To Soundtrakk or not to Soundtrakk-In the roll out for Samurai Lupe has been protective of Soundtrakk. He thinks when people suggest a new producer they are denigrating Soundtrakk. I disagree with his processing of this. Lupe’s sound has been very clean and almost cute for a while. A lot of us wonder what would he sound like over August Fanon or Messiah Muzik production? We know this is a community with a ton of sonic flavor and we just want Lupe to take advantage!

  When I first heard Lupe on Touch The Sky my hope for him was he could become the Kanye I could handle. Someone a) better at rapping and b) in Christ pose less often. It was as exciting as hearing Kurupt on Doggy Dogg World. I always hold him against those hopes to chart where he has gone and where I rate him all time.