I don't really care about Lupe in either direction, love or hate. His music doesn't do a lot for me, and I tend to forget he exists until I'm reminded by one of his pseudo-intellectual outbursts about a societal issue, one of the numerous threads about his puerile trolling on twitter, or his fervent stans declaring him the greatest, smartest, most lyrically complex rapper in history.
But I took notice when this new album came out, because I hadn't seen such over-the-top, ludicrous reactions from a stanbase to a rap album's transcendent brilliance since the Killah Priest album, where people were levitating and unlocking ancient philosophical secrets mid-thread.
So I downloaded the album, listened to it 7 times (the first 3 so I could genuinely develop an opinion on how good the album was; the final 4 because two things about the album were truly enjoyable for me - the production and the laugh-out-loud goofiness of some of the self-indulgent, faux-deep lyrics), and decided to make a post in the official thread that was so absurd and nonsensical that it was meant to serve as a parody of just how ridiculous the stan reviews of the album were... but people actually dapped it. Because the stanbase has gone so cultishly overboard with this fukking album, that my parody post seemed par for the course, really. Never mind the stupid ass Matryoshka Doll analogy I made up on the spot; the cliche references I make to ancient, dead languages and symbols; nor the bold and baseless claim I make about Lupe inventing the quintuple entendre and boiling complex philosophical and mathematical concepts down to their essence in a simple rhyming couplet. What really blew my mind is I cited some of the worst lyrics on the album as examples of Lupe's genius, and no one batted an eye. Truly, if any other rapper had the gall to spit "such is life: odd as egg mcmuffins at night" cats would mock him endlessly. "Slippin like permission?" "Trippin like field?" This is complex lyricism? Sounds like filler in a battle rap round that would elicit groans from the audience.
Here's the post:
I can't stop playing it, man. It's like Nas, Canibus, Twista, and Mos Def merged into one man. there's nothing Lupe can't do with words. Modern day heiroglyphics and sanskrit combined.
The album is like a musical matryoshka doll:
From Wikipedia:
also known as Russian nesting doll, refers to a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside the other. The first Russian nested doll set was carved in 1890 by Vasily Zvyozdochkin from a design by Sergey Malyutin, who was a folk crafts painter at Abramtsevo. Traditionally the outer layer is a woman, dressed in a sarafan, a long and shapeless traditional Russian peasant jumper dress. The figures inside may be of either gender; the smallest, innermost doll is typically a baby turned from a single piece of wood. Much of the artistry is in the painting of each doll, which can be very elaborate. The dolls often follow a theme; the themes vary, from fairy tale characters to Soviet leaders.
When you play the album backward, you get the analogy perfectly: each song is a complete statement by itself, but as you continue to play the songs it becomes clear they each fit inside the next, building to a bigger magnificent whole. The other similarities are clear: the artistic intricacy; the layers, the complex representations of gender ("Little Death"), each doll following a theme...
When you play the album forward it's as if Lupe tranformed the rap game into a video game of his own song, and on the final song he beats the entire game...
Proceed to the next level, indeed.
This is the first album I've heard that has quintuple entendres... there are complicated mathematical and linguistic theories boiled down to their essence in couplets... I honestly think someone could write a 250 page book of critical essays on the themes and theories explored on these songs. shyt is just
"Such is life: odd as Egg McMuffins at night..."
Lupe manages to connect inflexible moral codes of love and marriage to the absurdity of time-specific divisions of meals, and the hypocrisy of puritannical values as well as fast food industry practices. "is it slippin' like permission? Am I trippin' like field." Lupe had me feeling like a child again, connecting his confusion over love, religion, and politics to those childhood recollections of school that wash over us like a fever-dream.
I mean, how the fukk could anyone take that post seriously?
And then there's the unlistenable self-indulgence of Mural:
"And not rain like, rain man or 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..."
Production on this joint is dope though. And I'm happy his stans got an album without embarrassing reinterpretations of Modest Mouse choruses. I won't be keeping this rambling bullshyt in rotation at all.
