Anybody that’s a fan of Lupe Fiasco knows about his tug-of-war with Atlantic Records. I’m sure you’ve heard about the protest from fans, and maybe you’ve even heard from the man himself that he hates his own album. His whole problem with the label was his belief that they didn’t support the kind of music he made, which is the reason behind them basically benching him. Now to my surprise, word on the street is, his new album “Lasers” is about to debut #1 on the Billboard charts with sales of over 200K in the first week. What’s the significance of this? This basically means that an album that was engineered by his record label, which he doesn’t even fully support himself, is now the fastest selling album he’s had in his career. His first album “Food & Liquor” only sold 81K the first week, debuting at #8, and “The Cool” sold 143K, debuting at #15. Whether or not you like the album is irrelevant. This is another example of the record label telling an artist what kind of songs to make, which is turn compromises an artist’s vision. What’s the point of trying as an artist if some cracker ass cracker in a suit is going to tell you to shuck and jive for some success? Hell, even Jive Records told the legendary Big Boi to make a new “Lollipop”.
Lupe, I hope you get your freedom, and I hope that this happens to the execs at Atlantic…
