Lupe Fiasco, rap-nerd favourite turned musical ronin

When Lupe Fiasco first burst onto the scene in 2006, he seemed anointed for rap stardom. The then 24-year-old had caught the eye of Jay-Z, the reigning king of hip-hop, who saw a younger version of himself in the Chicago rapper. Hov helped Lupe get a record deal with Atlantic Records, and even sat in as a producer for his debut album Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor, which earned widespread critical acclaim and three Grammy nods for its immersive, fantastical story-telling and deeply insightful meditations on Islamophobia, racism and American gun culture. 2007’s follow-up The Cool—a concept album a young boy raised by The Streets and The Game (both personified as characters in the narrative)—built on that success, debuting at #15 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, and at #1 on the rap chart. The album cemented his reputation as one of the most promising rappers in the game, offering a philosophical, even nerdy take on a genre that had come to be dominated by the hyper-violent machismo of gangsta rap. But Lupe, it seemed, wasn’t built for the games that the music industry loves to play. The delay in releasing his third album, Lasers, apparently because Atlantic Records didn’t...