LASERS Part II

When LASERS was released in spring of 2011 fans of Lupe Fiasco had mixed reactions.  Some of the songs on the album, like Words I Never Said and All Black Everything felt like songs were Lupe rapped his heart out.  Originally Words I Never Said was supposed to be a song about a couple that had a bad relationship.  Lupe instead of doing this like Atlantic wanted he instead did a very political song were he vents about problems about the world.  All Black Everything is a song were he talks about if slavery and racism did not exist.  The issue with the rest of the album is that the production does not complement his lyrics.  Atlantic Records gave Lupe a set of beats and hooks and told him he had to rap over these beats because Atlantic felt like it would make his music easier to market.  Some of the songs had a good message but the production let the album down.  Atlantic Records in the last couple of years has been pushing hip hop artist that are signed to them to make more pop radio sounding album.  To prime example of this was T.I.’s album Paper Trail and B.o.B’s album The Adventures of Bobby Ray.  Atlantic Records for T.I.’s album designed multiple radio friendly singles that would most likely do well.  Atlantic doing this helped the album go gold first week and it went double platinum in the US.  I do feel like Atlantic Records watered down T.I.’s rawness.  B.o.B’s album had two giant radio singles Airplanes and Nothin’ On You that were designed by Atlantic Records to be giant pop singles.  Before this B.o.B was an up and coming Mixtape Hip Hop artist who used a larger variety of production and his songs had a meaning.  Once he signed with Atlantic they told him what he had to do and he accepted it. Originally Airplanes and Nothin’ On You were supposed to be Lupe’s songs for LASERS but Atlantic Records after forcing Lupe to do both tracks said his version was not that great and then gave then to B.o.B.  LASERS did do well sales wise because it went Gold a couple months after release and the single Shows Goes On has sold 2.8 million copies in the US.  In November Lupe Fiasco released a mixtape Friend of The People as a gift to the fans for supporting him.  On this mixtape he raps over a large variety of beats including electronic music, jazz, and regular hip hop beats.  This mixtape gave us an idea of what LASERS could have been if Atlantic did not take over creative control of the album.

My opinion about the album LASERS Part I

http://rapgenius.com/posts/943-Retrospect-for-lu-one-year-later

2013 is the second year anniversary for Lupe Fiasco’s third studio album LASERS. He announced it in summer 2009 with a trailer and the launch of the first single of the album called Shining Down.  He then said in a trailer video LASERS stands for “Love Always Shines Every time Remember 2 Smile.” Late 2009 he released a free Mixtape called Enemy of the State as a gift to the fans for supporting him. In early 2010 he released the second single for the album called “I’m Beamin.”  2010 though turned out to be a rough year for Lupe Fiasco.  Atlantic Records, Lupe Fiasco’s label decided to give him to manufactured singles Airplanes and Nothin’ On You.  After rejecting these singles the tensions began to rise between his label and him.  After Lupe Fiasco rejected signing a 360 deal with Atlantic Records, the label then cut all promotion for both singles.  Then when he turned in the album they also rejected it because it was not radio friendly enough.  This made Lupe depressed to the point of just leaving the music industry.  For most 2010 his album was held in limbo as his fans protested for the release of his album.  After his fans signed a petition and protested outside Atlantic Records office New York a release date was set for March 2011 and the single “Show Goes On” was released.  For the album to be released though, Lupe had to except some changes to the album the Atlantic Records forced him to do.  For example Show Goes On was a manufactured Radio single he did not want to do.  In Part II I will discuss the release of LASERS and the release of the mixtape Friend of the People.

Introduction Post

If someone told me ten years ago I would be writing a blog post on a computer as thin as a folder I would have thought they were out of their mind.  Now we live in a world were laptops can be as thin as a folder and are more powerful then high-end computers from under a decade ago.  In the last 10 years the access to the internet has improved so much that someone can surf the internet and video chat someone from there cell phone.   Digital Media has also become more connected in daily life.

            Many Newspapers and Magazine companies are struggling up against blogs that offer the same news quicker for free.  Sites like Youtube offer thousands of hours of quality content for free.  The internet has made physical media almost obsolete to the point were electronics companies like Apple has completely removed disk drives from most of their computers.  In the next ten years digital media will become even more entwined in our lives.