Almost nine years since Lupe Fiasco first skated onto the scene with Kick, Push, the release of Tetsuo & Youth shows a mature, considered side to Lupe’s infectious hip hop. The album is free from the usual sample-heavy, hook-laden, radio ready songs. Instead, it’s a darker, heavier rap album – focused on storytelling. Fiasco’s strength has always been his creative tongue-twisters, and this album is no different. The album’s first non-instrumental song, Mural, is dense, and wordy – nearly nine minutes of complex rap without any hooks.
Tetsuo & Youth draws on musical genres that aren’t usually found in rap music. The album is interspersed with string interludes named after seasons. Dots & Lines opens with a country blue-grass intro before turning into a sexy R&B discussion of materialism: “To make gold from garbage is not the alchemical point of this math / But truth be told it’s the pursuit of gold that turns the goals of men into trash.”
A standout moment of the album is the ambitious Prisoners 1 & 2 (feat. Ayesha Jaco). Opening and closing with a collect call from an unnamed correctional centre, this two part song discusses the institutional violence and racism of the American prison system. Fiasco raps from the perspective of different characters, including a prison guard who feels as trapped as the people locked up around him. Deliver cleverly tackles endemic violence, drugs and poverty by explaining that the pizza man won’t deliver to their neighbourhood any more. Fiasco wonders whether it’s “’cause they’re selling nicks out there all day / cause a prostitute sucking dick in the hallway?” The album does have a few lighter moments – Australian Idol alumni Guy Sebastian’s pop-R&B vocals feature nicely on one of the more radio ready songs, Blur My Hands.
The strength of this album is Fiasco’s incredible ability to weave stories and characters into his lyrics, however, he is sometimes held back by the flatness of the musical production. That being said, Tetsuo & Youth proves that rebel with a cause Lupe Fiasco still firmly holds his ground as one of rap music’s most interesting artists.
BY MIA ABRAHAMS
