Don Juan
Pro
The day has come when Lupe is a higher quality MC than Drake.
But it’s always been this way.
But it’s always been this way.
Lupe Fiasco Drill Music In Zion (Discussion Thread)
- Thread starter Chip Skylark
- Start date
Agreed on Drogas Wave being a top tier classic, but XO is an unlistenable track to me. I can't stand that one. Mostly because of that god awful hook. The album flows better without it, so I just don't play it. Had to cut it from the playlist
Still, it being a double album and only having one bad track equals an absolutely incredible album
Was the song selected to save my life on my spoitify, stranger things playlist lol
Suspicions
All Star
Came in to say this. On faux and them is like so fire I can’t believe it. Haven’t enjoyed a full Lupe album like this in forever
I listen to that all the time.Xo is one of my fav songs on the album
The vocalist and beat switch up at the end of AUTOBOTO should have been used instead of what Lupe rapped over.
Breh prolly thought both were dope and included the other rendition just cause... The latter sounds better to me tho
Breh prolly thought both were dope and included the other rendition just cause... The latter sounds better to me tho
brianwuzhere
Pro
Pac-Man Never Ceases To Amaze in DMIZ
During the Ebro in the Morning interview, Lupe said one of the album cover’s meanings is Pac-Man and there is a metanarrative involved. I was initially unsure if he was trolling due to the vibe of that whole interview, that is until I learned he already mentioned Pac-Man in relation to Tetsuo & Youth back in January 2021. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there to know if he went deeper than just highlighting how he adopted the naming conventions of the Pac-Man family for his Mural trilogy. Anyway, I figured it would be a worth a shot to see where this rabbit hole goes.
During the Ebro in the Morning interview, Lupe said one of the album cover’s meanings is Pac-Man and there is a metanarrative involved. I was initially unsure if he was trolling due to the vibe of that whole interview, that is until I learned he already mentioned Pac-Man in relation to Tetsuo & Youth back in January 2021. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there to know if he went deeper than just highlighting how he adopted the naming conventions of the Pac-Man family for his Mural trilogy. Anyway, I figured it would be a worth a shot to see where this rabbit hole goes.
The triangle-shaped drill severs the face of Pac-Man in extreme close-up, splitting his skull in two and signifying DMIZ/demise. The yellow part also forms the shape of an M, similar to the one found in the Pac-Man logo. It could stand for the Music in Drill Music or Ms. Mural as the centerpiece of the album. Alternatively, Pac-Man opens his mouth to consume the drill, digging from within to find Zion and transforming the drill into a feathered headdress or war bonnet (the original intent of the painting). Wearing the strength of a warrior and reaching spiritual enlightenment, it’s uplifting. No longer do I see the triangle’s brush strokes drilling down, but instead, eagle feathers soaring above. However, the two halves of the skull remain, so I’m torn between entrapment and escape.
Looking at the The Cool’s cover and ignoring the various circles, the foundation for it is a triangle pointing up, uniting Michael Young History, The Game and The Streets. Drill Music in Zion’s cover flips the triangle, pointing down. Michael Young History remains in the middle, perpetuating the drill of negativity. The two halves of the skull could refer to the division of “Streets got my heart, Game got my soul”. Maybe there are three triangles to represent a trinity. So, why revisit The Cool now? Even back then, Lupe included religious undertones in his work and it’s implied that the holy trinity of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit is at odds with the unholy trinity of The Cool. Since 2015, his music has only leaned more into embracing spirituality as a vehicle for storytelling.
When first talking about the album art in May, Lupe called it something like “a nice finish to a series”. I interpreted this series as the albums with the white border and more precisely, the Mural trilogy gradually growing more personal with each iteration. While we never exactly got The Cool 2, he’s been refining that concept in various ways all along. Tetsuo & Youth fuses the endless cycle of respawning in video games with The Passion of Christ. Drogas Wave treats resurrection in a more positive light by immortalizing those we’ve lost. The last few songs scratch the surface of what he’s doing now, but he was mainly still addressing the ghost of his past in the form of mythology at a distance. Drill Music in Zion flips the triangle upside down to drill inward and point the finger back at Lupe himself. Less how it should be and simply how it is.
Crazy Otto/Autoboto and Ms. Pac-Man/Ms. Mural
“Rights to the logo”
“Less like putting on some make-up, more like severing a face”
“A deceptive game you are killing to play”
“Only game I play is a Malcolm X-Box”
“I don’t believe that nothing’s haunted”
“Surrounded by gang members”
“Misguided by ghosts in the land of the living”
“I done used to write all my ghost flows”
“I ain’t afraid of no ghosts”
“In the middle of the mall/them all”
“Never ceases to amaze”
“If you had to paint the gutter, which color would you choose
Said the patron to the painter, the painter said, the blues”
“You can put Dolce Vita (Sweet Life) Chicken Risotto in my coffin”
“Find breaks, gaps to recline safe”
“Error error error error…”
“The failed revival of a perfectionist when his efforts have just sank”
“I’m mistaking staying for cannot leave”
“But if we are trapped in here, I hope that we go supersonic when we leave”
Like Drill Music in Zion, Pac-Man was originally created in response to negativity. Rather than make another space shooter, Toru Iwatani wanted to take his game design in a direction that did not focus on violence or conflict. The answer was to base the game around eating and Pac-Man gets his namesake from the Japanese onomatopoeia for eating: paku paku taberu. The dots you consume in the blue maze are actually cookies and you also have the chance to eat a piece of fruit twice every round. The goal is to clear all the dots while avoiding the Ghost Gang (dead gang members, ghosts of the past) preying on you from the middle of the maze. If you’re successful, you get to proceed to the next level, rinse and repeat.
Lupe was born in the same month Ms. Pac-Man was released, February 1982. Many are born to play The Game and it seems simple enough. You start with the advantages of being able to turn faster than the ghosts and the side tunnels on the left and right will slow them down as well. There are four power pellets in each corner that temporarily turn the ghosts blue and allow you to safely eat them. Only their eyes will be left, which find their way back to the Ghost Pen in the middle, where they resurrect like The Cool to chase you again. However, each dot you eat will slow you down, causing you to slip and fall behind. On Level 17, the power pellets no longer turn the ghosts blue anymore and they will eventually move faster than you.
On Level 256, the game has a glitch or an error where the right side of the maze becomes filled with a jumbled mess of letters, numbers and symbols. Since the highest value of the internal level counter tops out at 255, there is an overflow resulting in 256 fruit being drawn at one time and here we are. That said, a perfect score is attainable at 3,333,360, but you can’t actually beat The Game. It was never designed for you to win. There is no reward or congratulations waiting for you at the “end”. Once you’ve reached that perfect score, you are no less trapped than when you first started. The jumbled mess on the right side means there aren’t enough dots to eat in order to proceed to the next level, so you’re stuck. All that is left to do is kill yourself by running into one of the ghosts to trigger the game over screen and reset the game.
It’s the same T.R.O.N. (also the same year, 1982) neverending game concept as Tetsuo & Youth, just more specific and grim. The split screen of normalcy and chaos is a great way to describe the hypocrisy of Drill Music in Zion, poetic even. Obviously, Lupe stopped playing The Game and made it out of Chicago. We’ve known that since Food and Liquor. “Give em the game? That’s like giving chocolate to the fat”. The other kids weren’t lucky enough to think outside the box of dots and lines, which is nothing new either. But he used to have more optimistic answers. Tetsuo & Youth showed us there is a way out, you just have to switch your perspective to find it. Drogas Wave brought Jesus back down to earth, but he was doing his best. Drill Music in Zion ends with frustration, defeat and the strange feeling that you might not have the answer anymore.
On another note, Ms. Pac-Man’s development has an interesting history. A few MIT dropouts formed General Computer Corporation, which developed enhancement kits that added onto existing arcade machines to make them more challenging. Atari caught wind of what GCC was doing with Super Missile Attack and a lawsuit happened, presenting yet another layer to “I defend myself in court”. In the settlement, GCC was ordered to obtain permission from the manufacturer or “get signals from the source” of each game they design an enhancement kit for, before marketing the kit. Prior to the lawsuit, GCC was already six weeks into a Pac-Man kit called Crazy Otto. This character had eyes, arms and legs, looking more humanoid than the simplicity of the yellow circle with a missing pizza slice for a mouth.
Midway purchased Crazy Otto and contracted GCC to finalize the game for release, consulting Namco every step of the way. So, like a Porsche Autobot, Crazy Otto transforms into Ms. Pacman to better reflect the franchise. Drill Music in Zion’s tracklist appears to be the same with Autoboto preceding Ms. Mural. The Midway logo needs to be rotated in order to see the similarity with the Z-shaped lightning bolt in LFDMIZ and vertically, adds a third layer to the M-shaped cover.* Eventually, Namco would terminate their licensing agreement with Midway after several more unauthorized sequels. America had quickly seized control of a Japanese franchise with not too much more respect than Mr. Roboto, where Autoboto likely gets its third namesake from. Contrast that with Naomi Osaka, who despite living in America for the majority of her life, identifies more with Japan.
At a cultural crossroads, even the inspiration for the ghosts is split between Little Ghost Q-Taro and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Song structure is similarly fragmented, if not perfectly symmetrical. Everything is transforming from one thing to another, for better or worse. The entire tracklist can be read in multiple ways, which is comforting in the sense that nothing is set in stone. When confronted with the impossible victory of Pac-Man replicated through On Faux Nem, I find solace in the fluidity of language and hope that it can change. Much like the public perception of Joan of Arc. Or how four words become refined, time after time, until the canvas holds something truly precious. As the lead single suggests, each song “can twist and it contorts” into something else by the time you’ve finished playing it. And whatever it is, it’ll just be what it is, you know? We’ll figure it out from there.
*This wouldn’t be the first time Lupe played with letters for the cover. Drogas Wave’s cover also looks like an upside-down A for Atlantic and I’m just now noticing that it’s an artsy revision of the Lasers cover. Whatever Lupe, you win.
Looking at the The Cool’s cover and ignoring the various circles, the foundation for it is a triangle pointing up, uniting Michael Young History, The Game and The Streets. Drill Music in Zion’s cover flips the triangle, pointing down. Michael Young History remains in the middle, perpetuating the drill of negativity. The two halves of the skull could refer to the division of “Streets got my heart, Game got my soul”. Maybe there are three triangles to represent a trinity. So, why revisit The Cool now? Even back then, Lupe included religious undertones in his work and it’s implied that the holy trinity of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit is at odds with the unholy trinity of The Cool. Since 2015, his music has only leaned more into embracing spirituality as a vehicle for storytelling.
When first talking about the album art in May, Lupe called it something like “a nice finish to a series”. I interpreted this series as the albums with the white border and more precisely, the Mural trilogy gradually growing more personal with each iteration. While we never exactly got The Cool 2, he’s been refining that concept in various ways all along. Tetsuo & Youth fuses the endless cycle of respawning in video games with The Passion of Christ. Drogas Wave treats resurrection in a more positive light by immortalizing those we’ve lost. The last few songs scratch the surface of what he’s doing now, but he was mainly still addressing the ghost of his past in the form of mythology at a distance. Drill Music in Zion flips the triangle upside down to drill inward and point the finger back at Lupe himself. Less how it should be and simply how it is.
Crazy Otto/Autoboto and Ms. Pac-Man/Ms. Mural
“Rights to the logo”
“Less like putting on some make-up, more like severing a face”
“A deceptive game you are killing to play”
“Only game I play is a Malcolm X-Box”
“I don’t believe that nothing’s haunted”
“Surrounded by gang members”
“Misguided by ghosts in the land of the living”
“I done used to write all my ghost flows”
“I ain’t afraid of no ghosts”
“In the middle of the mall/them all”
“Never ceases to amaze”
“If you had to paint the gutter, which color would you choose
Said the patron to the painter, the painter said, the blues”
“You can put Dolce Vita (Sweet Life) Chicken Risotto in my coffin”
“Find breaks, gaps to recline safe”
“Error error error error…”
“The failed revival of a perfectionist when his efforts have just sank”
“I’m mistaking staying for cannot leave”
“But if we are trapped in here, I hope that we go supersonic when we leave”
Like Drill Music in Zion, Pac-Man was originally created in response to negativity. Rather than make another space shooter, Toru Iwatani wanted to take his game design in a direction that did not focus on violence or conflict. The answer was to base the game around eating and Pac-Man gets his namesake from the Japanese onomatopoeia for eating: paku paku taberu. The dots you consume in the blue maze are actually cookies and you also have the chance to eat a piece of fruit twice every round. The goal is to clear all the dots while avoiding the Ghost Gang (dead gang members, ghosts of the past) preying on you from the middle of the maze. If you’re successful, you get to proceed to the next level, rinse and repeat.
Lupe was born in the same month Ms. Pac-Man was released, February 1982. Many are born to play The Game and it seems simple enough. You start with the advantages of being able to turn faster than the ghosts and the side tunnels on the left and right will slow them down as well. There are four power pellets in each corner that temporarily turn the ghosts blue and allow you to safely eat them. Only their eyes will be left, which find their way back to the Ghost Pen in the middle, where they resurrect like The Cool to chase you again. However, each dot you eat will slow you down, causing you to slip and fall behind. On Level 17, the power pellets no longer turn the ghosts blue anymore and they will eventually move faster than you.
On Level 256, the game has a glitch or an error where the right side of the maze becomes filled with a jumbled mess of letters, numbers and symbols. Since the highest value of the internal level counter tops out at 255, there is an overflow resulting in 256 fruit being drawn at one time and here we are. That said, a perfect score is attainable at 3,333,360, but you can’t actually beat The Game. It was never designed for you to win. There is no reward or congratulations waiting for you at the “end”. Once you’ve reached that perfect score, you are no less trapped than when you first started. The jumbled mess on the right side means there aren’t enough dots to eat in order to proceed to the next level, so you’re stuck. All that is left to do is kill yourself by running into one of the ghosts to trigger the game over screen and reset the game.
It’s the same T.R.O.N. (also the same year, 1982) neverending game concept as Tetsuo & Youth, just more specific and grim. The split screen of normalcy and chaos is a great way to describe the hypocrisy of Drill Music in Zion, poetic even. Obviously, Lupe stopped playing The Game and made it out of Chicago. We’ve known that since Food and Liquor. “Give em the game? That’s like giving chocolate to the fat”. The other kids weren’t lucky enough to think outside the box of dots and lines, which is nothing new either. But he used to have more optimistic answers. Tetsuo & Youth showed us there is a way out, you just have to switch your perspective to find it. Drogas Wave brought Jesus back down to earth, but he was doing his best. Drill Music in Zion ends with frustration, defeat and the strange feeling that you might not have the answer anymore.
On another note, Ms. Pac-Man’s development has an interesting history. A few MIT dropouts formed General Computer Corporation, which developed enhancement kits that added onto existing arcade machines to make them more challenging. Atari caught wind of what GCC was doing with Super Missile Attack and a lawsuit happened, presenting yet another layer to “I defend myself in court”. In the settlement, GCC was ordered to obtain permission from the manufacturer or “get signals from the source” of each game they design an enhancement kit for, before marketing the kit. Prior to the lawsuit, GCC was already six weeks into a Pac-Man kit called Crazy Otto. This character had eyes, arms and legs, looking more humanoid than the simplicity of the yellow circle with a missing pizza slice for a mouth.
Midway purchased Crazy Otto and contracted GCC to finalize the game for release, consulting Namco every step of the way. So, like a Porsche Autobot, Crazy Otto transforms into Ms. Pacman to better reflect the franchise. Drill Music in Zion’s tracklist appears to be the same with Autoboto preceding Ms. Mural. The Midway logo needs to be rotated in order to see the similarity with the Z-shaped lightning bolt in LFDMIZ and vertically, adds a third layer to the M-shaped cover.* Eventually, Namco would terminate their licensing agreement with Midway after several more unauthorized sequels. America had quickly seized control of a Japanese franchise with not too much more respect than Mr. Roboto, where Autoboto likely gets its third namesake from. Contrast that with Naomi Osaka, who despite living in America for the majority of her life, identifies more with Japan.
At a cultural crossroads, even the inspiration for the ghosts is split between Little Ghost Q-Taro and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Song structure is similarly fragmented, if not perfectly symmetrical. Everything is transforming from one thing to another, for better or worse. The entire tracklist can be read in multiple ways, which is comforting in the sense that nothing is set in stone. When confronted with the impossible victory of Pac-Man replicated through On Faux Nem, I find solace in the fluidity of language and hope that it can change. Much like the public perception of Joan of Arc. Or how four words become refined, time after time, until the canvas holds something truly precious. As the lead single suggests, each song “can twist and it contorts” into something else by the time you’ve finished playing it. And whatever it is, it’ll just be what it is, you know? We’ll figure it out from there.
*This wouldn’t be the first time Lupe played with letters for the cover. Drogas Wave’s cover also looks like an upside-down A for Atlantic and I’m just now noticing that it’s an artsy revision of the Lasers cover. Whatever Lupe, you win.
Nero Christ
Sniper out now on all digital platforms brev
This an outside grilling album.
especially the title track
To me too...like way better.
That shyt don’t exist
Skulls is getting into that Detox, Jay Elect Act 2 area
He’s been talking about this mythical album since 2012, around the time of F&L 2
brianwuzhere
Pro
“Sparks for bones”
“Got caught, fought, lost, electrocuted to death”
Throwback to the Trilly & Truly logo. “Lightning gave them life” is the recipe for Frankenstein and by association, The Cool. Also, the opposite of its modern-day counterpart on Drill Music in Zion’s second verse, beginning with the electric chair. Lightning gives them death now.
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