Lupe Fiasco - DROGAS WAVE (Discussion Thread)
- Thread starter Dylmatic
- Start date
Tranquilo?
Lu's verse on Tranquillo is my favorite verse ever. Whole song is good obviously.
Plus he got other good shyt on there like NGL and Pick up the phone. More than my heart is another anthem for me just cause i love my momma
KIIIINDOMMMM
ReasonableMatic
................................
YOOOOOOOO
I loved Lupe’s LongChains concept, can’t wait
You were so busy just trying to shine, you should've been trying to save us
The concept of this album is NOT about Slaves jumping a ship and being resurrected to save other slaves by sinking slaveships.
This had to be said loud and clear because that's the biggest misconception about this album. This album is using a less than a fourth of its length to use its narrative to serve a purpose, it's not a concept album that is abandonned halfway through. This project is a concept album that is using 3 different narratives to convey the same main idea through several narratives and points of view.
The "Slaveship arc" starts from Gold vs The Right Thing To Do and then ends with Down. This arc starts off with Drogas, a whole song written in Spanish, supposed to represent the spanish boats sending slaves to Africa. The next song, Manilla, gives background to the whole album by talking about the place of money in today's society and how it affects black people and it ends by announcing the next story arc :
Gold vs The Right Thing To Do starts the story arc, after Drogas, this song is now rapped in Patois, the common language used in Jamaica, impersonating a Jamaican man talking about his ancestors, slaves, which seas ended up "swallowed by waves" until they heard a voice that told him they could breathe underwater.
Wav Files is the second longest track on the whole album and it's the biggest part of the arc, talking about the story of the "LongChains" (explained here by Lupe himself) after realizing they were still alive underwater after their boat crashed. Some of them went back to their homeland while the rest of them decided to stay to sink slaves ships in order to save other slaves before the ships hits the land to sell them.
Down is mostly a filler track but I don't mind it that much, the hook is kind of a ratchet version of "Under the Sea" and the verses are mostly a cloud rap/trap parody by using a double entendre with being "down with the crew" and down underwater, and being "from the bottom" and throwing a bunch of adlibs throughout the song. I feel like it should've been like a 2min interlude and I agree that the hook drags on for way too long, the beat switch is at the end is really cinematic and it marks a clear end of the LongChains arc so this song isn't too filler to me, just long drawn more than anything.
This album is about the plight of (black) people throughout history and their ability to "save themselves" and overcome struggle and evil. Manilla itself, while being at the start of the album, ties the past and present of black history and it's been done all throughout the album.
Some other examples of the concept being talked about :
Jonylah Watkins, a 6-months-old girl that got shot 6 times in 2013 lives on through Lupe's song to become a doctor and actually save a baby girl that ended up being herself.
Alan Kurdi made headlines with his picture of this dead syrian refugee that washed up on the shore. In this song, Alan lives on to be a swimmer and saves himself too by helping a kid from drowning on the beach. Alan Forever embodied the Waves concept the best : "Those who wouldn’t become slaves…instead became WAVES", by fleeing Syria, he refused to become a slave to his country's regime and found peace in the sea shore.
Both songs are a beautiful homage to those kids, and while I don't know if that was on purpose or not, Lupe made those songs polar opposites, Alan Forever is probably the most upbeat and innocent sound on the whole album if you don't know the backstory, while Jonylah is probably one of the saddest sounding songs Lupe has ever made in his whole career and peak storytelling.
The middle part of the album is mostly talking through the perspective of current events, the Forever tracks. Stronger, Sun God Sam and XO are pretty abstract meaning-wise but they mostly talk about the effects of drugs in current society, with XO talking about "depressed runaway hooked on molly who gets abducted by aliens". It probably alludes to the Ronald Reagan era called the "Crack epidemic" in the 80s where crack was heavily used in the ghetto which had an impact of crime and violence in the inner cities and mostly on black people.
The "Don't Mess Up The Children" interlude defines the Drogas concept a little bit more, Drogas is the spanish for D.R.U.G.S., which is an acronym for "Don't Ruin Us, God Said", it was used as a hook at the start of the album on Manilla. This theme probably refers to the fact that, while slavery wasn't a choice (hi Kanye), it's in the people's hands to overcome struggle in this day and age. This phrase was allegedly said by the sole survivor of the LongChains before their ship sank as explained in this IG post by Lupe.
This had to be said loud and clear because that's the biggest misconception about this album. This album is using a less than a fourth of its length to use its narrative to serve a purpose, it's not a concept album that is abandonned halfway through. This project is a concept album that is using 3 different narratives to convey the same main idea through several narratives and points of view.
The "Slaveship arc" starts from Gold vs The Right Thing To Do and then ends with Down. This arc starts off with Drogas, a whole song written in Spanish, supposed to represent the spanish boats sending slaves to Africa. The next song, Manilla, gives background to the whole album by talking about the place of money in today's society and how it affects black people and it ends by announcing the next story arc :
The Manilla, explained in the outro of the song, was the currency used by some countries to trade slaves.
Gold vs The Right Thing To Do starts the story arc, after Drogas, this song is now rapped in Patois, the common language used in Jamaica, impersonating a Jamaican man talking about his ancestors, slaves, which seas ended up "swallowed by waves" until they heard a voice that told him they could breathe underwater.
Wav Files is the second longest track on the whole album and it's the biggest part of the arc, talking about the story of the "LongChains" (explained here by Lupe himself) after realizing they were still alive underwater after their boat crashed. Some of them went back to their homeland while the rest of them decided to stay to sink slaves ships in order to save other slaves before the ships hits the land to sell them.
Down is mostly a filler track but I don't mind it that much, the hook is kind of a ratchet version of "Under the Sea" and the verses are mostly a cloud rap/trap parody by using a double entendre with being "down with the crew" and down underwater, and being "from the bottom" and throwing a bunch of adlibs throughout the song. I feel like it should've been like a 2min interlude and I agree that the hook drags on for way too long, the beat switch is at the end is really cinematic and it marks a clear end of the LongChains arc so this song isn't too filler to me, just long drawn more than anything.
This album is about the plight of (black) people throughout history and their ability to "save themselves" and overcome struggle and evil. Manilla itself, while being at the start of the album, ties the past and present of black history and it's been done all throughout the album.
- Manilla
- Haile Selassie. is one of the turning points of the project to me and the start of the second point of view.
Some other examples of the concept being talked about :
- Alan Forever
- Jonylah Forever
Jonylah Watkins, a 6-months-old girl that got shot 6 times in 2013 lives on through Lupe's song to become a doctor and actually save a baby girl that ended up being herself.
Alan Kurdi made headlines with his picture of this dead syrian refugee that washed up on the shore. In this song, Alan lives on to be a swimmer and saves himself too by helping a kid from drowning on the beach. Alan Forever embodied the Waves concept the best : "Those who wouldn’t become slaves…instead became WAVES", by fleeing Syria, he refused to become a slave to his country's regime and found peace in the sea shore.
Both songs are a beautiful homage to those kids, and while I don't know if that was on purpose or not, Lupe made those songs polar opposites, Alan Forever is probably the most upbeat and innocent sound on the whole album if you don't know the backstory, while Jonylah is probably one of the saddest sounding songs Lupe has ever made in his whole career and peak storytelling.
The middle part of the album is mostly talking through the perspective of current events, the Forever tracks. Stronger, Sun God Sam and XO are pretty abstract meaning-wise but they mostly talk about the effects of drugs in current society, with XO talking about "depressed runaway hooked on molly who gets abducted by aliens". It probably alludes to the Ronald Reagan era called the "Crack epidemic" in the 80s where crack was heavily used in the ghetto which had an impact of crime and violence in the inner cities and mostly on black people.
The "Don't Mess Up The Children" interlude defines the Drogas concept a little bit more, Drogas is the spanish for D.R.U.G.S., which is an acronym for "Don't Ruin Us, God Said", it was used as a hook at the start of the album on Manilla. This theme probably refers to the fact that, while slavery wasn't a choice (hi Kanye), it's in the people's hands to overcome struggle in this day and age. This phrase was allegedly said by the sole survivor of the LongChains before their ship sank as explained in this IG post by Lupe.
- Gold vs. The Right Thing To Do
- WAV Files
- Cripple
- Manilla
- Quotations From Chairman Fred
That's a good thing, y'all better stop disrespecting GodGemstones is a Jesus freak now, don't even curse in his music anymore
qnsfinest
Superstar
Probably the best hiphop album in past 10yrs.
masterpiece
