Lupe Fiasco - Tetsuo & Youth (Discussion thread)*Stream*

Mr. Negative

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GoldenGlove said:
:dead:
Click to expand...

:heh: I'm not trolling, though! for the last couple of days I been listening and it felt like a bunch of above average to excellent songs thrown together with interludes of looped sounds and the occasional banjo.

Listened to it in reverse order.....

1. Spring.... the time of rebirth.

2. TRON: rebirth, hence the video game sounds (he's still a kid) and thoughts on choices you may or may not make in this lifetime. Drug references and hints on The Cool.

3. Adoration of the Magi: Coming of age and feeling like the world is just a video game. Carry over from the last song. "Now I realize the plan: I'm trapped in a deadly video game... WITH JUST ONE MAN!" GZA - I Gotcha Back

4. Madonna: His mom's a good woman, but she's raising a single child by herself and the streets is a mutha. He's explaining to his mom why he's in them. All mothers. See the religious overtones? The system crucifies us like young christs. "The Lord give you a load, you gotta carry it./That's why I'm giving honor to all these baby mammas./It takes a woman's womb to make a Christ or Dali Lama./The World will take that child, turn that child into a monster." Killer Mike

5. Deliver: Them Harsh Realities. Pizza Man get robbed and/or killed here. Peace of Man don't come here no mo.

6. Chopper: There's a crew of killers outside. And Lu running with them. He ain't all the way down just yet.... but-

7. Winter is coming. Da Hawk. It's a cold world out there.

8. No Scratches: I know everyone says it's about a bad breakup or whatever, but I see it as Lu itching to be a part of The Fast Life and losing patience with honest living. You know. Go to school. work at McDonalds. Get a degree. Keep working at it and it's gone turn out fine. Eventually. At first I had patience. But that patience turned to waiting. Then that waiting turned to wasting my time. So, sorry, Honest Life. I'm hopping in The Fast Lane. Let's hope I don't crash. "Even righteous minds go through this." Jay-Z - Can I Live

9. Little Death: Notice how much lighter and jazzier sounding the "Winter" part is? It's because despite it being a cold world, Lu is in the streets and making money. Things arent so cold. Everythings a bit more chilled and relaxed. But this song finds Lu not a peace, but sitting in a late night diner with thoughts about life and the universe racing through his head. From the narrative, he's prolly high as shyt, too. lol The Streets is steadily in his ear, whispering cold comfort. Notice how The Streets' whispering get colder and darker as Lupe's mind state and musings get darker. From "gay marriage" and The Streets saying "I love you baby" to "damn, we fukked up as a people. We should have been poets and kings! Damn, I fukked up. I gotta get out of this-" and The Streets "It's too late now, nikka. Come over here next to your master. How them chains round your neck feel?" La Petit Mort, indeed. It's a longer, more detailed, less innocent version of "Hurt Me Soul", but the last verse is riddled with Guilt Guilt Guilt

10. Body of Work: May as well be Body of Evidence. All the dirt he's done is brought to the light. He's prolly sitting in court. He feels betrayed by The Streets. He pulls an Ecclesiastical King Solomon and starts talking about his life as a king and all the riches and women that he had, and now he realizes it's all worthless. God is great, but there's snakes on my Soul Plane. Meanwhile, The Streets is (mockingly) trying her best to convince him that she loves him and meant no harm, fishing for compliments, etc.... but he still feels betrayed and is utterly sick of her.

11. Prisoner 1&2: Basically, after all his skeletons were dragged out of their closet, he's in jail. He knows he's never getting out, but he's just hoping God accepts him as who he's trying to be now, and not who he was or is. Prisoner 2 is the guards' role and perspective on the inside of the walls. The banjo at the beginning and end are reminiscent of all those old jail break movies, particularly "O Brother, Where Art Thou". The ending banjo signifies escape. But what kind of escape?

12. Fall. The season when things die.

13. Dots and Lines: Escape through death. Lupe dies and finds a level of enlightenment, which is why this song is full of references to the metaphysical realm, thoughts on physics and how it relates to the physical, Sacred Geometry and how it relates to us, and all manner of things that you learn through DMT use, which supposedly releases in mass amount upon your death.

14. Blurred Hands: "From the Floating Death (last death) to the Fire Death (penance for sin) to flower outside of my grave (reincarnation, even if it's a flower grown from his grave).............. This song is basically Lupe taking a bow, saying thanks for listening and paying attention, thanks for being a fan. And he's a fan of you, too. Also, Lu did that so hopefully you don't have to go through that. So don't, cause he loves you. I wonder if he feels like Chilly is an incarnation of Michael Young History?

15. Mural: :mindblown: Lupe gives you a lyrical painting of Nirvana.... 8 minutes of :banderas:. The character he portrayed is prolly there waiting for his time for reincarnation, another life and another chance to get it right. Which is why the last lines of the first song on the album (this one) are

"Simple as a Buddhist Monk in a temple standing in some heel grooves with the abbot+practicing stillness..... Real still until he realizes his 'realness'.

Defeat Samsara (The Game of Life), Achieve Nirvana and Brilliance. :blessed::lawd:"

...Which leads us to the point of Reincarnation, which leads back to TRON, the video game sounds, and Adoration of the Magi being about trying to figure out Samsara (The Game of Life), despite it's Earthly subject matter.


I didn't pick up on any of that the first times I listened, cause I listened in order and it sounded like a disjointled mess. And above average disjointled mess. so 3.75/5.

Listened to it back to front while cooking and cleaning? extremely deep, coherent and satisfying. 5/5, good luck topping it this year. Best rap album siince GKMC.




















AND my pasta dish turned out excellent! :takedat:

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Big Mel

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I like this album so much i'm now kinda curious to hear Lasers & FL2.


Also may revisit The Cool. Never heard this mystical Food & Liquor advance either.


The main difference i'm hearing on this is Lupe is rapping tougher. Like he still has the pipsqueak voice but he sounds harder for some reason.
 
intilectual recipricol

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Big Mel said:
I like this album so much i'm now kinda curious to hear Lasers & FL2.


Also may revisit The Cool. Never heard this mystical Food & Liquor advance either.


The main difference i'm hearing on this is Lupe is rapping tougher. Like he still has the pipsqueak voice but he sounds harder for some reason.
Click to expand...
Uhhh... about that... Here let me post some tracks before you do the Lasers/F&LII thing



 
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Khalil's_Black_Excellence

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GoldenGlove said:
It's a play on words. Sine/Sign...

The 2nd verse describes how majors use artists to keep going... essentially saying, it's the artist that makes thing go, not the label. (Big Worlds = Labels; Little Worlds = Artist)

See big worlds have little worlds that feed on their velocity
And little world have lesser worlds and so on to viscosity

He goes even further in the last verse with this line...

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 goal of men into trash
The soul's gold and they turning gold into cash

That to me is him saying, labels always looking for hits, and will promote "trash" in order to get it. That then makes artists go and reach and try and make hits that aren't really true to their artistry. That song is definitely him shytting on the traditional record deal/label structure. There are references throughout the song. He just tied it all in with the "Sacred Geometry" theme he was going for.
Click to expand...


I believe those lines also refer to labels forcing artists to sell out/sell their souls just in order to make money, hence the "soul's gold and they turning gold into cash" part.
 
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