Lupe Fiasco is geared to reach Number One on the Billboard 200 charts with his third studio album Lasers. The emcee has brought fans on a roller coaster ride through label woes and album pushbacks. However, now Lasershas not only seen the light of day but will top the charts, a feat for Fiasco, considering it’s his first #1 album (Food & Liquor only reached #8). To take note of his success, here are ten lessons we can learn from Lupe Fiasco. 

1. Atlantic Records knows who more than T.I. and Wiz Khalifa are now.
2007’s The Cool marked the beginning of the end of the Lupe Fiasco conversation for a while. The album didn’t do nearly as well as his debut Food & Liquor, despite one chart-topping hit (“Superstar”). Labels speak dollars and sense, and there is no Rosetta Stone to speak their language, regardless of the talent an artist possesses. On the Hip-Hop front, T.I. was the apple of Atlantic Records’ eye, even with jail time. Then a man named Wiz Khalifa came along with a hit song to accompany Pittsburgh’s waving of the Terrible Towel (“Black and Yellow”) and it’s like “Lupe WHO?” Well, Lupe is #1 before Wiz even dropped Rolling Papers. Mr. Lupe Fiasco, welcome back to the boardroom meeting.

2. If you whine about it, they will come.
If you thought Kanye West doesn’t shut up, try putting a coin in Lupe. Twitter, interviews, freestyles, you name it and it’s his podium. Lupe has never been tight-lipped about his business affairs, whether as cautionary tales or open windows to air out his grievances. Many artists don’t complain until it’s too late, but not Lupe. He voiced his concerns about label pushbacks, and was unrelenting, even suggesting he be freed from recording contract. Someone in that New York City skyscraper listened, and now his album has made it to our ears. Sure it’s like three years late, but who’s counting?

3. Hip-Hop Really CAN Save Your Life.
On The Cool, Lupe Fiasco has a song with singer Nikki Jean called “Hip-Hop Saved My Life,” discussing the rise and fall of a rapper. On the song, he discusses an emcee trying to pound the pavement promoting his art. The rapper later finds himself rhyming over instrumentals like “Wipe Me Down,” thereby crafting a mainstream hit he never thought possible. This was the fuel to move that rapper to the next plateau. Lupe probably thought he was speaking about himself with his first album. However, as Lasers drives Lupe’s music in a more mainstream direction, perhaps he was telling the future, since the album is on deck to break the 200,000 unit mark in sales its first week. Prophecy fulfilled.

4. Twitter is an acceptable soapbox for artists.
@LupeFiasco has quite an active Twitter feed. His recent posts unfortunately discuss that he is on Doctor’s orders to go on voice rest. However, when Lupe isn’t promoting his album or pushing audio links and interviews, he is telling it like it is right on Twitter. Sometimes that leads to @ reply wars, but most of the time it is Lupe discussing what is really going on to his 445,000-plus followers. It’s a no-brainer that Twitter has made celebs more accessible to their fans. However, in this instance it has provided thoughts and opinions right from the horse’s mouth that even his label can read. Notes were obviously taken.

5. Blogs Don’t Make #1 Albums 
It’s become a norm in the music industry to assume that the fate of a rapper’s career lies within the blogosphere. Major blogs and Hip-Hop websites pull millions of hits and promote an artist’s music through a vehicle that no one has previously driven. Lupe Fiasco for the past year or so has been intertwined in a battle with the largest Hip-Hop blogs on the internet and none of them (with the exception of a VERY slim few) have promoted his music. It was a boycott of sorts. The details of the boycott are irrelevant (check back on Lupe’s Twitter if you MUST know the gossip). That isn’t important here. What is important is that Lupe Fiasco had the best debut of his career without the internet to lean on. Now granted, his previous albums arrived at a time when Hip-Hop online was just beginning to blow up. But in recent years a huge thanks for an artist’s success has been due to blogs. Lupe didn’t have that luxury and he still won. So who can he thank for that?

6. CRS is NOT happening...
Remember Child Rebel Soldier with Lupe, Kanye West and Pharrell Williams? Yeah, no. That super-group has been rumored to be in the works since the 1800’s. When no one heard that Lupe album titled LupE.N.D., everyone was hedging their bets on getting that CRS album before another Lupe release. It felt as though Lupe NEEDED that crew to maintain Hip-Hop’s cosign. When the CRS song “Don’t Stop!” was featured as part of Kanye’s G.O.O.D. Friday series, the reality of CRS became a thing once again. Now though? Hell has frozen over and Lupe’s album saw the light of day before CRS. It’s just not happening. His OTHER super-group All City Chess Club with Asher Roth, B.o.B., The Cool Kids, Charles Hamilton, Blu, Diggy Simmons, Wale, J. Cole, and Dosage has a better chance of releasing an album together at this point, and imaging getting all of them in a studio at once?

7. …But if CRS DOES happen, Lupe is no longer the “middle child.”
Let’s face it. Kanye West, Pharrell Williams… Lupe Fiasco? Sure Food & Liquor set the tone for the direction Hip-Hop was going in circa 2006, and Lupe was being hailed as a genius so hard that he was considering retiring like any overwhelmed artist does. He was already acting like a veteran. Then The Cool didn’t do as well, Kanye became KANYE, Pharrell became PHARRELL, and Lupe became Jan Brady. Sad to say, but LF became an afterthought. While we’re not convinced that CRS will happen at all, if it does at least now the trifecta seems all around powerful. Lupe has a Number One album and has complained more than Kanye West. He’s earned his spot as a Child Rebel Soldier, since he’s been all three within the span of three years. Way to go!

8. Sometimes a shelf helps.
You put wine on a shelf for a while and it tastes better. Cheese sits on a shelf to become cheese. Check out some of your old baseball cards and bet you’ll find one worth alot of money. The point is that while artists hate being shelved by a label (as they should), in Lupe’s case it proved to be invaluable. What if his third album arrived in 2008 or 2009? Would the fans have cared as much? Would it have moved Food & Liquor units or The Cool units? Who knows. What we do know is that the anticipation grew with everyday we waited for the album, and when it finally arrived it sold more than Lupe probably ever imaged it would. Maybe in place of the shelved album, Lupe will have a Platinum plaque on that shelf.

9. A good album doesn’t always do well.
Let’s address the elephant in the room. Critics are not feeling Lasers. Lupe himself isn’t even feeling Lasers. In comparison to previous Lupe Fiasco releases, Lasers doesn’t hold a candle (or a laser!). Lasers reached Number One though. Some may argue that The Cool was more epic than Food & Liquor. Therefore, the best quality work may not always move the most units, and in Lupe’s case it hasn’t. With Lasers, the work everyone agrees that they like the least, it does the best. See how that works?

10. Fans are fans.

There is one huge lesson to be learned here: when a fan loves an artist they will always support that artist. Lupe Fiasco has been to hell and back with his fan base, yet they were there when Lasers released to support. That says something. Hopefully more artists can have fan bases as strong as Lupe’s…maybe he can write his own Industry Rules some day.

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