Lupe Fiasco Cancels Album And Retires From Music But We Don’t Think He Should

For many this may have come out of nowhere but there has definitely been a storm brewing. Not to mention we have heard Lupe be frustrated with the business of music before. But this time is a bit different. Yesterday Lupe released a new freestyle entitled “N.E.R.D” and released it to Soundcloud as most artist do. In this freestyle Lupe rhymed “Artists gettin’ robbed for their publishing / By dirty Jewish execs who think that it’s alms from the covenant”. This one line sparked a social media firestorm accusing Fiasco of being antisemitic. So much of an uproar that Soundcloud took Lupe’s freestyle down for “Hate Speech”. This was the last straw for Lupe.

Honestly Lupe has a right to feel frustrated in this scenario. We are talking about a genre that celebrates the freedom of expression and uncensorship. We are talking about a genre that calls women out of their names, expresses various gun talk, the selling of illegal narcotics, etc. Yet this is the one line that has people outraged ? It opens up a very interesting discussion about who is allowed to be disturbed by the expression of Hip-Hop artist. Was the speech “Hate Speech”? Based on Lupe’s career and who we know him to be as an artist do we not allow him the opportunity to clarify his lyrics for everyone? Hopefully Lupe doesn’t hang it up after this. We don’t need to lose one of Hip-Hop’s strongest lyricist over one line and over censorship.