Faced with the way the system does you in the 'hood sometimes, if you don't literally get out, your chances are slim. You'll definitely die mentally. You'll pretty much die physically.
I love Obama, and I love the fact that it's a black president of the United States of America, but he's not the first black president. Robert Mugabe is a black president, too, so let's not get to talking about precedents being set.
The economical policies that are instigated really makes you think that the American government is a bunch of evil bastards. So just because you're black, you're still representing that government, and when Obama came into office he enacted the same policies that we would critique other presidents for.
I just downloaded '1984' for my iPod, but I've read that before. It just hearkens back to the 'romance' of my high-school days. I really liked the space I was in when I was reading it.
For me, I never wore my religion on my sleeve, you know what I'm saying? I never put myself out there as Lupe Fiasco, he's Muslim, he's from Chicago, he likes to ride a skateboard.
I didn't go out shooting for anybody in particular because I shot for everybody unparticular. I make records for Muslims, Christians, rock 'n roll kids, skateboard kids.
I do understand that America is a predominantly Christian country. A lot of morals and values are based in Christianity as opposed to Buddhism, which it's not, or Judaism, which it's not, or Islam, which it's definitely not. So I'm not going to lie to myself and just be like, 'Well you know, everybody's equal.' Because we're not.
Before my father would open up a karate school in a particular neighborhood, he'd clean up the block - kick all the drug dealers and gang bangers off the block. My father was very clear: 'I've got guns too, and I'll kill you just as much as a rival gang would.' And he meant it. He was a man of many facets and complexities.
We weren't raised Muslim - we were born Muslim. I didn't go to a Muslim school, but it was just the theme song. It was ambient.
I do this for the sake of myself. It's a selfish process. I don't really have any expectations from anyone for your comments or your reviews or your previews.
You can't control it once you turn it into the label, so there's the expectation that it'll leak a week before the album comes out. That's the world we live in.
Sometimes I wish I never found the Internet. Sometimes I regret getting a laptop and Wi-Fi for logging into the Internet because it is such a distraction. If you have any addictive personality, the Internet will magnify it.
People don't understand that where I come from, everyone is either a convict, been in jail, been in a gang, is a hooligan of some sorts, but those are my brothers, my family and the people that I travel with. Those are the people that I roll with.
I was literally told for 'The Show Goes On' that I shouldn't rap too deep. I shouldn't be too lyrical. It just needs to be something easy on the eyes. Like a record company telling Picasso that we don't need these abstract interpretations of life, where people have to sit down and look at it and break it down.
I don't have to work on it. I'm naturally a writer. The rapping and writing, they can go hand-in-hand - but rapping is an art that you have to practice and master, so I worked at it for a long time.
Once you've been on tour six, seven years, you get an idea of what works and what doesn't work universally. There will be some crowds that we just can't play a song, but we've got 90% of a show that we know is going to be a hit with the Lupe Fiasco fan. I think the catering has already been done.
I definitely want to work with Thom Yorke. I want to work with Damien Marley; there's a few international artists I wouldn't mind working with - like Massacre Children would be ill, and I still have an affinity for the U.K. hip hop scene.
With Australian audiences, there's a certain level of education - as far as how much access and exposure they have to music from various genres. So when you do 'Big Day Out' and there are all these different musical acts, you see the same people in your crowd that were there for a completely different artist.
