Kanye West sent out one tweet that he would be releasing a song called “Perfect B-tch” about Kim Kardashian and it got more attention than Lupe’s song. Of course, there are several reasons Lupe’s revolution hasn’t been accepted as it should.
Lasers was a horrible album and it’s been years since Lupe dropped his last good project, The Cool. Lu is also known for inflammatory statements that sound more like cries for attention than anything grounded in fact or belief (the “Obama kills babies” comments for example). Fiasco is also known to take out his anger on bloggers and the Internet. And he’s been called an a$$hole by most people I mention him to (even though he’s been nothing but friendly every time I’ve met him).
This is the former golden child of Hip-Hop, realizing his potential as a “game-changer” and doing just that.
All of this has created a cocktail of anti-Lupe sentiment that greets most of anything he does with disdain or apathy. In actuality, his past perceptions should be put to the side for a song like “B-tch Bad.” This isn’t the grand-standing Lupe Fiasco that says things to get a rise out of critics. This is the former golden child of Hip-Hop, realizing his potential as a “game-changer” and doing just that.
Lupe Fiasco has done his part. He’s released a song that challenged the status quo in rap and challenges us to change and do better. “B-tch Bad” is that rare song that can captivate academia and the streets. The rest is up to us to give the song and the dialogue the attention it deserves. We’re screaming out “we want real Hip-Hop” so loud that we’re missing the realest Hip-Hop song to come our way in a long time. We’re cursing the radio so much that we haven’t stopped to pay attention to the song that can change the game.
“B-tch Bad” is what Hip-Hop needs. And if it doesn’t affect change then we’ll only have ourselves to blame.
