Fruity Loops

I'm not exactly sure what set Charles Hamilton off against Lupe Fiasco personally. But I could see why Lupe might take issue with Hamilton.

As similar as Lupe and Hamilton might be stylistically, Charles Hamilton might have even more in common with Soulja Boy in their approach to the game. As children of the Internet Age, both rappers are more than just your typical Net-savvy artist. Shit, Myspace is littered with droves of garbage rappers, singers, and artists trying to make it by hitting up random people with creepy friend requests and robotic automated messages. But, as Jeff Weiss points out with Soulja Boy and DocZeus with Hamilton, both these rappers have taken digital self-promotion a step further by actually focusing their music around the promotion of their Internet ventures whether it be Soulja Boy's website and Youtube channel or Charles Hamilton's various blogs. And they don't just randomly shout out their web addresses at the end of a song like a DJ drop or something. They've made it their album title and a hook of a song. Then of course, these web ventures serve only to promote the music, which sends you back to the website, which feeds you their latest music--you get the point.

This weird loop of product promotion is exactly what Lupe was criticizing on the bonus track on his first album, Food & Liquor.


Lupe Fiaso "What It Do"

First of all, the song, "What It Do", is pretty fuckin unlistenable. I'm not really down with these staccato string hits that rappers seem to think sound any good, as if every single fuckin instrument in a rap song has to be used percussively. Although it's hard to blame them for the strings because, with drums that flat, I'd try to make up for it too. And of course on top of that, half of Lupe's rhymes don't make any goddamn sense. But strangely enough, this vomit-inducing quality of the song is part of the point Lupe makes.

In the decipherable part of his verses, Lupe rhymes from the perspective of a consumer caught in this promotional loop. Lu goes back and forth, back and forth rhyming about the TV show that led him to buy the CD that led him to buy the DVD which came with another CD which prompts him to check out the making-of on TV. He keeps rhyming the same words over and over and over again to mimic this tangled loop that he's gotten caught in. Pretty cleverly, he even starts slipping with the grammar later in the song, telling you to "catch the rerun" if you miss what he says on the CD, as if he's starting to lose his grip on reality because the lines between the two products are blurring. The crap beat and the meaningless lyrics just add to the nauseating feeling brought on by this cross-promotional bullshit.

And Charles Hamilton is definitely on this cross-promotional bullshit.

So while I don't know what exactly Charles Hamilton has against Lupe Fiasco, it makes sense that there would be beef somewhere along the line. Because they are opposed in their approach to marketing, which in this case, means they are opposed also in their approach to music. Add to that the salt of your music being compared to his music that you don't feel, and you can see where the hate comes from.

Or, yknow, maybe Lupe really did just fuck his girlfriend.