Featured: Lupe Fiasco arriving on set of The Late Show with David Letterman Show

Lupe Fiasco recently appeared on the David Letterman show with unsurmountable applause. A self-made Hip Hop star who has quickly climbed the charts with his Laser album reaching number one and as featured as a Hip Hop pic since day one at our sister magazine site at http://www.disilgold.com/ , he is set to cover http://www.xxlmag.com/ this May.  A brief  article intro by Thomas Golioanopoulos is featured. Here is a teaser:

Back in 2009, when Lupe Fiasco was in the middle of recording his third album, at the Record Plant in Los Angeles, his label, Atlantic Records, froze his entire budget. Executives were unhappy with his version of “Nothin’ on You,” a no-brainer No. 1 smash the label had gift wrapped for Lupe, so they requested a meeting with him in New York. The summit took place on a Sunday night at Chin Chins, the Midtown Manhattan Chinese restaurant favored by Mafia wannabes and expense-account-brandishing power brokers.

Atlantic Records Chairman and CEO Craig Kallman and Chairwoman and COO Julie Greenwald joined Lupe, his assistant and a cell phone that was placed in the middle of the table. On speaker was Lupe’s manager and business partner, Charles “Chilly” Patton, who is serving a 44-year prison sentence on drug charges.Lupe set the tone by leaving on his coat. He also didn’t order food. From there, it unraveled. According to Lupe, Kallman took a personal swipe. “We talked to the producers, and they said your verses were wack,” Kallman said, as Lupe remembers it. “Yo, your verses were wack.

PHOTO BY SCOTT COUNCIL (XXLMAG.COM)

”This is the kind of criticism that can shatter a sensitive artist, and the 29-year-old rapper from Chicago says he later contemplated suicide. “It follows you everywhere,” he tells of the depression that overtook him. “The way you rationalize things gets titled through that mentality.” In the song “Beautiful Lasers,” which would finally see the light of day early this year, Lupe mentions keeping a gun on his table. “That was literal.

I own a ton of them.” The album, mostly complete, but without a release date set, languished. Months passed.Things started to turn around for Lupe in late 2010, even as “Nothin’ on You” slipped from his fingers and became the breakout hit for Atlantic rookie B.o.B. An online petition demanding the release of Lupe’s album collected more than 33,000 signatures, and in October, fans organized a rally outside of Atlantic Records’ New York offices. It was dubbed Fiasco Friday. The prospect of thousands of chanting, shouting Lupe loyalists helped convince the label to put more effort into working things out with its artist, and a solid release date was finally set. The album, Lasers, would come out March 8, 2011.This text is in color.

 

No one knew Lupe looked this good. For a minute we just heard of him and now he’s a rock star.