Consumer Guide Album

Lupe Fiasco: Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor [Atlantic, 2006]
Why do so many rappers of the everyday come from Chicago? Fiasco follows Common, Capital D, Rhymefest and of course his homey Kanye West, who is definitely part of the explanation. Though I wish the beats were less corny-orchestral, Fiasco marks his own turf in a three-song sequence that would have led the second side back in the day. The not-quite-nightmarish "Daydreamin'," the thug-life-after-death fable "The Cool" and the free-accelerating "Hurt Me Soul," which begins with Too Short calling women bitches and ends in the geopolitical sinkhole we all inhabit, prove it isn't just realists who describe real life. And the two takes on his signature "Kick Push" hope that everyday life isn't always a sinkhole. A-