Lupe Fiasco has offered a lot of insight into Child Rebel Soldier these days, a supergroup he formed with Kanye West and Pharrell. The group only released a couple of songs as a unit, but as quickly as it formed, it dissipated just as rapidly as each artist pursued their own career aspirations. Nevertheless, Lupe's most recent comments on the matter come courtesy of his appearance on Okayplayer's "The Almanac Of Rap" show. During this conversation, he spoke on how the group even came together, explaining their origin story after previous reflections on why the team called it quits.
"It was me rapping over Radiohead beats, right?" Lupe Fiasco said of his mid-2000s output. "And I just so happened to get P [Pharrell] to jump on the joint and then I think Ye heard it and was like, ‘I want to be on it too.’ And then it turned into like, ‘Oh, oh, this is pretty dope.’ [...] Somewhere in between that, was in the studio and P was like ‘Yo, we should just be a group and we should call it Child Rebel Soldier. Lupe, you gon' be the child, Ye gon' be the rebel, I’m going to be the soldier.’ [...] And then it was just like n***as got rich and crazy, then it was over with. But it was always a good idea, [we] could never… get together. […] P chasing fashion, Ye chasing fashion. […] To the point where it’s like, ‘Look, this s**t never finna happen.’"
Lupe Fiasco On "The Almanac Of Rap"
In addition, Lupe Fiasco also explained how Radiohead sent them a cease and desist over Child Rebel Solider's YouTube videos rapping over their instrumentals. "And that’s the end of CRS," he shared. While CRS' short tenure from 2007 to around 2013 seems unlikely to make a return, the story clearly continues to captivate the hip-hop world.
But Lupe Fiasco didn't give up all hope, as he released a Child Rebel Soldier-inspired cut, "SHRINK," which is sadly no longer available on YouTube. It looks like he still wants to play with the group's original ideas. We'll see if there's another chapter to this saga or if it's for the hip-hop history books...