The always mercurial Lupe Fiasco has flirted with the idea of retirement for the past five years, and most recently after a dust-up with Chief Keef, Lupe announced on Twitter that he would be retiring. Now, while touring in Australia, Lupe took some time to clarify what his 'retirement' will entail. The Chicago artist says he will be stepping away from making hip hop music after he has filled his contractual obligations with his label, but will still be involved in making music, and is even considering changing his name.
Just taking a look at the name of his latest album Food & Liquor 2: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1, and it's plain to see that Lupe intends to release more music. He says that he still needs to complete two more albums for his label, so he will drop Part 2, and the follow-up Skulls, but after that, don't expect to see much hip hop from him. Lupe says, via HHDX, "Contractually, I still have to do another record if the label picks it up," adding, "But even after this part one and part two [of Food & Liquor 2] I'm basically kind of done, because that album is even almost finished. I won't make music for commercial purposes after that."
While stepping away from commercially viable music, The Cool emcee will still be heavily involved in making music of other genres, and may even make more rap albums in the future, but it won't be as "Lupe Fiasco", "It'll more just be kind of artistic and developing my other music projects, so we've got SNDCLSH, my DJ[-based] kind of electro kind of thing, and then Japanese Cartoon. which is my punk band. I don't even know if Lupe Fiasco is gonna exist after Skulls, I might even just do a name change or something like that…if I feel like making a rap album, then I'll make it."
Lupe has been consistently inconsistent in his plans for retirement, so we still don't know what this all means. It will be intriguing to keep an eye on Lupe Fiasco after he is able to leave his label and be independent. Perhaps the artistic freedom will inspire him to continue to produce hip hop records.
