With such a strong and loyal following, the message circulated with extreme haste, from Blackberry to iPhone, from Twitter to Facebook, from Blogger to Tumblr. Lupe Fiasco’s highly buzzed about “Laser Show” was suddenly taking place. That Thursday afternoon, the Chi-town rapper notified his fans via Twitter that something special was going down in Union Square at 7pm sharp, in the famous cultural epicenter for young skateboarders, college students, and mc’s. Having waited three years for the label to finally release Lupe’s third studio project, entitled “Lasers,” thousands of fans made the trip from across the boroughs to eagerly find out, what the self proclaimed “friend of the people” had in store.
The result: a grand fiasco in front of Filene’s basement that had the potential for a dangerous turn…
Sometime around 7:20pm, 20 minutes after the mystery event was supposed to occur, the mob started becoming anxious. It was at that moment when an ambulance making its way down 14th street caught the attention of the masses when it triggered its siren and starting flashing its lights. “That’s gotta be him!” said the shared intuitive thought of the restless crowd… and so they beamed towards vehicle like lasers in the night.
It turned out that the patron inside of the ambulance was actually a sick person (not lyrically, literally), who probably suffered significantly more trauma with hundreds of people standing outside, peering into the windows, preventing it from moving.
It was around that time when Lupe sent out another message instructing his fans to look up at the building, and there it was…a projection on the side of a building….a f*ckin ad.
NO, he was not gathering people to participate in the Egypt rally (which was also scheduled to take place that day). No there wasn’t any sort of guest speaker, nor was a surprise performance in which he would shock his lasers with the debut of his throne / helicopter rocking chair. It was….a f*ckin marketing ploy.
I could easily use the words of Ed Lover in this context, but that phrase does not honestly convey the new sense of skepticism I have for the guy from Madison Street. Having stirred up a great deal of consciousness with his most recent song, “Words I Never Said,” which has gained such positive momentum within the past week, Lupe had the potential to do something progressive or even, dare I use this term, revolutionary that evening in union square. With a whole fan base nodding their heads to references of Palestinian oppression in Israel, and cosigning lines like “Obama didn’t say sh*t, that’s why I didn’t vote for him,” Fiasco could have very easily used that opportunity to further his message to the people, encouraging to beam into action, instead the wasted energy resonated disappointed fans.
Last month Curtis “50 cent” Jackson, received much scrutiny for using twitter to coerce his followers into purchasing stock in the company that will be releasing his brand new Sleek headphones in March.* In all honesty, how was Lupe’s use of social networking any different?
In all likelihood, it’s probable that Fiasco simply did not think this one out all the way through. It’s also possible that this can be seen as an extreme case of telephone, and if so, then cool, we all take Ls and move forward. But there’s nothing more fraudulent than one glorifying the image of being a revolutionary for their own capital gain, and not complimenting those verses on wax with real revolutionary acts.
At the end of the day I’m still a supporter of the music because at the end of the day, it’s what the people need to be hearing. This was just a sound check before The Show Goes On…
…Webster Hall March 7th
- Posted using BlogPress from iPhone
Labels: Food for Thought
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