Fiasco has his MC act together.

Byline: Marian Liu

Sep. 16--He has been hailed as hip-hop's next great MC. Lupe Fiasco won't admit it about himself, but the Chicago rapper, 24, has worked extensively with Kanye West and has received quite a bit of buzz.

His album "Food & Liquor" was leaked online before it was completed, causing its release to be pushed back. It drops next week, and his "Kick, Push" single, blending his love of hip-hop and skateboarding, has been a hit. In person, Fiasco, known for his clever lyrics, is humble and contemplative. He gave this interview earlier this summer at the Moses Music store in Oakland, before Fiasco's Blockyard concert date near the store. How did you get the name Lupe Fiasco? My real name is Wasalu (Wasalu Muhammad Jaco), so I always rapped under "lu" or "lu-lu," or "Lyrical Underdog," or something about "lu." When I was in high school, I had a homie named Lupe, and I said, "Yo, I'm going to take your name." He said, "All right, give it some flair," so I said, "OK," so I became Lupe. Fiasco came from Nas (who) had an album called "The Firm," and a song called "Firm Fiasco." And I liked the way it looked, so I became Lupe Fiasco. Do you agree with the label you've been given as a hip-hop pioneer? Nah, I don't agree with that. How would you describe yourself then? I do too much to be described as one thing. I guess I'm an observer, a storyteller. I just tell what's there. I'm not reinventing the wheel or doing anything spectacular outside of the box. Do you have a process when you create? Yeah. Normally, I'll just have a concept, or it'll be as simple as just a word, like "champagne" -- so how can I create that into a character, or make that into a story, or make that into something else, or create a metaphor? Then it starts happening. The Rain Man starts taking over. Why the name "Food & Liquor" for your album?

In Chicago, a lot of the corner stores are called Food & Liquor -- Mike's Food & Liquor, Mose's Food & Liquor -- and so I've only seen that in Chicago, and I've traveled to a lot of places. . . . And on the other side, I don't drink or smoke. So drinking always had a bad connotation with me. So liquor represents the bad, and food represents the good. So: Lupe Fiasco, bad and good. Is that hard, the not drinking? Nah, because I'm Muslim, so it's been in me ever since I was a baby. It's been easy. I have no motivation to drink at all.

What part of your faith do you put in your music? It's more subtle. It's more just (that) I try not to talk about anything negative . . . like I don't put down women. I don't talk about drugs. . . . I don't try to blow a rhyme about nonsense. It stems from that morality.

What about hip-hop drew you in? I grew up, and I got around my friends who liked that kind of music, so it was like, you like that kind of music, all right, I like that music, too. Not really a peer pressure thing, but being around your homies; that's what your homies listen to, so you by nature, that's what you listen to, too. But then as I came up, I discovered other kinds of hip-hop. Then it was like, OK, it's not all shoot-them-up-bang-bang. How did you meet Kanye?

I've been knowing Kanye for years. I knew Kanye before he was rapping, like when he did "The Truth" for Beanie Sigel. (The) relationship is a complicated one. I helped him out with some certain things behind the scenes, and he helped me out, with "Touch the Sky" as well. Your album got leaked on the Internet. How did that happen? I don't know how it happened. People say I did it. People say my company did it, but we didn't. Like the song titles are not even right. It's a situation where somebody had a hold of a group of songs . . . not the final version of the album. And out of those -- I think it was 18 songs, or 16 songs -- it was only like seven songs off (those) that were going to make the final album. How has it been bouncing from different labels? I've been on Epic, I was on Arista, and now it's 1st and 15th/Atlantic. It's been cool, just a learning experience, nothing too major. What did you learn from all that? The importance of creative control, the importance of decision making . . . You can't dangle anything in front of me. I'm not star-struck. I'm not taking a humongous check to sell my soul. . . . Like, you don't want to be in this magazine? Like, no, because they exploit women. So I can rest on my morals a little bit more, because I know what the music business has to offer, and I know how to circumvent and get what I need out of it without playing myself. Contact Marian Liu at mliu@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-2740. Fax (408) 271-3786. Read her music blog at www.mercextra. com/aei.

Copyright (c) 2006, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

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