Lupe Fiasco is set to drop his following by 2022 Drill Music in Zion as he links up once again with longtime producer Soundtrakk for a full-length project.
Samurai has a Friday, June 28th release date and only features eight tracks. a rarity in the age of streaming music. The single “Samurai” and the accompanying video were released today. Soundtrakk's production is refreshing as Lupe is posted to Chicago's Ping Tom Memorial Park to give us some elite “rap battles.”
Lupe explained the album's title in a press release, saying “The word 'samurai' means to serve. My relationship with that word has always meant that you have to be of service to other people, whether it's the overall community, or in this case, the larger rap community, which I've been a part of for years.”
If you've followed Lupe, you'll know that he's practiced various forms of martial arts and sometimes posts videos of himself practicing kata and sword techniques.
Lupe has also taught the Rap Studies course at MIT in Cambridge, MA since 2022, and has since become a fellow at Yale, sharing his unique perspective on the industry at large. This album is also the first project since 2007 The Cool that Lupe and his mentor/partner Charles “Chill” Patton have worked together. Chill had been serving a prison sentence since 2007 and was finally released in 2023 after serving 16 years.
“It was great to be back in the studio as a family,” the rapper noted.
Check out the album's artwork and tracklist below:
- “Samurai”
- “Mumble Rap”
- “Cake”
- “Palaces”
- “No. 1 headband”
- “big foot”
- “Outside”
- “Until Eternity”
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/lupe-fiasco-new-album-samurai-video-1235686400/