Lupe Fiasco puts Chi-Town on his back with Drill Music In Zion
Could you use some new Lupe Fiasco in your life? Look no further than what he’s doing with ‘Drill Music In Zion’ and those signature flows.
Lupe Fiasco’s Drill Music In Zion is repeat mode goals
The hip-hop veteran shows no signs of slowing down or loosening up his rap bars. Instead, he goes all in with his witty new anthem clocking in at nearly five minutes.
Produced by Lupe's longtime collaborator Soundtrakk, "DRILL MUSIC IN ZION" bears little resemblance to the genre in its title, blending crisp, East Coast-style drums with dreamy bebop horns and atmospheric piano. Creeping through the beat's negative spaces, Lupe Fiasco examines the way greed transforms each interaction into a transaction, and how the profit motive corrodes our collective humanity: "Position jostlers monitor hegemonics/Robots make the robots that solder electronics/Nostradamus couldn't bother to keep a promise/Logic's on a rocket, where profit defeats the conscience." Lupe ties together his anecdotes with his gently-crooned hook, which slyly comments on how art created amidst strife–such as the drill music that originated in Lupe's hometown of Chicago–becomes entertainment for the comfortable masses.
The full length album is coming too
It’s more than just a song. Lupe is low-key gearing up to bless the world with a full-fledged new studio LP.
"DRILL MUSIC IN ZION" is the latest glimpse of Lupe's next album, also titled DRILL MUSIC IN ZION. The product of a burst of thoughtful spontaneity, Lupe created the new album over a short period, diving into a folder of beats sent by Soundtrakk and emerging with a fully-realized album in just three days. The album is home to "AUTOBOTO" ft. Nayirah, the mischievous, playful, and deceptively dense single that earned praise from Financial Times, Complex, and more. DRILL MUSIC IN ZION arrives on June 24th via 1st & 15th/Thirty Tigers.
It’s been a long time for Lupe
While he’s been doing this a long time, it’s been years since Fiasco has dropped a full-fledged studio LP. The new album will be his first album since well before the pandemic.
His first new album since 2018's Drogas Wave, DRILL MUSIC IN ZION marks the start of another chapter in Lupe's illustrious career. The proud Chicago native has already had a busy 2022, marked with sold out shows, new music, and much more. Last week, Lupe shared "Galveston," an Apple Music-exclusive track that explores the origins of Juneteenth. Lupe recently closed out his "Food & Liquor Tour," a series of performances in which he plays his debut album in full. He paid tribute to his hometown in the reflective, self-produced "100 Chicagos," and dug into the archives to share "Hustlaz," a previously-unreleased song originally recorded before the release of the now-classic debut album Food & Liquor. Beyond music, Lupe continues to focus on the community organizations he founded, including We Are M.U.R.A.L, The Neighborhood Start-Up Fund, Society of Spoken Art, and his cross-cultural content venture, Studio SV. Earlier this year, Lupe accepted a professorship at MIT, where he will teach a special subjects course on rap in spring 2023.
