Lupe Fiasco’s Exit Stategy

True enough. Fiasco personally eschews drugs and alcohol, and "Baba Says Cool for Thought," the first track on The Cool, undercuts the thug mentality by way of some derisive imagery: "They think it's cool to stand on the block/Hiding products in their socks/Making quick dime-bag dollars." But the cut is followed immediately by "Free Chilly," a shout-out to Charles Patton, Fiasco's partner in the 1st and 15th record label, who was sentenced in 2007 to 44 years in stir on charges related to a Cook County, Illinois, arrest for possessing six kilos of heroin. Although Fiasco was never formally accused of complicity in illicit matters, the state's case links 1st and 15th and smack peddling — a troubling connection given the rhymer's straight-edge reputation. He admits that he finds the general public's eagerness to buy this scenario to be frustrating, if unsurprising. "I know that certain stereotypes are certain people's reality, so it's almost like it's expected," he says. "On a really base level, it's like, here are these black guys from the hood having all this success, so there has to be something lascivious there. It's that stereotype, and I know some people believe it. But understanding that keeps me sane. It keeps me rational in what are sometimes the most irrational situations."

This attitude has helped Fiasco handle the hoopla that's attended his claim in a recent interview that he'd rather Hillary Clinton be elected president than Barack Obama, an African-American senator from his home state. He hardly sees himself as a Hillary booster, and dismisses his inclination toward her campaign as a trivial preference based entirely on gender. "For more than 200 years, the country's always been led by men, and there have always been problems. Let's see what happens with a woman. Just roll the dice and see what happens with a woman," he says. "And that's really it. It's really that non-thought-out and basic of a statement to make. Because the more thought-out argument I have is, I don't have faith in the system. I don't have faith that any candidate represents our whole idea of democracy," a noble principle whose origins are far from unstained. As he notes, "The Greek definition of democracy was written by people who owned slaves, who believed that women shouldn't vote and that slaves shouldn't vote, that people outside the capital shouldn't vote, and that the farmers shouldn't vote — that it was only for landowners and the elite." He thinks those who believe a new president will solve all their problems would be better off focusing their energy on local elections that might actually impact the way they live day to day.

Meanwhile, Fiasco isn't acting like a man ready to hang up his microphone. Items on his agenda include Child Rebel Soldier, a proposed hip-hop supergroup that would team him with Kanye West and Pharrell — if, that is, enough red tape can be slashed. "The CRS project is a monster, a seven-headed monster in itself, because there are three different record labels and three different, active artists on three different parts of the planet at any given time," he says. "Always when we brought up, like, 'Let's do CRS,' somebody would be like, 'All right, but I've got to go to Germany. I'll be right back.'"

Nevertheless, Fiasco insists that he's 85 percent certain he'll withdraw as a solo artist following the release of a third album, to be called L.U.P.End. But that leaves him some wiggle room in case he's beseeched to continue by someone like Cornel West, the Princeton professor whose suggestion that we have to "make it cool to be uncool" gave his latest CD its title and theme. "I actually just did the Tavis Smiley show, and he brought up Cornel West," Fiasco says. "He was talking about how one of Cornel West's lectures at Princeton is all about Lupe Fiasco. So to know that is there and to continue to give him material for his lectures...well, that's part of the other 15 percent."

Visit http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/ for more of our interview with Lupe Fiasco.