Writer: Mr. Otis | Photography: Estevan Oriol
Venice Beach, California, isn’t the first place you usually go to find out what’s next in hip-hop. But when the summer airwaves are crackling with “Kick, Push”—a laid-back rap ode to skateboarding—what better place is there to investigate than Dogtown?
    It’s here that we’re going to meet the man behind that song, a young Chicago rapper named Lupe Fiasco (born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco). “Kick, Push” is the first single from Lupe’s rookie release, Food & Liquor—so named as a nod to the ubiquitous corner stores that are the staple of Chicago’s inner-city neighborhoods.
    Like all skeptical skateboarders, I was curious to see if “Kick, Push” was borne from true skate cred or just an attempt to capitalize on a niche market. The answer came as soon as we wrap the interview; Lupe stands up, grabs my board, and pulls off a nice little kick flip. Rodney Mullen he’s not, but pretty impressive for a guy who gets paid to rhyme.
    The fact that he can actually ride a skateboard isn’t something he’s going to spend too much time on though; he’s got bigger fish to fry. Lupe’s been doing some thinking; he’s got things to say and a bucket-load of creative ways to say them. And people are listening.
    While Lupe may be a new name to most, he’s a known quantity to the rap cognoscenti. Following in the footsteps of 50 Cent and fellow Chi-town rhymesmith Kanye West, among others, Lupe has already sent reams of rhymes directly to the streets via mixtapes, MySpace, and various other viral and underground channels. He’s also got a Grammy under his belt and his own record label, 1st & 15th/Atlantic.
    “If I had to name one person,” said Jay-Z when recently asked who would take the reigns of hip-hop for the next generation, “I would have to say Lupe. He is making the most creative, different new music. It’s fresh.” That’s big praise for someone who hasn’t even released a proper album. But if you get your hands on his new album, you may be a believer too.

RISEN Magazine: How many kids were in your family?
Lupe Fiasco: Nine—five girls and four boys. I’m the youngest boy and the fourth youngest overall.

RM: How did growing up in such a big family treat you?
LF: A lot of it was satellite. A lot of it is half-brothers and half-sisters. We all didn’t live in the same household, so we had space. And the ages ranged from 32 all the way down to 4. So it was different households, different marriages, so we all had our space and we all had our time. It wasn’t like nine of us like the Brady Bunch—running around, lagging, committing suicide in the shower. It wasn’t like that. We all got our attention and everything.

RM: What was your neighborhood like?
LF: The neighborhood was bad. There were a lot of gangs, a lot of shooting and stuff like that. But that was juxtaposed with a lot of culture. My mother’s household, as well as my father’s household, were full of a lot of different culture. There was National Geographic, as simple as that may seem, we had like a hundred and fifty of them. We had a vast record collection. There was a lot of positive reinforcement from my family and my parents. They pushed us and kept us from being completely sucked down into it all. All of my siblings are still here.
    It was a good experience even though it was so bad. It taught us that there was a reality to the world. It also taught us how to survive. We came from poor. Even though we had, we were still poor. Once you experience that, you have no place to go but up. So if you come back down, you know how to survive. But if you start up and then come down, you don’t know what to do. Then you go crazy and you’re living homeless on Venice Beach.

RM: Was your family into community activism?
LF: My father was a real activist. He had karate schools that were non-profits and he would open them up in the worst neighborhoods on purpose. So he would go find an [abandoned] building and open it up. And there would be different crack spots in that area. And before he would open the doors to the karate school, he would go around and shut down all the crack spots and all the little gang hideouts and that kind of stuff on that entire block.

RM: How would he shut them down?
LF: With a 9mm. He was a martial arts expert. I remember this vividly…when I moved with my father to the suburbs from the west side—it wasn’t the “good” suburbs, it was the “bad” suburbs—so instead of the crack spot being in the same building, it was next door. It was a house. And I remember he went to the house with his gun in his hand and he was like [motioning a gun at eye level] “Yo, you all got to go.” And they left. So he was real proactive.

RM: We spoke with Afeni Shakur a few issues ago and she thought that hip-hop’s main problem was a fear of learning. Would you agree with that?
LF: No, I think it’s a lack of honesty as opposed to a fear of learning. A lot of rappers are smart; a lot of people are learned. People, even the general consumer, are not as dumb as people think they are. I had to learn that.
    But for me, the problem with hip-hop is a lack of honesty and a lack of responsibility.

RM: What do you mean by honesty?
LF: People [in the hip-hop industry] don’t want to say that we’re the problem. Rappers don’t ever want to point the finger at themselves. Hip-hop ne