#soundtrakk

2018’s DROGAS WAVE was everything that I wanted in a Lupe Fiasco album. From the complex metaphors and rhyme schemes to the elaborate concepts along with fantastic production, I felt like Lupe truly redeemed himself from DROGAS Light and made one of his best albums. Lupe has been known for announcing albums that he has no plans of dropping as at one point, Light and Wave were supposed to be apart of this grand trilogy that were gonna be his last three albums. Of course, he threw all of that out the window and announced Drill Music In Zion, his 8th studio album which was apparently recorded in just 3 days, which you can kind of tell when you listen to this album. Similar to other albums I have reviewed this year, I do think this album is good but when you compare it to his other albums, that is a different story. DROGAS Wave had a lot of layered production with songs that were very structured to push forward a concept; you can that there was a plan. With DMIZ, none of that is there which is not necessarily a bad thing. I don’t need another DROGAS Wave but with this album, there is a clear dip in quality of the songs as the production is not exactly thrilling but is not at all bad. These aren’t the best beats he’s ever rapped on, but they are the right beats for what he is trying to do artistically. It is a nice change of pace for Lupe, who in the past has seemed to go in the super artistic direction or the super formulaic direction. The worst thing about this album are the hooks, which has never really been a problem for me when it comes to Lupe as he usually writes great hooks or has other singers do a great job. The hooks on AUTOBOTO and PRECIOUS THINGS definitely held the songs back for me as the rhyme schemes from Lupe are incredible. It seems effortless to be rapping at the highest level, especially since he wrote this album in a very short amount of time. The parts I dislike about this album do not mean that the whole album is bad—there are some musical choices I think Lupe could have made that would have improved the album but there is much more good on this album than bad. Now that I got the negatives out of the way, Lupe does what he does best and raps phenomenally. As far as the interesting title goes, there is no drill music on this album but what I took from the title is that the subgenre of drill, which originated in Chicago where Lupe is from so maybe the zion he is referencing could be referring to Chicago or maybe it is that the content of drill and the overall environment that drill rappers come from could lead them on a path out of that into a zion of a successful and less dangerous lifestyle. Despite my thoughts on some of the beats, Lupe floats beautifully over the beats especially on songs like GHOTI and AUTOBOTO. The biggest highlight of this album is the song MS. MURAL, another song in relation to 2015’s Mural (aka one of the greatest verses of all time) and 2018’s Mural Jr. Like the previous two songs, MS. MURAL draws parallels between real life and art as if art and life imitate each other at the exact same time. However, MS. MURAL lyrically takes a much less abstract approach than the other two songs do and takes the concept of Mural more literally as he compares music and painting using some pretty impressive entendres. He raps, “‘If you had to paint the gutter, which color would you choose?’ / Said the patron to the painter, the painter said, ‘The blues.’” It is moments like this that show why Lupe is one of the best ever. Drill Music In Zion seems to mark a new point in Lupe’s career as it is probably the least ambitious album he’s ever dropped but there is still plenty of depth and music to enjoy on it. Lupe seems free to rap because he wants to, not because he is trying to prove something like on songs like NAOMI. Plus it is his shortest album which is nice for a change.