- He's an American rapper,
record producer,
and entrepreneur.
He rose to fame in 2006
following the success of his debut album.
As an entrepreneur,
he's the CEO
of First and Fifteenth Entertainment.
He's Lupe Fiasco,
and here are his
top ten rules for success.
- Know what you want.
I always say that about anything.
It's my number one piece of advice
to anyone trying to be in any industry,
is know what you want.
Whether it be the most materialistic thing,
you want a million dollars,
and a house,
or you want to be recognized as
the best of the best.
Whatever,
you want ten Grammys,
whatever.
Just know what you want,
you know,
and then you'll know
what paths to take
to get there.
It's just,
you know,
recognizing taking everything serious,
you know what I'm saying?
Not really putting the age limit,
or any type of limitation on yourself.
You know as opposed to saying,
"I'm going to do that later",
it's like,
why don't you do that now?
You know?
And I think of me and my friends
when we were in high school
we decided to take music serious
and put ourselves in a position
where it was like,
do or die.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, if we don't do music to the fullest,
you know, we'll be homeless.
You know, for real like
we didn't have no...
We weren't thinking about going to college
or nothing.
- You would be homeless for real,
if it didn't work out in music,
(expletive beep) would be that
(expletive beep) up
that you would be out on the streets?
- We wouldn't have a job.
We put ourselves in a position
where we weren't going to go to school.
You know,
our future was music.
You know?
So we didn't have a back-up plan.
Our back-up plan was like,
get a government job,
like work for the Post Office
or somethin' like that.
For real, though.
I don't know if people believe that
but my homies will vouch for it
cause we actually did.
And that was kind of like the motivation,
you know,
the seriousness that we took it.
It was like,
"No, we gon' do music,
we gon' be rappers.
For real,
this is going to be our future".
You know I never want to do the same thing twice.
So it's like,
when you got the superstar,
or you got the Kick Push,
or you got the Agaci,
even in some instances.
You know,
it was like okay,
oh the show goes on.
Okay that's cool,
now I want to do something else.
I always want to expand,
I want my catalog of music
to be diverse,
so when you look back over time,
you can get a every Lupe album
and every song is something different.
And everything is a different look
or a different take on something.
It's not necessarily I just want
to get on radio,
cause that's not my thing.
My thing isn't to be on the radio all the time.
I tell the record company that,
my promo manager will tell you that,
everybody will tell you it's not,
you know Lupe is not really,
he's more with being socially conscious,
being socially aware,
speaking things that,
you know,
that is barred from the radio.
That's his thing.
To get you to play his songs on the radio
when you know you're not supposed to
be playing them.
That's the real fan.
- [Interviewer] It's saying so much.
- Exactly.
You really got to kind of
like just accept it.
Yeah, you hate me.
Like half the world hates me,
you know.
There are people that come up with
the wildest excuses to say that I'm ineligible,
I'm wack,
or I'm this.
And it will have nothing to do with anything.
I've had people
they couldn't find anything wrong with the show,
so they had to go to my shoes.
You know those people who
couldn't find anything wrong with the songs
so they have to talk about my hair,
you know?
It's just,
like...
And then once you accept that for what it is,
that there's a certain amount of people
that are always gon' be like that
no matter what you do.
And if I look back through my history
I really had to turn around
and was like
"you've always been the black sheep,
you've always been the outcast,
since high school
you had dudes that wanted to fight you
because they didn't like the way
you wore your glasses,
they wanted to fight you",
you know?
Me and Bishop G,
my man,
we first met cause he wanted to fight me.
(Interviewer laughing)
Walked into class,
"Yo, who are you?",
"Nigga, who are you?".
But it,
you know,
it's just when you embrace it and accept it.
And then you just send it back at 'em.
You know?
It was like,
I know you don't like me,
I don't want to (expletive beep) with you either.
I'm a point now where I felt
everything that I have to do,
or everything that I'm doing,
has to have
you know it has to have
longevity.
And it has to be like,
very real.
You know?
It's something that you can't argue.
We can argue politics,
we can argue how do we end the violence
or we how do we do this.
But you can't argue about fighting cancer.
And for me it was just a easier space
to deal with as an artist
for the backlash.
Cause like,
I dare you to say something about
this record.
I dare you to say something about this.
Um,
and even if you do it's great
'cause now we're having a conversation
about fighting cancer.
And that's a great thing to do-
raise awareness and hopefully raise some money
at the same time.
So it's a reaction to kind of that,
to kind of take myself out of
being the punching bag for people.
And then make music that I felt like,
if I die tomorrow,
you know,
I want songs to be like that.
I want you to remember what I did
like that.
You know,
Lupe put that into the world.
(rap music)
One of my, uh,
strengths is story telling
and concepts.
As opposed to just jibber-jabber
and jabbering.
So when I put together an album,
I kind of need a framework,
I need something to go off.
With 'Lasers' we had a manifesto.
With 'The Cool' we had this characters
and these story lines,
and this zombie who came back to life
and all these different kind of things
kind of used him.
So with this album,
it was like
okay, let me take something that's
like,
that exists,
America.
Let's talk about,
let's use America as a concept.
And let that be the character and everything.
So you know I just stuck to my guns,
what I'm strong at.
Me and Bishop G made a pact.
If we don't make it rapping
we going to work at the Post Office.
And it was like,
we writing raps all day
12 hours a day
Go home,
stay up,
go to school,
rap the rap that you wrote the night before
and do that for the next 16 weeks
type situation.
So,
you know,
for me it's about just the love of the art.
The love of putting words together.
And like I said,
luckily I'm at a,
because I think I came in with that already,
and I didn't need validation
from a record company-
this is my third record deal.
I got my first record deal when I was 19.
So I've seen it all,
I've been through it all.
The people that we've put in positions
and the things we've seen
and the projects that we've been behind
and we've never taken credit for.
You know it's crazy,
it'll blow your mind.
When the memoirs come out,
you'll be like,
"oh my God".
But, you know,
I have a different drive.
It's to create the best rap
that I can possibly create.
Even if no one understands it but me.
It all depends on what,
what makes sense.
You know if the opportunity is there to pursue it
in a real big way.
Some stuff I do just to do,
just to get it out the way.
I don't really try and feed myself into
the expectations of like,
other folks.
'Cause they could set you up for failure,
you know what I'm sayin'?
Like chasing those fans
"Yo we really want duduhduhduhduh".
You put it on and they don't buy it.
You know what I'm sayin'?
So that'll put you in a funky spot.
So it's moreso
for the next kind of phase,
it's just to do what works.
You know what I'm saying?
And we always been able to put out stuff that works.
- [Interviewer] Right.
- Even in the midst of all of the nonsense,
we still have a proven track record
of putting out joints that work.
So that's where the focus is,
let's put out what works.
And if the fans dig it and they draw to it,
cool.
If they don't, cool.
As long as it works
is where it's,
where we were trying to like
make sure that we don't fall into a trap.
Where we're kind of living up to the expectations
of people that don't support
in a financial capacity.
- [Interviewer] Right.
- Because you still got to pay the bills
- Damn, for real.
- It's real (expletive beep),
you got to pay the bills.
There's diamond rings and the whole thing
it's just a matter of like,
you know,
I know what I want out of life as a man.
And I know what I've always wanted.
And I know the things that I'm not gon' do.
There's certain songs that I'm not gon' make
for the sake of
get on the radio.
There's certain songs that I'm not gon' make
for the sake of
be heavy in the streets.
There's certain songs that I'm not gon' do
because to do that
you have to subjugate so much of your morals,
and so much of your ethics.
And that don't mean that you can't have
a nice car,
or a nice house
or some jewelry or something like that.
It's just how you talk about it.
And what you choose,
how you got it
is more important
than why you have it.
So, it's a very kind of interesting line to walk
in that sense
but hip-hop
in totality right now
is a very
I think it's a very terrible thing.
Most of the great masterpieces
that we look at in art,
and I compare myself to a masterpiece
'cause I think Tetsuo and Youth
is a masterpiece.
I don't give a (expletive beep) what you think.
But most masterpieces
that we look at in museums
and we go to and laud over these paintings,
and pay $100 for
and stand in line and do all this stuff.
They were hated when they were first made.
They were rejected by
the main things at the time
which was going platinum as a painter
or doing whatever.
A lot of these artists passed away,
died.
It took hundreds of years for their work
to be recognized
and being put in a position like that.
And it was all type of fairy tales
and stories and biographies and stuff
attached to it along the way.
And then it was who owned it,
who stood in front of it and took a picture.
A lot of the art was stolen by Hitler
and it became like
a badge of honor to put this in a museum
because it represented the fall of Nazi culture
and stuff like that.
So there's tons of-
speaking of art, specifically-
there's tons of narratives and things
that people we think
everything that drops
is supposed to be great and enjoyed
right now.
And sometimes it takes 10 years,
15 years,
100 years
for stuff to kind of really get it's true thing.
But as of right now,
we dealin' in right now.
People going to say it's a failure,
'cause we only did so much.
We only sold so many copies,
so it's a failure.
There's people who don't like Lupe at all.
There's people who turned off they radios
when they seen I was coming,
waiting for me to get off.
So they can go back to whatever the next segment
is gon' be without me being on it.
So it's understood what it is.
But that doesn't take away
from what this album is.
That it's one of the best albums
that dropped in the past 10 years.
It's probably my best work that I've ever done
which speaks to a lot
because what was considered my best work
is miles ahead of the next nigga (expletive beep)
you know.
(laughing)
It's true!
- I like that.
It's true,
I never put bull (expletive) in the game.
- Yep. True.
You go through my whole history
it's all about empowering,
showing balance,
getting you to think I've never hit you
with dumb bull-(expletive bleep).
- [Interviewer] Never.
- Thank you so much for watching.
I made this video because
Juan Rivera asked me to.
So if there's a famous entrepreneur
that you want me to profile next,
leave it in the comments below,
and I'll see what I can do.
I'd also love to know
which of top 10 rules
you like the most,
resonated the most with you.
Leave it in the comments
and I'm going to join in the discussion.
Thank you so much for watching.
Continue to believe
and I'll see you soon.