Lupe Fiasco’s Sound Safari

As twilight crept over the manicured lawns of the Melbourne Zoo, the diverse crowd assembled to watch Chicagoan rapper Lupe Fiasco began to get restless. Gates had opened at 5.30, on a beautiful late-summer Friday afternoon.

Lupe (real name Wasalu Muhammad Jaco) was supported in his Sound Safari concert by local hip hop and soul artists including Phrase, True Live, Lowrider, Diafrix and Space Invadas. All of these acts received appropriately solid levels of appreciation from the crowd. But everyone was there for the main man, and as the exorbitantly priced drinks flowed and numbers swelled, the pressure rose.

A boy with red eyes picked a fight with security, and was tackled to the ground by three burly men. Audience members caught smoking sneakily inside the grounds were tersely ordered to put them out or get out, a measure designed to protect butt-hungry birds from their own curiosity. Lupe’s own mixer and back up singer could be seen outside the front gates offering free comp tickets to passersby, explaining that his own invited VIP guests had failed to show.

Only one man could defuse the tension, and as Lupe ascended the stage at 9.15 he met with roars of approval. Beginning with an extensive sampling of songs from his forthcoming third album Lasers, Lupe’s first song to really rev the crowd up came with the singalong affirmations of “Hip-hop Saved My Life”, from 2007’s The Cool. Throughout the ninety minute set, a noticeable trend emerged as the most popular songs from The Cool – “Go Go Gadget Flow”, “Superstar”, “Paris, Tokyo”, “Little Weapon” – and from Lupe’s 2006 debut, Food & Liquor – “I Gotcha”, “Daydreamin’” – were rapturously received, whilst material from Lasers met with curious interest and polite approbation. There were some standouts from among the new songs: “Beautiful Lasers” is the closest Lupe has come to composing a slow love song; and first single “Shining Down” seems likely to garner commercial radio airplay.

The song of the night was Lupe’s performance of his near-perfect ode to youth and skateboarding, “Kick, Push”, which energized the crowd and reached noise levels which most likely woke new baby elephant Mali in her enclosure. The only disappointments of the night were the major omission of Lupe’s best song, “Hurt Me Soul”; and his lack of any encore, which would have assuredly pushed the crowd to even greater levels of adulation.

Overall, the concert was impressive, and demonstrated why Lupe has achieved such a high level of critical acclaim. His ability to marry complex, unusual rhymes with diverse beats, infusing his lyrics with political and social consciousness rather than the standards of hos, Gs and drugs, is rare in the hip hop world. It is this factor, and his strong Muslim faith, which distinguish him from the majority of his contemporaries. Live, Lupe does not lower his performance standards for one minute, never missing a rhyme or pausing to catch his breath. He is the consummate hip hop artist, and his is entirely a class act.

Lupe Fiasco’s Sound Safari
5.30pm Friday, 26 February 2010
@ The Melbourne Zoo
www.soundsafari.com.au