Lupe talks why he only wants yellow M&Ms, living in Paris, & his novel.

He talks about a novel he is working on, his Chicago anthem, how Chris Brown declined to appear on The Cool, & how he wants nothing to do with Vibe.

I may be late..but it wouldn't be the first time. You take that how you want to...

Some of the main interesting parts for the lazy who don't feel like reading the whole thing.

Briefly run down the concept for your new album.

For this album, it picks up on a [song] from the first album called “The Cool,” which is about a hustler who gets killed and comes back to life and who digs his way out of his own grave, and goes back to his old neighborhood and gets robbed by these two kids, ironically with the same gun he was shot with. I kind of took that story and expanded on it. I just started to tie in all these different stories and characters and plots, to make it kind of the pre-history for “The Cool.” So, it’s about how The Cool starts off as this little boy, he grows up without a father, he’s raised by The Game, falls in love with The Streets, goes on to be this big-time hustler, gets killed, and comes back to life. He ends up at the crossroads with the little kids.

I went back and took the little boy from “He Say She Say,” off the first album, and now he’s The Cool. The three main characters, The Cool, The Streets, and The Game, they’re all walking, talking characters. The Cool is played by Kadeem Hardison, from A Different World. The Streets has dollar signs for eyes, and tattoos of all her slain boyfriends across her chest. She’s like a temptress, almost. When you see her tattoos you see Al Capone and Alexander the Great and King Tut. And then you have The Game, who is an amalgamation of all of those vices in the world. He has dice for eyes, he has bullets for teeth, he has crack pipes for lungs, and he breathes crack smoke, and his suit is made out of blackened dollar bills. It’s a really graphic, really intense kind of character.

[The concept is] only on five records, and some of it is done kind of abstractly. The artwork ties everything in, and if you want, you can go backwards into [my] albums and the mixtapes, and figure out the characters and the story. A lot of my fans are doing that now. It really has kind of a cinematic feel to it.


The Cool seems pretty light on big name guest appearances and producers. Did you consider trying to get will.i.am and T-Pain and Akon and all of them?

I had a song called “Blackout,” which is probably going to pop up on one of these store’s bonus tracks, and I was trying to get Chris Brown on it. And they turned us down. [Laughs.] I was like, “Oh, okay.” So, that was probably the only attempt to try to get somebody huge. But, I really like Chris Brown. He’s dope.

Your new song “Gotta Eat” is told from the perspective of a cheeseburger, and it’s about the lack of healthy food in many black neighborhoods. Do you avoid trans fats and fast food and all that?

No, not at all. I’ll eat a bowl of grease. Solidified, white, crusted, all with a spoon....

Want more? Read the rest of the interview here at Village Voice thanks to Def Sounds.