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Once heralded as the second coming of socially conscious independent rap, Chicago native Lupe Fiasco is now a household name in the hip-hop community.
Having parlayed multiple mixtape successes and cameo appearances on hit records by the likes of Kanye West into a buzz worthy of fellow Windy City compatriot Common, Fiasco is far from the underground legend he was a mere 18 months ago.
Sunday’s appearance at the Newport Music Hall marked another stop on Fiasco’s East Coast college and university tour, appearing at Ohio State to help raise money for the Ohio Union Activity Board’s BuckeyeThon charity. All of the money raised by Fiasco’s sold-out appearance went to support Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Children’s Miracle Network. Tickets were $5.
Opening the show was hip-hop act Fly.Union, a four piece comprised of Columbus natives. Fly.Union are in the middle of a promotional tour hyping their soon to be released album “You’re Welcome,” due out at the end of March. Decked out in fitted jeans and colorful T-shirts, Fly.Union rocked the crowd with their newest tracks and had the place throwing flat-brimmed caps into the air.
Fiasco entered to a roaring ovation and quickly shot into classic tracks from his earliest mixtapes and first album. Calling out his “classic” fans, Fiasco jumped into “The Instrumental” followed closely by “I Gotcha” and his first hit, “Kick, Push.” Tracks from “The Cool,” Fiasco’s latest release, brought down the house. Fans played artist on most of the songs, and Fiasco occasionally cut out the backing track entirely to rhyme at an impressively accelerated pace.
Midway through the show, after hitting the crowd with a hyped-up and shirtless rendition of “Gold Watch,” Fiasco introduced singer and fellow 1st and 15th Entertainment labelmate Matthew Santos to sing “Happy Birthday” to a lucky lady in the audience. After serenading the crowd, Santos provided backing vocals to Lupe’s biggest hit song to date, “Superstar,” driving the crowd into a second frenzy and marking the end of the main set.
The encore was what true Fiasco fans had come to see. He hit the crowd with a stunning rendition of “Hurt Me Soul,” a diamond in the rough from his first album. Fiasco crowned the show with a crowd-requested “Go Go Gadget Flow” from “The Cool.”
Long done with the underground skateboard label he started out on, Lupe is now a huge concert draw. He is so large that his flubs now make headline news in the hip-hop press (such as his recent ignorance of music by the seminal rap act A Tribe Called Quest), and his influence on the fashion and style of music has been reported by major players like MTV and GQ Magazine. Shunning stereotypes, Fiasco has proven that his real niche in creative storytelling trumps his kitsch value as a backpack rapper.
Next up for the Chi-Town rapper are more college events throughout March followed by a spot on Kanye West’s massive “Glow In The Dark Tour,” featuring industry heavyweights Rihanna and N.E.R.D, starting in April.
Robert McDermand can be reached at [email protected].
