Insight: Lupe Fiasco's "American Terrorist"

As I have been observing and digesting the many debates following the fallout of the Osama news I turned my attention back toward my finals week assignments. I usually listen to some sort of music during this endeavor, over the last few years the preference has been music by rapper Lupe Fiasco. I am a  firm believer that music is a great inspirator for intellectual thought. This is especially true when trying to write academic material which can be a very time-consuming and laborious process.

For me I have to listen to music that matches with what I am doing at the given moment, in this case something with lyrical depth, substantive content and quite frankly is very intelligent. Or else I risk not gaining the proper inspiration or focus necessary for the task at hand. That is why I appreciate Lupe and others in his particular lane of music (genre nonwithstanding). The messages in the music speak to greater life themes than the superficial regurgitations that we all get caught up in (Soulja Boy's "Crank That" or Los del Rio's "Macarena" ring a bell?).

In connection to this particular recent event I began listening to Lupe's first release "Lupe Fiasco's: Food & Liquor". One of my favorite records is almost a direct narrative of what I came across in the discourse of the day and felt it necessary to share. The song also serves as a further assertion of my own personal viewpoint as articulated via clever metaphor, entendre and historical references. Check it out below: