Throwback Thursday: Did You Know Lupe Remade This Hit?

This post is probably just a result of me being super excited that I got all of my music on my phone again. I'm not exactly the most responsible with a phone (my history shows, though I'll deny it left and right), and that feeling of getting every single song in my iTunes music library on my phone almost made me change my pants it was so good. Anyways, going through my music library I realized that there are a lot of songs that I forgot I used to bump every day, and one of those was Lupe Fiasco's (I don't know if you'd call it a remake or not) remake of Ellie Goulding's "Lights". Sounds ridiculous yes, but that's only if you haven't heard the song.

Now if you haven't heard in the past, there have been a lot of rumors about Lupe stealing beats/remaking songs without artist's permission. Lupe's biggest fans will back up Lupe and say that Lupe has simply sampled all of the songs that he has redone (such as "The Show Goes On", and he even re-used the "Around My Way" beat which was originally Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth's song "T.R.O.Y"). Reading up on Lupe's past label struggles is as interesting as it gets, Lupe has feuded with Atlantic Records for quite some time, and at one point he even "contemplated suicide" over a legal battle over the rights to the song "Nothin On You" by B.o.B and Bruno Mars (the song was originally Lupe's). Who knew?  Anyways, if you hear the very heavily radio played "Lights" by Ellie Goulding and then compare it to Lupe's version "LightWork" below, you can hear the similarities, but more importantly hear the imminent differences between the 2. I honestly feel bad for you if you haven't heard it. If you haven't heard it yet, enjoy it below now, thank me later.

                                               (*I do not own this song, or the right to it*)

Kendrick Lamar Says "i" Love Myself: An Explanation Of His Genius

Were you part of a few (probably) million people in the world this morning at 8 am sharp slowly twiddling your thumbs waiting what seemed like your entire life for this new Kendrick track?  In this regard (obviously) you wouldn't have been alone. It's been almost 2 full years since Kendrick's (debated) classic album Good Kid Maad City dropped and the people are more than ready to jump back on the Kendrick horse and see what he has to offer us next, although this new single might not have been what Kendrick fans had in mind.

Rumors circulated that the sample for said song would be instantly recognizable, and those rumors certainly had that part right. Producer Rahki took a page out of the Isley Brothers book and went all "Who's That Lady" on us. Now if you don't know Rahki (like me), he certainly isn't new to the rap production game, but he's new to the spotlight. He is known as being uncredited for co-production on a banger from Eminem's 2010 Recovery album, "Won't Back Down" featuring singer Pink, but he also has full credit for beat production from other stars like Game, 50 Cent, Curren$y, Ab-Soul, and has even produced for Kendrick before on GKMC.

But back to the lecture at hand. The internet is all over the place about what to think of this new Kendrick:  a lot of people are glad that he's back to releasing music again, while others were expecting a lot more from a lead single from the Compton emcee. But if you know the deal with releasing music nowadays (especially from monster artists such as Kendrick), you'd understand exactly what Kendrick is doing. He is now considered "elite" in this thing we call rap, maybe even music as a whole, and that's where this new Isley Brothers-sampled jam comes into play. Kendrick wants to release great music to be known to all music fans around the world, not just hip hop heads like you and I. This song is a nice, catchy radio-friendly change of pace that could catch anyone's ears.

The approach is explainable, though. Going back to this "elite" argument, he definitely is, and he knows it. By this statement I mean he knows exactly how to use his power. When you think of the true elites in the game and the strategies they use to release their music, for example the Eminems, Kanyes, Waynes, Drakes, etc., they all use this EXACT same strategy when starting to push for an album release. Eminem with that at-first insane sounding "Berzerk", Kanye with the questionable "Black Skinhead", and even Drake with "Started From The Bottom". Do you notice the trend?  Artists NEVER play it safe on the first single, and you should NEVER base your opinion on what you believe the album will sound like on 1 SONG.

So do I love this new Kendrick?  No. Will I play it over and over again to figure out exactly what his plan is?  Of course I will. And so will you if you listen to Kendrick's music. Although if you're planning to listen to "i" to try and figure out what the entire album is going to sound like based off of this 1 song, you're (we're) probably wasting your (our) time. Kendrick has too many things planned for this new album for us to hang our heads on the first single (rumors circulated of Kendrick working with Pete Rock on the new album, and maybe even some DR. DRE PRODUCTION?!?!). So I say sit back, relax, and enjoy the takeover, because we'll be seeing it shortly. I'll be posting a link to SoundCloud for the official audio on my twitter (@SuperNovaRover) shortly.