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"Lupe Fiasco is one of the most ambitious men in hip-hop. Rather than rehashing well-worn themes of bling, beefs and bootylicious ladies, his new album tells the tale of a &amp;quot;zombie hustler&amp;quot; who&amp;#039;s seeking redemption after coming back from the dead. Alongside contributions from Snoop Dogg and Fall Out Boy&amp;#039;s Patrick Stump, Lupe Fiasco&amp;#039;s The Cool also features a song written from the perspective of\u00E2\u20AC\u00A6 wait for it\u00E2\u20AC\u00A6 a cheeseburger. We gave the incomparable Mr. Fiasco a call to find out how on earth he does it. What&amp;#039;s your new single &amp;#039;Superstar&amp;#039; about? &amp;quot;Basically it&amp;#039;s about the dark side of celebrity - the battle we do every time we step on stage or do an interview.&amp;quot; Is it a battle that you face regularly? &amp;quot;Not really! I kinda walk it. You know controversy&amp;#039;s going to come, it&amp;#039;s just the form that it takes which is shocking.&amp;quot; You mention roses, yellow M&amp;amp;Ms and light bulbs that &amp;quot;don&amp;#039;t flicker&amp;quot; in the song. Are those your diva-esque dressing room demands? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s my rider! That&amp;#039;s about where I want to be in life, you know. I don&amp;#039;t want the light bulb in my dressing room to flicker, I want the roses to be there and I want the jazz to be playing in the background.&amp;quot; Your new album Lupe Fiasco&amp;#039;s The Cool has an overarching concept, doesn&amp;#039;t it? &amp;quot;Yes. It&amp;#039;s based on a song from my first album called &amp;#039;The Cool&amp;#039;, which is about a zombie hustler who comes back to life and is seeking redemption. On this album I kind of expand on that and introduce a few new characters. There&amp;#039;s a female temptress called The Street, who&amp;#039;s the physical incarnation of the street, and another character called The Game, who represents what it&amp;#039;s like to be in the game. They all interact with each other to represent the different forces in the hood.&amp;quot; Do these characters appear all through the album? &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re on about five of the songs, because I didn&amp;#039;t want to make the album super-dense.&amp;quot; How is this album different to Food &amp;amp; Liquor, your debut? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a much darker album. I talk about subjects that I&amp;#039;d previously shied away from, like the environment, but I also talk a lot about &amp;#039;cool&amp;#039; - what I think&amp;#039;s cool, what the definition of cool is, misconceptions of what cool is.&amp;quot; And you&amp;#039;ve written a song from the point of view of a cheeseburger. How does that work? &amp;quot;Well, I wrote a song called &amp;#039;Gotta Eat&amp;#039; to try and talk about health in a cool way. I made the cheeseburger into this mafia boss who has a vendetta against humanity, which is to make sure everyone dies of a heart attack. It&amp;#039;s all very satirical - the cheeseburger goes to church, but the church is a Chicken Shack, and the friar is actually a deep fat fryer.&amp;quot; So you&amp;#039;ve done it in quite a humorous way? &amp;quot;Yes, but it&amp;#039;s got a serious message though. In my neighbourhood there are no food stores and there&amp;#039;s no attention to nutrition. If you look back at what you&amp;#039;ve eaten over the month, you&amp;#039;re like &amp;#039;Damn! All I&amp;#039;ve eaten is cheeseburgers and pizzas!&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Not many people would think to tackle the obesity issue by writing a song about a cheeseburger. Do you enjoy trying to present difficult issues in quirky, original ways? &amp;quot;I just love satire. A lot of satire&amp;#039;s very funny, but a lot of it&amp;#039;s very dark too. When I find a subject I want to write about, I do tend to think &amp;#039;How can I present it in an entertaining way?&amp;#039;, and that&amp;#039;s how the cheeseburger song came about. I like a challenge!&amp;quot; You&amp;#039;ve worked with Patrick Stump from Fall Out Boy on the album. How did that come about? &amp;quot;The Chicago connection, really - he was making beats and I thought they were fresh. It was all done over email - he finally heard the record months and months afterwards. The record is called &amp;#039;Little Weapon&amp;#039; and it&amp;#039;s worked out really well.&amp;quot; What&amp;#039;s happened to the Child Rebel Soldier project you initiated with Kanye West and Pharrell Williams? &amp;quot;Scheduling issues! We were all together the other day actually, and we were like &amp;#039;We gotta get in the studio and make this Child Rebel Soldier album&amp;#039;. Hopefully we&amp;#039;ll have it out some time in 2008.&amp;quot; Which one of you is hardest to pin down? &amp;quot;None of us, really, but we all get very caught up in what we do. We&amp;#039;re all very dedicated to the project, but at the same time we&amp;#039;re all very busy.&amp;quot; Finally, are you still intending to retire after the release of your next album? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m kinda 85%. I&amp;#039;ll still perform, and maybe still make music to perform, but I&amp;#039;m not sure the recorded music industry is the best industry to be in. I love my fans and I love my music, but there&amp;#039;s this whole other level of music industry politics that you have to deal with. I&amp;#039;ve done it for eight years, so I&amp;#039;m thinking &amp;#039;Do I want to do it for another eight?&amp;#039; I&amp;#039;m not sure that I do.&amp;quot; &amp;#039;Superstar&amp;#039; is released on January 14. Lupe Fiasco&amp;#039;s The Cool follows a week later. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/music/interviews/a83909/lupe-fiasco/>