Food & Liquor
- Lupe Fiasco
- Band Name: Lupe Fiasco
- Record Label: Atlantic
- Release Date: Sep 19, 2006
- Critic Score
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100By boldly expanding the parameters of mainstream hip-hop, Fiasco's threatening to make rap a welcoming place for geeks and iconoclasts as well as pimps and thugs.
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Though I wish the beats were less corny-orchestral, Fiasco marks his own turf in a three-song sequence that would have led the second side back in the day. [Feb/Mar 2007]
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Food & Liquor is the best hip-hop album of 2006.
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Food & Liquor is one of the year's fresher efforts and future classics.
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Being bold and different for Lupe pays off right from the jump.
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There is not a bad verse on it.
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A messy, ambitious CD by a deeply thoughtful MC. [6 Oct 2006, p.71]
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80One of the albums of the year. [Dec 2006, p.120]
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80While Food & Liquor struggles with its own contradictions, it does so over scorching beats and with lyrical flair. [Dec 2006, p.113]
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Food & Liquor just might be the steadiest and most compelling rap album of 2006.
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It's full of surprising, creative moments that recall Nas and Kanye West.
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As for that perpetual hip-hop debate as to whether an MC is better served by his beats or his words, the Chicago rapper is deft enough in both arenas that you could carry these lyrics around in your head for days... while message boards light up with claims that hip-hop's first truly great instrumental album lies embedded somewhere in all this.
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80The album might not become a rap classic, but it is easily one of the best rap albums of 2006, and maybe one of the top records of any kind to appear this year.
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79Where Fiasco misses classic status is his sonic approach.
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Fiasco is actually an absolutely dazzling emcee and a genuinely nuanced personality, and both of these things are incredibly rare in hip-hop in 2006.
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All in all, this is merely promising rather than masterful. [14 Oct 2006, p.35]
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70Cut out vague Shindoa track, "The Instrumental", tired Gunter Kallmann Choir-retread "Daydreamin'" and the offerings here that are marred by warbled soul harmonies - consistently added as afterthoughts to choruses - and this would be perfect.
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70It's not quite the second coming or even the first for that matter, but 'Food & Liquor' should leave you feeling sated and occasionally elated.
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There are few weak tracks on this beautifully quiet album, but there is no truly irresistible beat either. [18 Sep 2006]
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His orchestral Kanye-meets-Nas muse lacks originality.