Lasers - Lupe Fiasco
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Metascore

Mixed or average reviews - based on 27 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 94 Ratings

  • Summary: The Chicago rapper returns with his third album of slick, electronic beats and rhythms, featuring appearances by Skylar Gray and Trey Songz.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 27
  2. Negative: 3 out of 27
  1. 91
    Simply put, Lasers beams.
  2. 80
    Fiasco's quite skilled at making catchy what is inherently a message many don't want to hear. He's at his most blatant, though, when he mixes his unique voice for the truth with emotional sentiments.
  3. Mar 23, 2011
    60
    So the political nails are hidden deeply enough in the candy that sometimes it's hard to tell whether the juxtaposition is truly bracingly subversive or oddly self-defeating. Depending on your mood or disposition, maybe it's neither, either or both. A musical Rorschach test if there ever was one.
  4. Mar 16, 2011
    30
    Lupe often has enough trouble staying out of his own way, yet Lasers doesn't suffer for that reason; it just feels like the flaming wreckage of a project that never had a prayer.

See all 27 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 21 out of 40
  2. Negative: 12 out of 40
  1. The album isn't as good as Lupe's previous efforts The Cool or Food and Liquor, that doesn't mean it isn't a good album, i think this is easily the best and most inspired rap album put out this decade, and is the best I have heard in 4 years, despite some of the production the album is top notch and the lyrically Lupe should be in everyone's top 5 after hearing his 3 major record label releases Expand
  2. Not his best album by far, but still a relatively good album compared to everything else out there. Words I Never Said and All Black Everything are the best songs; The Show Goes On is good for a chart-topper. MDMA is horrid, however; he messes up every song he is on. Expand
  3. NJR
    5
    Anything above 60 is just too high for this awful piece of work. The production sounds like it would be more suited to Kesha or Flo Rida, Lupe is really un focused for the majority of the LP, All Black Everything & Words I Never Said being the only two exeptions and the later was completely destroyed by awful production! Lupe can blame Atlantic all he wants but nobody forced him to release this and it's his name on the cover at the end of the day, this has seriously tarnished his otherwise brilliant career. Expand
  4. This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. As a longtime Lupe fan, it's difficult to express just how disappointed I am with this album. Let's start with the most obvious; the production is utter crap. These beats are god awful. Waiting for this album for 3 and 1/2 years, I expected an album that would outshine even the transcendent The Cool from 2007, not an uninspired mix of generic electro beats and shallow lyrics, by Lupe's standards.
    Atlantic tried to make a billboard rap star with this album. Fortunately, it will never work. Not with this formula. Lupe tells in all his interview about how he was pressured to Dumb it Down on this album. Atlantic didn't want the unconventional, beautiful beats, or the deep, inspiring lyricism from Food & Liquor and The Cool that melted the rap scene like golden tears from the sun.
    I read a review that describes the majority of the songs as Lupe being a guest on his own album. This is spot on. Longtime fans can see that Lupe still has the gift, but its clear that for some reason he is holding back from digging too deep. Whereas The Cool had entire songs devoted to issues like child soldiers, afterlife, even healthy eating, we see the "conscious" songs on Lasers tiptoe over controversial subjects, one line at a time, never getting too sophisticated for radio rap fans to understand, never forcing you to think critically or to sit down and analyze his words.
    The hypocrisy of course is Lupe's own dogma under fire. Read the Lasers maxim, and try to pretend like this album adheres to it.
    There are a few redeeming, bittersweet moments on Lasers, namely All Black Everything, Till I Get There, and Beautiful Lasers. And in fact, if this were Lupe's first album, I probably would have given it 2.5 stars, but Lupe can do so much better. He WILL do better, if he works out his problems with Atlantic.
    Instead of copping Lasers, my advice would be to listen to the awesome material Lupe has dropped since The Cool, such as the Enemy of the State mixtape, SLR, Shining Down, Fire, & What U Want, and just wait until Lupe's next album. After all, he claims he has enough material to release another album, and hopes to do so by the end of the year. That's highly believable having absorbed this pile.

    FNF UP
    Expand

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