Time Out at 40

Billy Corgan | Roger Ebert | Lupe Fiasco

Lupe Fiasco © Time Out

Lupe Fiasco
Lupe Fiasco is seemingly on a one-man mission to destroy everything you thought you knew about hip hop. A serial woman-respecting, nonalcoholic, anti-swearing rhyming genius, Lupe says his positive approach stems from Islam. Everything he drops is greeted by critical hosannas yet he remains one of the most modest men in music. Heroic? You’d better believe it.

What’s your favorite Chicago spot?
There are different levels. You want the answer for the poor Chicago, the well-off Chicago or the scared-for-your-life Chicago?

If you put it that way, all three. What’s the quintessential Chicago spot for poor people?
The Red Line and Green Line [trains]. As a kid, I would travel back and forth to see my father on the South Side and back home to my mom on the West.

And the well-off Chicago?
When I want to show off the city, I bring people to Lake Shore Drive, from 55th to up to where it starts to get boring – up to about the Drake [hotel]. Feature continues

And what’s your ideal, so to speak, of scared-for-your-life Chicago?
Where I grew up, at Madison and Albany. It was nothing but gangs, shootings, drugs, gangs, shootings. My friends and I would still go out and play football and just try to block out the gang wars across the street. Then there were places like Stateway Gardens [housing project]. I wouldn’t get out of my car there.

Who would you consider your Chicago icon?
All of the local newscasters. The Channel 9 weatherman, Tom Skilling. Bob Sirott. The people who educated and reformed in the media. I’d come home from school every day and turn on the TV, doing stuff just like this [gestures towards iron, which he’s using to iron his clothes]… they were like family. Guys like Geoffrey Baer on WTTW [public television], who’d show you every part of Chicago, the dual Chicago. As a poor kid I got to experience all of the city. WTTW, man – if I get really rich, I’m going to buy that station!

Can you recall a moment that best sums up your feelings for Chicago?
Playing Lollapalooza three years in a row. That was, wow… and going to the lake with my father, to the 63rd Street beach, before they made it nice. I remember the big fieldhouse, which the city used as a storage facility for rundown junk. My father would play drums at the beach and pass out Black Panther literature.

Interview by Brent DiCrescenzo.

www.timeoutchicago.com/heroes

Billy Corgan | Roger Ebert | Lupe Fiasco