Lupe Fiasco Gets Acquainted Live At New Orleans Jazz Fest 2011

Lupe played the prestigious New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival yesterday Friday May 6th. Video up above features Lupe and his band mates performing "Hip Hop Saved My Life." Read the concert recap below.

As reported by Doug MacCash at The Times-Picayune

New Orleans Jazz Fest 2011 Congo Square fans were swept up Friday afternoon by Lupe Fiasco's brand of hand-made hip hop.
But before going on, I want to thank the friendly Fiasco fans who helped me out with the song titles and other facts during the fast-paced show. At this stage of life, I prefer covering acts that I've never seen before over the old standbys. Trouble is, I don't always know the details.

Not that you had to know much to be charmed by Fiasco's generally upbeat musings, carefully wrought tunes and frenetic stage antics. For the first 15 minutes of the show, the lithe singer was in constant motion, seemingly being propelled around the stage by the sonic waves of his highly skilled band.



My Congo Square colleagues agreed that the stylish keyboards, slashing guitar, theatrical drumming and melodic vocals of Fiasco's backing band was more musical than many rap acts. There was no DJ, no thundering bass line. In songs such as "Superstar" (view video performance above) and "The Show Goes On," the refrains were almost as slinky as something from The Commodores.



One of my favorite segments of the performance was when Fiasco issued the string of tongue-twisting staccato syllables in tribute to his hometown Chicago: "I'm-from-a-city-in-the Midwest-the-best-city-in-the-whole-wide-world." In another song, I loved his pantomime of skateboarding to the refrain: "kick, push, coast." (view video performance above) And near the end of the show, he comically pretended to play a little bee bop trumpet (using his voice to imitate the horn), just to prove that rappers really can play instruments.



Read the full story HERE

Photo links:
Film Magic
Getty Images
Wire Image
Flickr (courtesy of Chris Schwegler)

(video courtesy of makaksaleOpa and 12barbershop)