A Brief Retrospective on Lupe Fiasco’s ‘Lasers’
As a Lupe Fiasco appreciator, I think is usually good for a stellar presentation musically. To be fair, he’s still one of my all-time top lyricists, but the point’s the same regardless. Just about everyone of his songs has a message. Even the super poppy ones and the “turn-up” ones, as seen on stuff like his DROGAS Light project, they often have some semblance of social commentary. He’s managed to become and remain on the tongues of fans to this day without doing a complete and definitive 180 on his subject matter. Simply put, I find that Lupe’s more-mediocre projects excel more than some folks’ best work.
But what about the album that’s, for me, the only real blemish on his track record? I’m talking about none other than the alum Lasers. Lasers, released in March 2011, is an “interesting” project, especially with its backstory and the label politics at play on it. Regarding the album that garnered a 57/100 on Metacritic, people tend to fall into two camps.
Either listeners like Lupe doing a more “traditional” album versus a real concept project or they dislike it because of its sound. That sound, while still Lupe enough, did feel a bit too contemporary and interchangeable with other songs from the time. As the album has its fifteenth anniversary in March 2026, I want to delve a bit deeper into it. All the while, I wish to ask and answer an always-popular question.
“Was it really that bad?”
I’d liken Lasers as being The Cool‘s DROGAS Light. That is in the same way that DROGAS Light is a lighter project than its predecessor, Tetsuo and Youth. The songs on the album want to enact change, still have some positive takeaways and are still Lupe songs, at least by name and sometimes by subject matter. They’re also positively poppy. From the features to the Modest Mouse sped-up samples of “The Show Goes On,” Lasers is an album that’s about as pop as Lupe could’ve gotten without fully dumbing it down.
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While there are revolutionary tracks on the album, such as “All Black Everything,” the rest of the album just feels superficial. It’s as if Lupe went into the studio, let out a heavy sigh and said “let’s do a pop-rap album from my POV to shut the label up and see where it goes.” You can tell that Fiasco wasn’t locked into this album’s processes like he usually is. But why?
This was an album that said “hey, life may suck, but it gets better.” People weren’t used to “happy Lupe.” It’s ironic that people saw this as a “happy” album, considering Fiasco contemplated taking his own life over the pressure from his label for this release. From a mental health standpoint, wanting to do one thing while being all but forced to do another? It can lead to a warped finished product. That’s especially if the product is still made by someone who isn’t used to and doesn’t really “do” mainstream music. From my own experiences in music, crafting something that sounds more radio-friendly than you want to make it leads to resentment and wariness about the album as a whole. Add that to the fact that his label and Fiasco were at odds over just about everything on this album and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
Going back to the concept of “happy Lupe,” the overall sound took people off-guard. That’s mainly because it’s a bit paint-by-numbers in its aesthetic. The lyrics, while they can still go deep, sometimes still have a shallowness to them. That’s especially true when one considers the rest of his discography. As such, due to Lupe’s disdain for (and disconnect from) the album and its processes, this album was always going to turn out how it did. Due to the behind-the-scenes tomfoolery, it may’ve always been doomed. I mean, it’s not the forever-rumored LupE.N.D. or like any Lupe album before it — or since it. Sometimes, change is good. Here, that adage doesn’t really apply. If you want that Food & Liquor-era Lupe, this will surely disappoint. If you’re looking for a true “sequel” to The Cool, this will also disappoint. If you ever wanted to hear Lupe rap over a pop-rap beat with Trey Songz crooning in the background, though? This one delivers.
The thing is that, unlike when Kendrick Lamar crafted GNX and did songs like “Luther,” the label influence on Lasers is painstakingly obvious.
Sure, there were tracks that dealt with dark themes, such as “Beautiful Lasers (2 Ways).” There were songs that promoted unity and rebellion against the establishment, such as the lyrically lush “State Run Radio,” “Words I Never Said,” and the aforementioned “All Black Everything.” If the album had more of that, I personally would’ve received its intent better. However, most of what made people love Lupe in the first place (deep concepts, not dumbing down his message, etc.) didn’t show up en masse on this album. Again, we ended up with a Lupe Fiasco who was surface-level happy. And it shows.
Production on the album feels just like everything else out circa 2010-2011. That seems to be because whoever was in charge of production from the label wanted Lupe to get away from just Soundtrakk, The Neptunes and those he’s rode with since “Kick, Push.” Now, don’t get me wrong. The production is still solid. But it’s not really Lupe.
“The Show Goes On,” for instance, has the same feelings as another Kane Beatz production, “Right Above It.” It may not use the same melody as “Right Above It,” but the overall feel is similar — down to the use of synth brass hits. That’s not a knock on Kane, as the brother had a run with his sound. That said, nothing about it stood out. Kane and Lupe together should’ve been great (like Kendrick over Metro Boomin, Jay-Z over Just Blaze or Dipset over Heatmakerz beats). The end result, though, just felt flat. The bass thumped, but everything else sounded pretty by-the-book.
Additionally, more “traditional Lupe Fiasco” songs like “State Run Radio” feature great lyrics and give us what we typically want from the rhymesmith. However, on “SRR” specifically, the beat has somewhat out-of-place production. It feels less like a Lupe song and more like a Rage Against the Machine approximation. Again, that’s not a whole knock; the beat is solid, but it wasn’t really a Lupe Fiasco beat. It felt like the label said “here, rap over this and we’ll leave you alone.” That is, only until they began to pair Lupe with more mainstream producers he did not have much synergy with.
Overall, the album is not that bad. It’s an “okay” listen. But it’s not that good, either. People can say what they want about 2010s Lupe Fiasco, but I’d listen to DROGAS Light in a heartbeat over Lasers. At least there, Lupe sounds and feels a lot more freed on DL than he did on Lasers. That said, understanding some of the story behind it, I feel that Lupe put forth a valiant effort. I probably couldn’t craft something cohesive enough to be released if I kept having people I didn’t really want to be in my ear about the aesthetic and “feel” of things. Also, from Lasers, we ended up getting projects like F&L 2 and Tetsuo & Youth, albums that saw Lupe return to his roots, evolve them, and still remain true to everything. That said, it’s still an album that needs to be heard. Even though it’s incredibly poppy and pedestrian by Lupe’s standards, it’s an encapsulation of Lupe’s run with Atlantic after The Cool. To fully understand Lupe’s lyrical plight — as well as understand his discography as a whole — we’ve got to let the “Beautiful” Lasers do its thing. Ain’t no two ways about it.
