S. Samuel
Grammy-winning rapper Lupe Fiasco recently addressed the holdup behind a delayed Child Rebel Soldier album, with Kanye West and Pharrell Williams, and said he should not be held fully accountable over its delay.
While not ruling out the album’s possibility, Fiasco said don’t bet the house on its release.
“Um, probably not. I don’t foresee it. I don’t know,” Fiasco said when asked about the LP’s status. “Everybody has their different approaches. Do you want a CRS album or do you want a ‘Friend of the People’ mixtape or do you want a ‘Food and Liquor 2’ or do you want… It’s like, you know, you can’t do all of it. And then with CRS I have to get Pharrell on the same page and get Kanye on the same page – is it something that we even still want to do, you know? It was something that we maybe thought about doing 3 or 4 years ago. 3 or 4 years later, is that something that we still want to do? … It ain’t on me, it ain’t on Lupe — There’s three other people that’s involved; three different record labels; three different kinds of systems and management and all this other kind of stuff involved. So, creatively I’m always down to collaborate but, this particular thing, I don’t know.” (All Hip Hop)
In March, Fiasco also blamed scheduling conflicts for delaying the project.
“Honestly I don’t know, it’s all scheduling,” Lupe explained in an interview. “We’re all three independent artists, all working. It’s not like we’re dormant, we’re all working, so it’s about finding that moment where we can all get together and sit down, and come up with the songs and the ideas. We just haven’t had the opportunity to do that as of late, enough to put an album, a serious album together, and even if we get to that point, the business of the album coming out is ridiculous because it’s three separate labels, three separate interests and that’s going to be a paperwork nightmare. So there’s elements to it – big hurdles that need to be jumped before we can proceed with it properly and give people what they want, which is an album.” (Gigwise)
In mid-January, Fiasco blamed West and Jay-Z‘s Watch the Throne joint album for possibly delaying the CRS project.
“I think the Jay-Z/Kanye collabo [Watch the Throne] kinda was like, ‘Aww man, aww no,'” Lupe said in an interview. “Whenever we get to go in [the studio] and have the time and the opportunity to do it, we’re always working on some other project. Pharrell gon’ do a soundtrack for a movie, Kanye does another project. It’s becoming less of an album and more of everytime we do a song together–me, ‘Ye, and Pharrell, a CRS thing.” (Hot 93.7)
Circa 2007, West, Fiasco and Pharrell were planning to form a hip-hop super crew entitled “Child Rebel Soldier.”
Having already released one song via an online mixtape, CRS (Child Rebel Soldiers), the hip-hop supergroup featuring Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West and Pharrell Williams, is hoping to find time to craft an entire album. “Us Placers,” which samples Thom Yorke‘s “The Eraser,” was performed by Fiasco earlier this month during his set at Lollapalooza in Chicago. “Now [our labels are] working it out,” the artist tells Billboard.com. Whoever is going to pay is going to pay a whole h*ll of a lot. Everybody is excited, [but] ‘Us Placers’ is the only record we have.” (Billboard)
Check out some past Lupe Fiasco footage below:
