Lupe Fiasco has been pulled up for over-earnestness in the past, but, for better for worse, he’s absolutely surpassed himself.

‘B**ch Bad’, the second cut taken from his forthcoming Food And Liquor 2: The Great American Rap Album is one of the oddest, most conflicted lyrical performances we’ve heard this year. Fiasco’s deconstruction of the way in which hip-hop objectifies women is by turns naive, academic, pedantic, ironic and furious – we won’t be surprised if he develops carpal tunnel syndrome from all the finger-wagging.

The chorus (“Bitch – bad/Woman – good/Lady – better”) is agonisingly didactic, and there’s no shortage of po-faced moments to choose from (and that’s even before we even start talking about the Lupe’s recent tumble from the moral high horse over his controversial sampling of Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth’s ‘T.R.O.Y’). But, then again, Lupe’s still an enormously dextrous rapper, and the numerous moment of meta-analysis – the mock Autotune, the “cabbage”/”savage” spoof rhyme – are totally ingenious. Few will disagree with the sentiment, but rarely will a conscious rap track oscillate from cussed to cringeworthy at such a rapid rate. Fascinating. [via Complex]

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