Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool

Lupe Fiasco

2007

Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool serves as an expansion of the character “The Cool” from the song of the same name on his first album. Taken from his debut album Food & Liquor, Lupe Fiasco spins a lyrical tale about a hustler who is shot to death but miraculously comes back to life.

The story follows “Michael Young History” and his eventual downfall into street life and death. There are three prominent characters featured on the album, whom Fiasco refers to them as “three evil angels” to Pitchfork. Their story ties in thematically across several tracks. 

The Cool, formally known as Michael Young History [My-Cool Young History], is a young boy who is raised by the two supernatural entities The Streets (“a female embodiment of an urban area’s corrupt allure”) and The Game (“a male personification of a hustler’s damaging influences”). Gradually The Cool goes corrupt by the hands of his lover, The Streets, and starts drug dealing. At the very end, he dies.