Lupe Fiasco’s new album to be released after trouble with label

Lupe Fiasco went through a long waiting period for his newest album, Lasers, to receive an okay from Atlantic Records for its release.

His last album, The Cool, shot him into the mainstream scene, but Atlantic still considered it a failure. Lupe wanted to work hard to mold his next album into something really classic, authentic and different, but his label had other ideas.

“You can approach it in a very sleazy way – just throw money at it, go get a lot of the big-name artists, let them hijack it for you and just ride that wave into success,” he told The Guardian. “The label wanted to do it the sleazy way.”

Atlantic didn’t seem to be on his side at all and almost drove him to be slightly suicidal, he told The Guardian. Most people don’t know it, but “Nothin’ On You,” B.o.B.’s biggest hit, was originally Lupe’s, just with different verses. The label told him his verses were “wack” and B.o.B., who was a guest on the original track along with Bruno Mars, ended up writing new ones that Atlantic approved of.

Incidents such as that and Atlantic shelving his upcoming album drove him to thinking suicidal thoughts. Fortunately, with the help of his fans, a petition with about 30,000 signatures demanded the release of Lasers.

Lasers will hit stores this Tuesday.