Lupe Fiasco has finally shared a complete (if concise) history of Child Rebel Soldier, his group with Kanye West and Pharrell that released only a few songs in the late 2000s, but made a huge impact.
In an interview on Sway in the Morning on Friday (October 4), Lupe broke down what happened with the group’s 2007 debut single “Us Placers,” all the way up to his recent effort to take back the name this past summer.
When asked about CRS by Sway, Lupe made clear that he’s still on good terms with Ye and Pharrell, but said that “the fans feel betrayed” that the group didn’t put out any material beyond two singles and an appearance on N.E.R.D.’s “Everybody Nose” remix.
He jokingly lamented that “the two richest n-ggas in the group” were the reason it never continued. “P[‘]s eating caviar golden sandwiches, Ye is stitching up two different Rick Owens coats to wear in the shower. I’m trying to corral these two,” he laughed.
That put Lupe in the frame of mind to tell the group’s whole history.
“There [was] a lot of fan momentum around it as a movement” following the release of “Us Placers,” he remembered. “We always talked about [the group, but] it kind of fell to the wayside… And then again, n-ggas get rich and crazy and shit goes left.”
But it turned out the crew’s small output of songs made an outsized impact on a new generation of creators.
“That whole time, it’s incubating with people like Tyler[, the Creator],” he continued.
That gave the CRS guys an idea — to replace themselves with younger artists.
“One of the talks was like, ‘Yo, we old n-ggas and rich and doing other shit,’” Lupe recalled. “‘Why don’t we just get the dudes who would be us now, and just give them CRS and let them do it? What if CRS was the hip-hop Exile?’”
That idea “went nowhere,” he said, which led to this year’s effort where Lupe took the Child Rebel Soldier idea back to its initial roots — him, solo, rapping over Radiohead samples. But when he released material of that ilk, he said, Radiohead “sent the biggest cease-and-desist.”
“Radiohead was like, ‘Fuck all that,’” he said, to uproarious laughter from Sway and company.
“I tried,” Lupe concluded.
You can see Lupe’s comments in their entirety beginning at the 23:24 mark of the video below.
Lupe’s now-vanished-from-YouTube attempt to revive CRS was called “Shrink.”
It prominently samples Radiohead’s Kid A track “Optimistic,” which is in keeping with the original Child Rebel Soldier ethos of rapping over beats from the iconic British rock band.
The song also doubles up as further promo for Lupe’s Samurai! Tour, which kicks off this month and comes in support of his latest album of the same name.
