Lupe Fiasco - Tetsuo & Youth

on 2xLP Grape Translucent Vinyl Tossing off fans with the Eurodance, EDM, and the unexplainable album Lasers, and then returning to form with Food & Liquor II, Lupe Fiasco finds himself free to soar and aspire on his 2015 effort Tetsuo & Youth, an album inspired by the rapper's upbringing in Chicago. It's also an LP that's conceptually structured, with "Summer," "Fall," "Winter," and "Spring" interludes dotting the track list, but any reservations that the sometimes "preachy" rapper has gone full sanctimonious are wiped away by the easy-rolling opener "Mural" and its elevated series of "LOL" punch lines ("Unless you Virgin Mary, nothin' do it but the truest/Believe all that unless you Jewish" or "And I feel like a missionary to a clitoris"). Guy Sebastian joins for the more poptacular "Blur My Hands," which seems a play for radio at only five-and-a-half minutes, as many numbers stretch longer, sometimes because of musical noodling (a banjo kicks off the great "Dots & Lines"