Lupe Fiasco - Pharaoh Height 2/30

Lupe Fiasco continues to craft fodder for future conversations. On "Pharaoh Height 2/30," ideas ring louder than clarity.


It’s easy to spend an hour listening to “Valleys.” The second song on Lupe Fiasco’s surprise release, Pharaoh Height 2/30 finds the Chicago legend dancing over Robert Glasper’s “Dillatude2.”

In the first verse, Lu is on a flight writing an ode hollering at a young lady with a “fine face, also a dime in [her] behind.” The details are lush. He’s sitting on a plane on the way to California, eating a chicken salad, sitting by the galley, kicking extended similes about being a hippie in the ‘70s who’s accustomed to getting head. “But if you’re gay that’s straight, too,” Lu delivers. “Hey, I don’t hate, I got a couple of friends who went bi twice / Did that arrive right? / Do you like whole stories or just the highlights?” It’s subtly hilarious yet ambrosial at the same time, the type of verse that inspires homies to send quote-texts to their shorties.

“Valleys’” second verse finds Lupe waxing free-form on everything from the Charleston shooting to Bernie Sanders’ sardonic need for a Nike deal. “Remembering the movies my duty was killing beats, he bounces, turning inwards. “Social villain unwilling to live in peace / I told you children I’m wielding a living beast.” It’s scattered yet somehow sound simultaneously, the type of train-of-thought rap that forces the cypher’s next emcee to dig deep into the rhyme book.

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