A map on Lupe Fiasco is kind of an obvious fit: “Paris, Tokyo” was a Grammy-nominated single with a hook that’s catchy to this day. Let’s go to sleep in Paris, wake up in Tokyo / Have a dream in New Orleans, fall in love in Chicago… I enjoy the song myself, while listening to The Cool I had the idea to map Lupe and decided to run with it.
I set out to discover just how world-traveled Lupe is in his lyrics. “Paris, Tokyo” nears a dozen geographic references alone counting states, cities, and airports (more if you count the international greetings in the third verse). How many could he fit in his body of work? I analyzed the lyrics from his seven studio albums at the time (Food & Liquor, The Cool, Lasers, Food & Liquor II, Tetsuo & Youth, Drogas Light, Drogras Wave) for geographic references. For the sake of time I only used studio albums and not mixtapes, freestyles, nor feature verses on songs by other artists. That would be a ton of music to track down for an emcee that’s been in the game for two decades now. I decided not to include airports but I did count countries, U.S. states, cities (U.S. and international) and places I thought were of unique significance (U.S. and international).
Accounting for redundancies (for example, Lupe obviously shouts out to Chicago more than once) Lupe includes no fewer than 77 unique geographic places in his lyrics:
-28 countries
-9 US States
-34 cities (20 US, 14 international)
-6 unique places (4 US, 2 international)
Every continent is covered. Lupe’s bars span from the West Coast Sun God Sam & The California Drug Deals / Rain drop Wayne and the Bangkok love bills to the Middle East Damage, managed to still be able to feel / Some of the long lost magic of downtown Damascus to Southeast Asia And the flow tight, skinny jeans skinny jeans / Hit you like Pacquiao, Philippines Philippines. Even some of the non-highlighted countries are touched by his lyrics. Lupe’s reference to Russia is actually to the U.S.S.R. (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) which at its peak encompassed many of the Baltic nations not highlighted on the map.
Arguably Lupe is the most well-traveled emcee bar for bar. He’s the baseline for the Hip-Hop Map Project to gage whether or not these emcees truly get around as much as they say they do.
Omissions:
Africa. If you’re a fan of Lupe Fiasco’s music you know Mother Africa is ubiquitous in his music. In hindsight I probably should have outlined the continent to show its prominence in his body of work.
Antarctica. Lupe mentions Antarctica once in the song “Go to Sleep” (Food & Liquor II) and is not included in the extent of the map.
Sources:
Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive: Lupe Fiasco (https://www.ohhla.com/YFA_lupefiasco.html)
Genius: Lupe Fiasco (https://www.genius.com/artists/Lupe_fiasco)
Rap GEO 