"They Call Me Lupe..."

Ever since I first heard Lupe Fiasco's latest joint "I Gotcha" at the Brooklyn Hip-Hop festival a couple of months back the track has been on steady repeat in my brain.

While the Neptunes' cascading keyboard loop is the first thing that grabs you, the overwhelming sense of capturing the sense of now is so apparent in the song in many ways.

Apart from the fact it features the most references to smell I've ever heard in a hip-hop song, Lupe's awareness of his hot commodity status is so acute, it actually seems, ironically for an MC, quite humble.

His high visibility over the past few months, whether due to his mixtapes, his skateboarding image, fan videos or dismay over his album leaking, has meant that he's in high demand. So the fact that he's waxing lyrical about how much attention he's getting isn't an empty boast, but more like fact.

The stage was basically set for him to drop a generic, safe single to capitalize on all the attention, but lyrically "I Gotcha" raises the bar and judging by the beat, working with Lupe roused the Neptunes from their recent 'through the motions' slumber,( Ludacris' "Money Maker" anyone?)

Not only is the song not generic, but now that he's dropped "I Gotcha" in visual form, what makes Lupe, Lupe, is captured in this video. How many hip-hop videos actually assert the individuality of the artist as opposed to submerging them beneath well-worn and yawn-inducing themes that I don't think I need to even list? Lupe Fiasco obviously isn't the only artist doing this, but there's a reason why there's so much attention around him right now.

Looking at this post from the opposite angle, I guess my question is why are so many hip-hop videos so bad?