Lupe Fiasco Helps Launch Skateboard Culture
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Sene-Gambia- Lupe Fiasco doesn’t know a thing about social responsibility. Eh, yes. We said it. With his prolific song “Kick Push”, this young man has single handedly broken the arms of about 140 boys in West Africa alone. We are checking into the numbers for the rest of the continent.
Born Wasalu Laco to an African father (we are still trying to determine his country of origin to place proper blame), Lupe has abandoned his Islamic/African teaching, which says he should use his powers for good, and not evil. Instead, he has used melodic and soothing beats to rein in his unsuspecting victims: small-small boys. In the song he says:
First got it when he was six
Didn’t know any tricks
Matter fact
First time he got on it he slipped
Landed on his hip and bust his lip
For a week he had to talk with a lisp
Like this
Now we can end the story right here
But shorty didn’t quit it was something in the air
Yea
He said it was somethin’ so appealing
He couldn’t fight the feelin’
Somethin’ about it
He knew he couldn’t doubt it
Couldn’t understand it
Brand it, since his first kickflip he land it
Uh
Labeled a misfit, abandoned
Ca-kunk, ca-kunk, kunk
His neighbors couldn’t stand it, so
He was banished to the park
Started in the morning wouldn’t stop till after dark
Have you been to an African park before? It’s red clay and gravel. It is difficult enough to play football on our “parks”, let alone skateboard. Now, imagine a Black man skateboarding…on gravel...in Africa. Let that sink in. Yeah.
Further more, if you look closely at the lyrics you will see he uses onomatopoeia (go and look in the dictonary) when he says “ca-kunk, ca-kunk, kunk”. As we all know, when Africans like to use words the SOUND like what happened during an event. Like “He fell down ‘Beshhh!’ ” or “He slapped him ‘Pah! ’ ”
This makes his song even more bewitching.
“My son used to want to be a doctor,” says Amina Hamidou, a groundnut seller from Banjul. “After he heard Kick Push, he stopped going to school so that he can perfect his skateboarding instead.”
We asked her how it makes her feel.
“It makes me very sad,” she confessed. “In fact, he’s even talked of kidnapping the next white man he sees at the airport to force him to teach him new skateboarding skills.”
She covered her face with her mayafi in grief.
Lupe, Africa’s youth are suffering because of you. We encourage you to make better songs that will help us in the future.
