Attention Please:
This might be a lengthy read.
Hope you can excuse me as it's the first post of the year.
When you have those random contemplating moments triggered by insomnia and find it normal to turn to music, I do that a lot. Appreciating all genres and not being spiritual, I turned back to one of my favorite albums of time, The Cool by Lupe Fiasco. Making this post as "short" as it should be and being "religious" to my thoughts, you can continue reading if you are a "believer" to the fact music is poetry and hip-hop is music.
He annotates that:
"... This song is more of a metaphor of a virus and ignorance. Ignorance spreads everywhere like wildfire and no one really knows what goes on until it happens and even then, people don’t know what’s up. You can’t run from ignorance and everybody is somewhat ignorant. There is no way to escape from this reality. Some believe that there is no ignorance in the world while others believe there is too much of it. Some believe ignorance is bliss while others believe ignorance is chaotic. People begin to blame each other. The poor say the rich can cure ignorance while the rich believe the poor are the reason for ignorance. But in the end, everyone is sure it exists. Scientists think it’s only a state of mind while the kid believes he isn’t ignorant but girls are. Church leaders says ignorance is sin and kills the purity of the world while the bum believes everyone said it’s the whole world that’s ignorant..."
...
"... The ignorance has already spread at this point. We keep falling into a false sense of reality where everything is okay because everyone says its okay. You aren’t truly free until you think, much like Fredrick Douglass' case, where he believed someone is a man when they can use their head. Society and mass media has already defined our future and current roles in society and, due to our ignorance, we wouldn’t be able to tell. We are told certain things but we never question them. All we know is what to do and what not to do as opposed to why we should or shouldn’t do these things. Everything that happens plays a part into the build up and affect of this disease of ignorance. And nothing is ever the way it seems. Things are seen one way unless something enables the introduction of another thought. Scientists see the insanity of trying to understand ignorance within him. The little boy doesn’t know what happened to all the girls..."
End of Annotation
Well, I think I've spread his gospel and Lupe's too on Ignorance, I pray that we shun it and continue looking for such "gospel" in music (Good Music). You can listen to the song- just had to place the best for last, Streets on Fire (contemplated on the title too):
