Food and Liquor

Well it has been a while since my last MOG post. Im still counting down the days 'till Tribe comes to Orlando - 10 Days !! In the meantime, I just loaded the retail version of Lupe Fiasco's debut album Food&Liquor, which is set for (FINALLY !) a 9/19 release date. Lupe is a gifted MC, my opinion one of the best & is one of the few bright spots in today's so-called rap. Unfortunately for this guy, his album was supposed to be released back in June and got severely bootlegged and leaked all over the internet. I got my mits on the album and I thought the bootleg was one of the top albums to come out this year so far (along with Ghostface, Gnarls Barkley, J Dilla, & maybe T.I.). Lupe said he was going to include some of the bootleg material on the offical release and add some new tracks. As for the retail version of Food&Liquor...well its almost the same as the bootleg. While thats not a totally bad thing but when I heard Lupe was gonna go back and record some new songs I expected to hear more new songs and less already released ones. Out of the 16 tracks, 7 were on the leaked version - "Might be OK", "Sunshine", "The Instumental", "Kick, Push", "Hurt Me Soul", "Pressure" (formally "Trials and Tribulations" w/o Jay-Z) & "American Terrorist". Other songs like "I Gotcha" "Kick, Push 2" and "Daydreamin" I had heard via mixtapes and the internet. That leaves a grand total of 4 brand new tracks new to the album (+ intro and outro). This is a solid album and one of the best this year. The new tracks are tight as well. Bootlegged albums are a double edged sword for a fan....you wanna hear the album when it leaks net but when the real version comes out, you might be a bit dissapointed because you had heard most of the album before.....Still A MUST for any real Hip-Hop head.