Lupe Fiasco‘s music has always added an unfiltered, raw perspective on Black people’s plight in America and all over the world. His 2018 DROGAS WAVE project touched on the African slave trade and his upcoming DRILL MUSIC IN ZION album, dropping on June 24, will discuss street and Black culture in his hometown, Chicago.
This is why it is so fitting for Apple Music to have included Lupe in this year’s “Juneteenth 2022: Freedom Songs” playlist released on June 10, full of Black pride anthems from African-American artists such as 6LACK, offering “UMI Says,” and Denzel Curry, who contributed “1st Quarter” with REASON.
Lupe’s addition to the playlist came in the form of “Galveston,” named for the coastal Texas city that received the news of the United States’ emancipation of the slaves in 1865. Over the groovy, mellow beat containing semi-frequent claps, Lupe puts on a rhyming clinic to discuss the ways in which white, imperialist institutions seek to tame Black expression.
In the hook that separates two intense verses, Lupe harmonizes about his determination to be able to rest and unwind with Black struggle and inequality in the rearview.
I need some freedom connected to my fee bone
I need to celebrate with a T-bone connected to my T-bone
An ottoman to put my feet on and a porch to sip my tea on
Blessings got me destined, I ain’t blinded no more
“Galveston” — Lupe Fiasco
For the outro, Lupe examines how the white majority in America gives them small victories to distract them from their oppression. Although slavery has been discarded of, low wages and discriminatory laws are still used to put down minority groups.
But you can’t rest so peaceful
Indentured servancy is gone be shiny and deceitful
Protect your people
And that finesse there is so lethal
Jim Crow bust like Desert Eagles
Gone come back ’round like extra sequels
And it’s all gon’ be legal (Galveston)
“Galveston” — Lupe Fiasco
In celebration of Black history and pride, Apple Music’s “Freedom Songs” initiative has evidently garnered terrific results, evident in Lupe’s earnest and impressive new track.
Check out “Galveston” by Lupe Fiasco here!
