Lupe Fiasco has been promising a follow-up to his critically acclaimed album “Food & Liquor” for quite a while now, but it finally looks like he may be ready to release it, as today he dropped the first single to be taken from “Food & Liquor 2: Great American Rap Album Pt. 1” called “Around My Way (Freedom Ain’t Free)â€.
The general consensus seems to be that “Around My Way (Freedom Ain’t Free)” is a smash, but certain people seem to be pissed that he has heavily sampled Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth‘s classic single “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)â€. And that surprisingly includes Pete Rock himself:
I can fully support his argument too, there’s very little originality in hip-hop instrumentals these days and Lupe Fiasco is one of the major culprits when it comes to oversampling. However, the sample used on the original TROY was “a saxophone and bass sample of Tom Scott’s cover of “Today” by Jefferson Airplane.”. So maybe Pete Rock isn’t really in a position to complain here?
Lupe Fiasco – “Around My Way” (Freedom Ain’t Free)