Lupe Fiasco found himself in record label purgatory again. He went out on a preview tour for Tetsuo & Youth, his fifth studio album, last year. A couple of songs with music videos from the project dropped, but with no immediate album release date in sight. It felt like Lasers all over again. The Chicago-bred rapper complained that Atlantic Records held the project up because it didn't have a “pop” single.
That's when hacker group Anonymous stepped in this week threatening the label to give a release date or face severe consequences!
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Atlantic Records received the following tweet courtesy of the group late Tuesday night:
“If you do not comply, we will launch a direct attach against your website, your associates, and your executives.”
The next day Tetsuo & Youth finally got an official release date for January 20, 2015. Anonymous took credit for the good news.
“We demanded a statement from the label within 24 hours to release a date or we would unleash the complete and utter fury of our collective on their company and executives,” a press statement from the group read. “21 hours later they released a short Tweet citing the album and it's release date.”
With that, they declared 'Operation Free Lupe Fiasco a success.
Prior to the Twitter showdown, the rapper readied the aptly titled Lost in the Atlantic mixtape. The first single was supposed to drop yesterday, but didn't. With another track produced by Soundtrakk and featuring Nikki Jean (the folks that helped bring us Fiasco's classic “Hip Hop Saved My Life”) promised, here's hoping the Tetsuo & Youth's release date doesn't spell doom for the mixtape.
If that's the case, maybe those Anonymous folks can step in again using their internet prowess to greater good!
Here's “Lilies” off of Lost in the Atlantic released today!
See also:
The Top 10 Rappers in OC
10 More of OC's Best Rappers
Top Five Female Emcees in OC
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Gabriel San Román is from Anacrime. He’s a journalist, subversive historian and the tallest Mexican in OC. He also once stood falsely accused of writing articles on Turkish politics in exchange for free food from DönerG’s!