Lupe Fiasco's The Cool, commonly referred to as simply The Cool, is the critically acclaimed second studio album by Chicago hip hop artist Lupe Fiasco, released on December 18, 2007 in the United States. The Cool is a loose concept album, based on a song and its titular character from his debut album Food & Liquor of the same name. The album features production from Soundtrakk, Unkle, Patrick Stump and Chris & Drop, among others. Guest appearances include GemStones, Snoop Dogg, and Matthew Santos. The album debuted at #15, moved a spot up to #14 on the Billboard 200 in its second week. It debuted as the #1 rap record and remained there for 9 weeks. It has been certified Gold by the RIAA.During the recording of the album, Lupe Fiasco's father died, his good friend Stack Bundles died, and his business partner and mentor—Charles "Chilly" Patton—was sentenced to 44 years in prison. When asked about the album's dark side, Lupe Fiasco replied:
Oh yeah. A lot of loss. I lost my father, I lost my business partner to prison, and I lost some friends. It was a very dark period. It still is in some aspects, but you know, I'm kind of coming out of it. But especially during the time that the album was being cooked, in my head it was a very dark kind of period.Lupe Fiasco's The Cool expands on the story Lupe told on the track, "The Cool", from his debut album. Fiasco introduces the characters the Streets and the Game.The album tells the story of the little boy from "He Say, She Say" who grew up without a father, and the people that step in to raise him are the Streets and the Game. Speaking on the concept Lupe said:
I expand on the story, I introduce two other characters, the Game and the Streets. The Streets is a female. She's like the action personification of the streets, the street life, the call of the streets. The Game is the same way. The Game is the personification of the game. The pimp's game, the hustler's game, the con man's game, whatever. Then they've got supernatural characteristics. Like the Cool, his right hand is rotted away. The only thing that rotted away was his right hand. It represents the rotting away of his righteousness, of his good. And the Streets and the Cool kind of have a love affair going on. So she's represented by this locket. And the locket has a key and it's on fire. And as a gift to the Cool on his rise to fame, she gave him the key. And the key represents the key to the Streets. So she wears a locket around her neck at all times. And the way the story goes, she has given that key to tons of people throughout time. Al Capone, Alexander the Great, whatever. She's giving them the key to the Streets. Fame and fortune — but also the prices. The Game, he's represented by a stripped-down skull, a skull with dice in his eyes and smoke coming out of his mouth. The billowing smoke is actually crack smoke. It's not a full concept album; it's more spread over like five [tracks], really abstractly.
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