This video has been making a lot of buzz around my neck of the woods, so after seeing it I couldn't not talk about it. It's not enough to say that Lupe Fiasco goes in on "Words I Never Said" ft. Skylar Grey. He speaks about things in a way that is just plain dangerous for an artist signed to a major record label. Radical, even. That's the major theme of the video and song; speaking radically, in tune with the definition of radical. According to Merriam Webster, among meaning something related to the root (hence, ground-up, grass roots, radical activism), radical also implies advocating for "extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions". And Lupe slams every single institution within the first verse. In the video, set in a present-time setting that looks like imaginations of a totalitarian future, Fiasco marches onto a bus filled with physically muzzled passengers and begins to speak his mind. The busload of forcefully muted yet indifferent travelers symbolizes the ambivalent individual on his/her commute through our media flooded world in which everyone talks but no one really says anything.
No sooner than he grabs the mic is Fiasco ushered away by public sphere guards, who place him in jail ( he eventually breaks out of with the help of a QR code) but give him a last chance to scream his thoughts in front of an international council, suggesting that silence is a worldwide problem. What's encouraging and admirable is Lupe's exclamation of opinions only bands without anything to lose have the privilege to make. It's beyond calling Glenn Beck a racist, that much is easy for any mainstream "liberal" to do. It's the calling out Obama, currently on his "I Killed Bin Laden" election/victory tour; It's having the gaul to condemn Israel, now in the spotlight for killing up to 16 unarmed Palestinian protestors around its boarders on Nakba day by presidential decree; It's being wise enough to state that failing urban public education was built to fail, as the parents who boycotted city public schools in Buffalo, NY earlier this week have also come to conclude. You see, despite the video being released a few weeks ago, the material Fiasco refuses to remain silent about could be in the news everyday... if it'd sell advertisements.
Which is why it's amazing, downright profound, to see someone who is in the business of appealing to advertisers so outright rebellious. Maybe the fresh beat and dope V For Vendetta-like scenes obscure the fact that beyond saying something Fiasco is standing up for his people, his religion, and all in all, the potential for greatness of his country. Name an artist on his level that dares to do the same. Because the truth is, if as many people a part of this game spoke up and encouraged us to speak up, then the news wouldn't resemble Jersey Shore-- it would resemble the news. With enough demand, things would eventually have to change. The biggest non-secret secret around is that in the chain of supply and demand, the consumers are ultimately the ones with the most power. With iPhones and QR codes as our weapons, we can become we can become the ones who decide what should be said, instead of the silenced and complacent listeners. All we need to do with these tools of overwhelming massive communication is speak radically: attack the lobotomized views and habits that are perpetuated by the benefiting institutions. Radical change, from the ground up, starts with words that should be said. Don't watch this like it's just another music video.
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