Lupe Fiasco Dares You To Try To Understand His Latest Video

Last month, Ambrosia For Heads published our annual best albums list. For 2022, that collection included Lupe Fiasco’s stunning DRILL MUSIC IN THE ZION. The 1st & 15th LP also arguably contained the year’s best verse, courtesy of “FAUX NEM.” As that FnF album marches towards its first birthday, Lupe continues to gather attention to the release. Most recently, “PRECIOUS THINGS” received a music video.

The video, directed by Alberto Angelini, shows both the depth and intricacy of Lupe’s songwriting and pokes fun at online conspiracy theorists. As the song—produced by Soundtrakk—plays, the web searches move from Lupe’s faith to numerology to the notion the song is all about hands. The searches are then met with a desktop notepad that aims to decode and decipher the verse.

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The video capture includes a deep dive into Lupe’s subReddit. There, as many Hip-Hop Heads (including AFH) do, there are impassioned theories about a song within the DRILL MUSIC IN ZION LP. They involve Lupe’s ongoing post at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his previous albums, and countless photos of his hand gestures. This all plays out while Nayirah sings (who becomes part of the searches and queries) and Fiasco raps.

Guys. He is making fun of conspiracy theorists. First it start out slow and understandable, then the ADHD kicks in and speed of clicks and switching tabs and then he pulls out the calculator and starts picking random things from everywhere and then the book. Lets not begin with the book.

All of it comes together at the end. Oil is bad means petroleum jelly is bad means a big no to sanitizer. I love the part where somehow everything leads to the number 6 and the devil…and then he switches to Italian lmao. The part with the Qs was funny too. ‘Qatar fiasco.’ Lupe fiasco went to Qatar recently no?

Context and common sense is non-existent to conspiracy theorist!

Also, Im in the video,” wrote user “errdayimshuffln” about the vid.

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Another Reddit user, “andogun8,” wrote: “I think precious things probably was a whole other video….

But with the current conspiracy theorists he’s debating… I think at some point he was like ‘how can I troll them further?’

And this vid is the result. Talking about the song precious things and concluding that petroleum jelly (petroleum) is bad based on that initial thing. Like …. What?

My theory is that I think all his pointless debates with the conspiracy theorists lately was ‘publicity’ for just this kind of video.

The only thing probably hidden/really fruitful other than pointing out the foolishness is that Lupe himself is interested in esoteric concepts/topics. Otherwise this whole video was a massive troll and probably isn’t more than that.

And the tie in with precious things is that we used to use our brains critically till it we didn’t…just like using our hands for good things till we forgot bout em or misuse them. Add in using hands to do all these armchair, wild Google searches…and this vid concept practically ‘wrote’ itself????.”

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Another user, “SinghWave.”had a more succinct speculation: “I think he making fun of conspiracy theorists and people that look so deep into lyrics that they miss the entire message.”

At Genius, one of the other places the computer user visits, the annotations stick to the hand theory based on two credited contributors:

In the first verse it’s his own hands turning against him, even though he tried to adorn them with beauty through manicures etc. The hands go from applauding and snapping for poets to his middle finger cursing him out and eventually his own hand tells him, to talk to the hand.

In the second verse he continues with the hand analogy by exploring how people get ARMed with guns at some point in their lives due to change in environment or circumstances. He paints pictures of how the same hands that were playfully used in games such as ‘’rock paper scissors’’ and ’‘catch’‘ can eventually hold tools of destruction.

The third verse seals the analogy by now demonstrating that actions have consequences, as these hands that are now destroying are now in cuffs, even though some other hands elsewhere were praying for the character in question. The saddest part however is that these hands can’t write anymore. The thing that matters the most.

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Lupe Fiasco gets people talking, while seemingly making commentary about people at the same time.

#BonusBeat: Last month’s Ambrosia For Heads’ What’s The Headline podcast discussion about Lupe Fiasco’s “FAUX NEM” verse and several others that we consider the best of 2022: