Lupe Fiasco is addressing his onstage flub in a new freestyle set over a Drake beat.
On Tuesday (May 19), the rapper uploaded a freestyle called “CliqueBang” where he raps over Drake’s “Shabang” instrumental from his newly-released Iceman album.
The freestyle arrives after clips circulated from the opening stop of his Food & Liquor 20th anniversary tour in Sacramento (May 14), where he forgot the words to "Kick, Push II.”
He directly engages with the reaction to the viral moment, rapping, "I was just telling a joke, / Have a little fun with the crowd / Cleaning up after a choke. / Ain't done that song in a while.”
Lupe continued, “Everybody just needs to relax / The banter's a part of the pack / That's how I be out on the road / So don't you be mad that I max.”
Elsewhere in the freestyle, Lupe appears to address online discourse surrounding comments he made during the Sacramento show about performing in stadiums, a remark some listeners interpreted as a shot at Kendrick Lamar.
During the performance, Lupe joked that “Kick, Push Il” only existed because fans leaked his debut album ahead of its 2006 release. He sarcastically blamed LimeWire-era piracy for changing the course of his career.
He told the crowd, "We supposed to be in stadiums right now, but you fucked it up. Because you were 12, you went on Limewire because you thought you were cute and you didn’t have any money. ‘Let me just download this n***a’s album, and just fuck his whole career up in ways we can’t even understand,’ right?”
“So now, you get upset with me for forgetting the verses of songs that shouldn’t even fucking exist at venues that we shouldn’t even be at! Yes, I blame you!”
In the freestyle, he revisits that moment with, “A stadium is the next day / I promise we're doing it Saturday."
Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor 20th Anniversary Tour will continue with performances in New York and Chicago next month.
