iMedia: The Instrumental

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=502AJXEGPNw

Lupe Fiasco is one of my favorite artists, but many people underestimate his sophistication and musical talent. In this song "The Instrumental" there is a lot of subtle meaning. I have often listened to this song on replay, each time picking up a new message. Also, because this music falls under the genre of rap/hip-hop, which is very popular amongst the newest generation, I think it has the potential to spread a deep and influential message throughout the world if people take this song to heart.

The first lines of this song are "He just sits, and watches, the people in the boxes. Everything he sees he absorbs and adopts it. He mimicks and mocks it, and he hates the box, but he can't remember how to stop it." I interpreted this song as a direct metaphor for the media, the box being the television. When 'he' mimicks and he mocks it, Lupe is referencing how people often criticize the media, but yet they are hooked to it and cannot get out of this media-dependent reality.

Just like an other brilliant artist or writer, Lupe Fiasco's adroitness in songwriting is portrayed in his lyrics through his clever manipulation of words. In this song the word "box" repeats a lot. The next lines in this song are "So he continues to watch it, hoping that it'll give him something to box with... Ain't got the combination to unlock it. That's why he watches, scared to look away. Cause at that moment, it might show him what to take off the locks with." He uses the word box to literally represent the television and media, but then he also uses it to represent the box that people live in, shielded from their own voice and opinion. Lupe uses 'box' as a verb, and in these lyrics he's saying that people think the media can help them 'box' with their dull, mundane reality. He is criticizing how people look for intrinsic meaning in their life through the media, and because of this the media has intertwined itself with everyday life, only making things worse.

A good example that recurs in my mind every time I hear this song is how big restaurants/fast food chains advertise their foods, and through the media convince people to buy their products. They grow obese and unhealthy, but then they can just turn back to the media to find pills or weight loss supplements to fix all the problems that were originally caused by the media. Ironic, perhaps?

"As the doctors jot it all down, with their pens and pencils, the same ones who took away his voice, and just left his instrumental." In these last lines of the first verse, Lupe is describing how researchers determine how to brainwash people addicted to the media, and they take away those people's "voice", because everything in the media becomes established as fact, and opinions are no longer needed. The reason for the title choice of "The Instrumental" is that an instrumental piece of music has no lyrics, just background music, which is kind of what Lupe thinks our postmodern reality is becoming.

In the first chorus Lupe says "And he never lies, because he never said anything at all." He is critiquing how people are afraid to go out a limb and voice themselves, since they do not want to argue with the modern culture established by the media. In the second chorus he says "You can't tell me just who you are. You buy new clothes just to hide those scars. You built that roof just to hide those stars. Now you can't take it back to the start." Here Lupe is pointing out that without clothes to hide our natural body,and without a house to protect us from nature, we are nothing. He means that if we look purely at ourselves as who we are, and not things we have taken from the media, or our earthly possessions, we are just 'an instrumental'.

The most contradictory thing is that Lupe is criticizing the media, claiming we shouldn't look to the media for answers. But yet his music is becoming more and more a part of mainstream media. The reason I like this song and artist so much is that he acknowledges that the media is brainwashing the public, which sets himself apart from the rest of the media. Whether or not one views this video as insightful, it still has much to tell us about the modern world.