After screwing up his rhymes during a tribute to A Tribe Called Quest on VH1's Hip Hop Honors awards show on Sunday, rapper Lupe Fiasco has quickly fallen by the wayside in a drama now referred to as "Fiascogate," with new allegations from Q-Tip that Lupe was never asked by him to perform at the VH1 ceremony at all.
The 25-year-old rapper claimed Q-Tip personally asked him to perform "Electric Relaxation," off 1993's "Midnight Marauders," an album critics and rap heads alike have called Tribe's best effort. But Lupe, an artist with a predilection for positivity, shot himself in the foot when he flubbed the lyrics to Phife's verse.
The screw-up fell in line in the great tradition of award show lyrical bloopers, like Kid Rock's flub during a cameo performance of Jay-Z's "99 Problems" at the 2004 BET Awards, and Nas butchering a Tupac song during his tribute performance to the slain rapper at 2005's Hip Hop Honors. But unlike these fumbles, Lupe's mistake resulted in blog crucifixion - Fiascogate.
In his defense, this is what Lupe had to say, as posted on the Okayplayer Message Boards:
"So I've explained this to a lot of people...let me name drop a few," Lupe begins, before naming Fab 5 Freddy, Common, The Roots' ?uestlove and ATCQ frontman Q-Tip. He then went on to reveal why he wasn't well-versed on the song's lyrics.
"I DID NOT GROW UP ON ATCQ," he explained. "I wasn't a backbacker rap enthusiast!!! I never claimed to be ... I grew up on gangsta rap," he added.
As if that wasn't enough explanation, Lupe admitted that he's never even heard ATCQ's genre-breaking ablum, "Midnight Mauraders. "
"FYI, when it was initially offered to me, I turned it down because I felt it was out of place for me to be honoring them because while I fully aware of their impact in hip-hop, I wasn't really aware of their music," he said, insisting that it was Q-Tip who asked him to be a part of the tribute, despite knowing that Fiasco wasn't that familiar with the project.
Whlie his explanation assauged the hip-hop sensibilities of some of the board's users, there were still others who just weren't buying it. Little Brother's Phonte was one of them.
"I purposely remained silet during Fiascogate just to see how it all would play out and to see how my man would gain control of the situation, but with you forgetting the lyrics to a classic song from a classic group on national television while paying tribute to them, the second plane has offiicially hit the tower," he responded.
Watch the footage below:
That's shameful. I mean, I think Lupe is a pretty fly up and comer. But it just sucks that his good name is on the line because of this mess up of such a massive proportion. Damn. Hopefully, he can recover from the backlash. Kick, push, kick, push.
Source: Vibe.com, BET.com
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