Lupe Fiasco Recording Food & Liquor Sequel

It's not exactly one step forward and two steps back, but after aiming for mass appeal on his recently released Lasers LP, Lupe Fiasco is already hard at work on the follow-up, which he described, surprisingly, as a "hood album."

"There's no attempt to get on the radio, except maybe once, thus far, it's still a work in progress," he told about his next effort. "It's a harder album — the beats are way harder. It's not about being progressive. It's not about making music, which is weird [to say]. It's 'let's make some really hard-ass songs.' "

Regardless of the change in direction, the project should still manage to get plenty of attention: It's called Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor 2 and is the sequel to the Chicago MC's heralded debut.

So far, he hasn't recorded any material for Food & Liquor 2 that includes the cast of characters he introduced on his debut and his sophomore set, The Cool.

Fiasco does plan on reintroducing those concepts, but the collection is, at this point, more along the lines of "S.L.R. (Super Lupe Rap)," a lyrical dynamo that the rapper unleashed online last year in the wake of a comment made by Soulja Boy about MC-ing.

"It's not an attempt to remake Food & Liquor," Lupe explained, citing "SLR" as an example of the project's DNA. "It's not any attempt to reshape it or reintroduce it. I just think Food & Liquor was a dope title and I wanted to use it again."