MS. MURAL Lyrics by Lupe Fiasco
“If you had to paint the gutter, which color would you choose?”
Said the patron to the painter, the painter said, “The blues”
Do you act off intuition or languish and peruse?
More like tap into tradition from the angle of my mood
He looked back at his canvas while strangling a tube
A master of the palette, all sanguine and cool
The music mostly jazz, the jazz mostly old
Punctured by some punk and some old smoky soul
An atlas on the trunk from the land of broken goals
Just a cover and a back that you open and you close
“Where are all the pages?” The painter said “Defanged
I ripped ’em all out and made some paper planes
Fish grease absorbers and some origami cranes”
Poured himself a drink and then poured it down the drain
Looked at the empty canvas, said I think I have a name
I’ll call it “Gasoline Pouring on the Flames”, hah, hah
I appreciate the visit, this isn’t normally allowed
Do you consider yourself wild or conforming to a style?
The patron pointed at a pile, “Are those rejections or mistakes?”
The painter said, “That is not for question or debate”
Most of what we know as art is the projection of a faith
A product of a Pontiff for the election of a saint
A gift from the red for the digestion of the can’t
A visual garnish for the confessions of the frank
Displays of physical carnage makes connections to the ranks
Goes over very well with South Americans and Yanks
Not to sound shamanistic but there’s medicine in paint
It gets kinetic if you let it, there’s a fetish in its strength
Martyrdom will call, Russian roulette is in the flanks
And most would pull the trigger if the weapons full of blanks
But when there’s a pool of sharks and you step into the tank
That’s the pool of art thats got ’em headed to the plank
But they fell for the deceptiveness of the secularists complaint
The upheaval of the cathedral into the edifice of bank
That pile over there is just the evidence of angst
The failed revival of a perfectionist when his efforts have just sank
A selection of the waste that lacks direction or a base
You lose all of the plots for the affections of a race
Man does not become superior ’cause you connect him to a cape
Nor does become inferior because you connect him to a ape
I never wanted my life to be a collection of some dates
And holiday my days away and intellectually sedate
It’s not really a beef but conceptually it’s steak
Like do genitals and gender roles successfully conflate?
The current art world is just competitively opaque
It never ceases to amaze, my mouth is medically agape
One day its raising up the brand, the next it’s shredding it to flakes
And the velocity of trends is what referees the pace
Professionally accept what ethically I hate
So in all of my work you see this wrestling with faith
Deceiving in the brushstrokes how aggressively I strafe
Less like putting on some makeup, more like severing a face
“Wow”, said the patron with a smile
That’s the most interesting diatribe I’ve heard in a while
How you articulated the nature and put it all on trial
Took it up to heaven then put it on the ground
The painter asked the patron, “Can you stand up on the pile?
I’ve had a flash of inspiration, my creativeness aroused”
The model took its place, the painter grabbed a lighter
Doused the shit in gasoline and set it all on fire
We got through the heart’s of stone
And scars for bones
When your heart’s unknown
In the arc of Joan, yeah