Exclusive Video: Lupe Fiasco Fans Protest Outside Label Office

Approximately 200 die-hard Lupe Fiasco fans assembled outside of Atlantic Records" Midtown Manhattan offices today to protest the long-delayed release of the Chicago rapper"s album Lasers. (This despite the fact that the label announced earlier this month that the album will be coming out on March 8, 2011.) In response, Warner Music Group CEO Lyor Cohen came out with Lupe, carrying a boombox blasting music from the planned disc. Rolling Stone spoke to Cohen afterward. "It was a great group of passionate fans taking to the streets to celebrate Lupe and the new album," he said. "No surprise — they totally reflected his kind of constructive thoughtfulness. When we saw the fans and heard them clamoring for the music, I just had to grab a boom box and go out to the streets to give them a taste." Watch above as Lupe discusses the disc, and Cohen engages with fans.

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Song Stories

“Push It”

Salt-N-Pepa | 1987

Originating as a B side to their cover of the Stax classic “Tramp,” Cheryl “Salt” James, Sandi “Pepa” Denton and Dee Dee “DJ Spinderella” Roper came up with the goods on this career-making, Grammy-nominated platinum single about working it on the dancefloor. “Push It” has been sampled and spliced to death since it debuted in 1987, yet the original track is as fresh and fly as when SNP — among the few original women of hip-hop — debuted it. “Most men will never believe ‘Push It’ was never about sex,” said James. “And that’s why the record went to Number One,” said Denton. “Everybody thought it was about sex.”

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