Premiere: Lupe Fiasco Explores Love and Technology in His New Video for "Pick Up the Phone"

Lupe Fiasco premieres his "Pick Up the Phone" video.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Lupe Fiasco returns with his new video for "Pick Up the Phone." Set over a staccato string instrumental, the track addresses the prevalence of mobile technology in our lives and relationships. "Every single click is just hammering it home/Who knew Russian Roulette involved answering the phone?/Until my signal dwindles or channel doesn't roam/Or my cell phone dies/Or there's cancer in my dome," he raps. "I left the story of my life on your answering machine."

The video underscores this message, showing a guy waiting around for his crush to respond to him. He grows increasingly frustrated as he sees evidence of her seemingly going about her life without answering him, before discovering the truth is very different than what the mobile evidence indicated. 

Lupe is supposedly on the verge of retirement, although he's promised to release three albums before he hangs up the mic. He claimed that all three—DrogasSkulls, and Roywere set to release this year, but we haven't seen an official release date for any of them yet. He released several "Conversations" audios on his SoundCloud teasing them, but that was a couple months back. Hopefully, with "Pick Up the Phone" dropping, Lupe will get some forward momentum back for the much-anticipated projects.

In the meantime, you can watch Lupe Fiasco's "Pick Up the Phone" video above.

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