Strange Fruit bears Strange Fruition

Yesterday Lupe Fiasco released his fourth album Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt.1. Immediately following the intro is a track titled Strange Fruition. If that title sounds familiar it is because Billie Holiday famously recorded a song by the name of Strange Fruit in 1939.

Strange Fruit was a short song, originally written by Abel Meeropol as a poem of three stanzas, its intro is a little over one minute long before Billie Holiday begins to sing. The song is a clear and eerie depiction of the lynchings of African Americans. Even with such a dark subject matter, Strange Fruit has sold a million copies. The song says:

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Lupe's Strange Fruition samples the piano melody from the original as well (in my opinion) the intentions of the original. Lupe has only two verses on the song, which he uses to depict the current plight of African Americans in this generation. The hook evokes the spirit of the original stating :

Many things, strangest things you ever seen
Oh, look at how they swing, would you look at how they swing?
Embedded they go, no eyelids gone low

Lupe's music has always been full of social commentary so this song comes as no surprise.Honestly he isn't saying anything on this track that he hasn't already said on every other album. What is most powerful and genius about this song is its reference point. He took a song that quintessentially captured one of the most haunting periods in recent history (let's not forget that lynchings, Jim Crow, and segregation were in full effect less than 100 years ago.) and gave it a modern production while remaining true to its purpose. Strange Fruition starts off as a loaded deck based solely on the sample and title. This song not only opens the door for dialogue about social constructs that seem to effect and affect African Americans in the present day, but it serves as a reminder of where we were not too long ago. Strange Fruit was written as a protest to lynchings and what has Lupe done other than protest in his music?

This song has the potential to be a gateway into music history as well. I'm not sure how many young people between the ages of 10 and 20 are listening to Lupe these days. Of those who are listening, how many have heard or heard about Strange Fruit?

Listen to Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit and Lupe Fiasco's Strange Fruition below. I apologize for the quality of Strange Fruition but I couldn't find one that sounded any cleaner. You need to buy the album anyway.