Lupe Fiasco is not the artist you think he is: Though he's been touted as everything from deck-wielding hip-hop savior to carpetbagging poseur, Fiasco is actually more of a dilettante. Which is not to say he's untalented-- he is, extraordinarily so. The Chicago MC sports one of the slipperiest flows I've heard in a long time-- he's dexterous but never technical, sly but not arrogant. He rarely hangs on syllables too long and never wastes a word. And words are plentiful on his debut album, the long-delayed Food & Liquor. Fiasco's a self-proclaimed entrepreneur wading against a current he can't seem to condone: Hip-hop circa 2006. His first album's the work of an MC in love with rap's freedom of expression but at odds with its current landscape.

Where Fiasco misses classic status is his sonic approach. The album's sound-- produced in large part by the 1^st and 15^th Productions duo Soundtrakk and Prolyfic-- is clearly influenced by the bombastic derring-do of Kanye West's Late Registration, the record on which Fiasco was famously introduced. Much of Food & Liquor is draped in stuttering, chopped strings and blaring guitar. Tracks like "He Say She Say" and "Sunshine", with their sweeping violas, sound like manipulative film music, undermining an MC bursting with enthusiasm by portraying him as some sort of epic figure, here to erase and rewrite rap lore. Call it Score-Hop-- only the sentiment doesn't match the performer, particularly for a rapper blowing up because he wrote a deft song about skateboarding. He also blogs, loves anime, and collects toys. Not exactly the stuff of Tolstoy.

Where West mined humor and pathos out of his delusional grandiosity, Lupe too often falls back on smug in-fighting. On the closing verse of the mostly sublime Jill Scott-assisted jazz joint "Daydreamin'", Fiasco-- with the wily tone of a nasally Chi-Ali-- mocks his peers. "Now come on everybody, let's make cocaine cool/ We need a few more half-naked women up in the pool," he raps. Only seconds later he swallows the shit and stops grinning, opting for introspection: "I'd like to thank the streets that drove me crazy/ And all the televisions out there that raised me." Why the ridicule before the contemplation? Maybe it lies in Fiasco's faith, which dictates some of his preachier verses. The influence is clear on "Intro", which echoes the opening track of Mos Def's debut, and the brilliant screed "American Terrorist".

More troubling is Fiasco's apparent inability to write fly hooks. While his verses are packed with wit and double meaning, his hooks are mostly blandly-sung, unmemorable couplets. This highlights what may be Food & Liquor's biggest flaw: It's just not that fun. This is not to say there isn't a place for grand, thoughtful hip-hop-- there isn't nearly enough. But on the strength of his 1^st and 15^th mixtapes, the joyful "Kick, Push", and effervescent "I Gotcha"-- one the best Neptunes tracks in years-- Fiasco's at his best when he's a bit livelier. This is to say nothing of "Outro", another grandiloquent production, minus the intelligence. It's 12 minutes (!) of Lupe shouting out people like MTV, his nieces, nephews, and his "big homie Shondell." It's barely listenable once, let alone repeatable. There is also a track on here produced by Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda featuring onelinedrawing's Jonah Matranga of which we will say no more.

Of course, this sounds negative, but it's more the notes of a slightly disappointed fan. I never fell in love with the highly regarded leak of this album months ago, but this is an improvement, with futuro-funk tracks like "The Cool" (from Kanye West) and "I Gotcha" added to the mix. The album's best song, "Hurt Me Soul", is as ostentatiously conceived as much of the album, brimming with lush strings and a single plinking piano courtesy of Needlz-- his only solo production.

Lyrically, Fiasco is vivid and nimble and appealingly contradictory. He opens with the accusatory, "I used to hate hip-hop, yup, because of the women degraded" and then explains he was swayed by Too $hort's humor. He later questions Jay-Z (a noted supporter of Fiasco's) and his "never prayed to God, I pray to Gotti" credo from "D'Evils", only to become a convert after his 30th viewing of "Streets Is Watching" which has him "back to givin' props again." All essential battles for any serious hip-hop fan. But this is a tough tightrope for any MC to walk and Lupe is let down by what is supposed to be this album's selling point: the music.

Reportedly Fiasco modeled Food & Liquor after Nas' adventurous if overblown follow-up to Illmatic, It Was Written. This illuminates everything. Fiasco's putting the Phantom before the horse, so to speak. He hasn't released a classic, gritty album yet. Instead he's attempted to ascend to a status he hasn't earned, and frankly, shouldn't want. This is no call for Lupe to tone down his aggressively thoughtful themes, merely to reframe them. He doesn't have to be a savior. There's no one to save.