Amid all of the box office success and praise for Marvel's Black Panther, rapper Lupe Fiasco took to Instagram to share he was slightly less impressed than the rest of us. While he didn't exactly disparage the film, he wasn't as enthused as most other people have been about it, prompting some media outlets to label him as a hater. Now, the rapper has his own words about the pushback.
"Look at the comments for the article that you put up, and this is Blavity and The Grio," the rapper said on Instagram Live. "Nobody fucking agreed with you," he added, reiterating that many across social media didn't take to their summaries. He would go on to say that besides his controversial comment claiming former president Barack Obama is a terrorist, nobody cares about his opinion on politics. The Grio posted about Lupe's Black Panther comments with a decidedly critical headline, "Watching Lupe Fiasco trash ‘Black Panther’ proves his cookout invite is revoked," while Blavity referred to his opinion as unpopular in theirs. This criticism prompted him to also take to Twitter to respond. "Explain to us the correlation between giving BP an A- & failing black as a whole," he tweeted at a writer for The Grio. Additionally, he called Blavity's take "malicious."
In his original comments, Fiasco suggested that viewers may be watching the film mainly with cultural impact in mind, and not so much for its artistic merit. Though he mentioned the acting in the movie was decent, he was a bit let down. Ultimately, he gave the film an A-, saying it fell just short of outstanding. Fiasco has never been one to back down from having a differing opinion but made it clear in his original critique that he still liked the film, even acknowledging its importance as a cultural product.
With or without Lupe's feedback, Black Panther still might cross the threshold to become the highest-grossing superhero movie of all time.
