Lupe Fiasco Reveals Initial ‘Lasers’ Guests, Producers

Lupe Fiasco's initial guest announcement for the long-awaited 'Lasers' is small but should not disappoint. The rapper has remained tight-lipped about the record's tracklist after two songs -- 'I'm Beamin'' produced The Neptunes and 'Shining Down' produced by Matthew Santos -- leaked last year. He has now confirmed that Trey Songz will be featured on a track, and both The Neptunes and British MC Sway will make guest appearances.

In an exclusive interview with The BoomBox last December, Fiasco elaborated on the surprising pop-heavy nature of 'Lasers.' "It's way more of a pop album, to be honest, for various reasons and various forces within the industry and what have you," he said. "['Lasers'] came with all this baggage, a lot of social baggage. We opened up the album with a manifesto. When I say we opened up the album before we even recorded one song, we wrote a manifesto. We came up with the things we wanted to see changed in the world and that kinda took a life of its own. For me, that was the point of [this] album."

That vague "various reasons and various forces" alludes to the record's long road to its anticipated March release. Atlantic, claiming the album had no single that would drive marketing, stalled on the release to such an extent that fans planned a march and protest of the label in order to get a solid release date. The label responded just in time to tone down the potential public relations blunder.

Check out a new interview with Lupe at XXL. 'Lasers' is still slated to hit retailers on Mar. 8.