'Anonymous' May Have Helped Lupe Fiasco Beat His Record Company

When we last heard from Lupe Fiasco he was battling with his record company Atlantic, who Fiasco said was refusing to release his album Tetsuo & Youth until he gave them a radio friendly pop single.

Tetsuo & Youth now has a release date -- January 20 -- and it doesn't look like Fiasco had to compromise his artistic integrity to get it.  Instead, he may have gotten a big assist from the hacktivist collective "Anonymous."

Last week, in a series of tweets, Anonymous declared war on Atlantic Records for holding Fiasco's album hostage.

@AtlanticRecords: You have 24 hours to present a statement announcing the immediate release of @LupeFiasco's album. @AtlanticRecords: If you do not comply, we will launch a direct attach against your website, your associates, and your executives.

@AtlanticRecords: You have 24 hours to present a statement announcing the immediate release of @LupeFiasco's album. — TheAnonMessage (@TheAnonMessage) October 15, 2014

— TheAnonMessage (@TheAnonMessage) October 15, 2014

@LupeFiasco's #TetsuoAndYouth 1/20/15 — Atlantic Records (@AtlanticRecords) October 15, 2014

V — Lupe Fiasco (@LupeFiasco) October 16, 2014

Anonymous followed up with this statement:

24 hours ago we released a short Twitter ultimatum. We called upon record label Atlantic Records, responsible for releasing conscious rap artist Lupe Fiasco’s long awaited Album. We demanded a statement from the label within 24 hours to release a date or we would unleash the complete and utter fury of our collective on their company and executives. 21 hours later they released a short Tweet citing the album and it’s release date. At this time it can be concluded that we have proved our point. We wish music that is educating the masses to keep being released. We will fight for that. Lupe Fiasco, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Common and others are the moving force behind conscious rap. This is music we will fight for.