Dumb It Down (feat. GemStones & Graham Burris)

Fiasco was raised as a Muslim and his tracks often are critical of the Hip-Hop scene for its chronic lack of morality. This song finds him observing how much he could improve his prospects for commercial success by pandering to the lowest common denominator of gangsta-rap stereotypes. He explained to the San Diego Union-Tribune January 10, 2008: "'Dumb It Down' looks at how musical entertainment as a whole is used as a distraction, as a tool, to keep people dumb, instead of focusing on real issues and solutions. Most definitely, I rap about issues like this for a reason. I don't just do it to do it; I present it in as unbiased a way as possible, so that people know it exists. You can't expect people to act if they don't know it exists. Situations that are sad and uncomfortable take a long time to address, especially when you are living in a culture of instant gratification."

Fiasco further elaborated about this track in an interview with Orange UK: "The chatter that goes behind the scenes, either in the music business or the [hip-hop] community or whatever, they'll be like, 'Yeah he doesn't represent the streets,' or 'He's too soft' or 'He's too lyrical' or 'He needs to make music that the common man can understand.' There's a lot of people that understand my music, I just took a shot back at the people who are always like 'You're not winning awards, you gotta make music like this.' I'm like 'Nah, I like making music like this. I don't need to dumb it down.'"