Lupe Fiasco

Wasalu Muhammad Jaco (born February 16, 1982), better known by his stage name Lupe Fiasco ( ), is an American rapper, singer, record producer, and entrepreneur. He rose to fame in 2006 following the success of his debut album, ''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor''. He also performs as the frontman of rock band Japanese Cartoon under his real name. As an entrepreneur, Fiasco was the chief executive officer of 1st and 15th Entertainment.

Raised in Chicago, Jaco developed an interest in hip hop after initially disliking the genre for its use of vulgarity and misogyny. After adopting the name Lupe Fiasco and recording songs in his father's basement, 19-year-old Fiasco joined a group called Da Pak. The group disbanded shortly after its inception, and Fiasco soon met rapper Jay-Z who helped him sign a record deal with Atlantic Records. In September 2006, Fiasco released his debut album ''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor'' on the label, which received three Grammy nominations. He released his second album, ''Lupe Fiasco's The Cool'', in December 2007. The lead single "Superstar" became his first top 40 hit on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. After a two-year delay, his third album, ''Lasers'', was released in May 2011 to mixed reviews; however, it became his first album to debut at number one on the ''Billboard'' 200. The album was preceded by his highest charting single, " The Show Goes On", which peaked at number 9. His latest album, ''Drill Music in Zion'', was released in June 2022.

In addition to music, Fiasco has pursued other business ventures, including fashion. He runs two clothing lines, Righteous Kung-Fu and Trilly & Truly; he has designed sneakers for Reebok. He has been involved with charitable activities, including the Summit on the Summit expedition, and in 2010 he recorded a benefit single for victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Fiasco is also noted for his anti-establishment views, which he has expressed in both interviews and his music.

Life and career

1982–1999: Early life

Fiasco was born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco on February 16, 1982 in Chicago, Illinois. Fiasco is of West African descent, one of nine children of Shirley, a chef, and Gregory, an engineer. His father, a member of the Black Panther Party, was a prolific African drummer, karate teacher, operating plant engineer, and owner of karate schools and army surplus stores."Biography Today", p.58 Fiasco was raised Muslim on the West Side of Chicago on Madison Terrace housing project. At the age of three, Fiasco began taking martial arts classes. His parents divorced when he was five, and he went on to live with his mother, but his father still remained an important part of his life. He described his father's influence over the family by saying, "After school, my father would come and get us and take us out into the world—one day, we're listening to N.W.A, the next day we're listening to Ravi Shankar, the next day, he's teaching us how to shoot an AK-47, the next day, we're at karate class, the next day, we're in Chinatown...".

In sixth grade, he went to live with his father full-time in Harvey, Illinois. His father lived next door to a crack house and taught Fiasco to use guns to defend himself from drug dealers. Despite his unstable upbringing, Fiasco states that he was well-educated as a child, asserting that his parents exposed him to a diverse array of subjects and that reading was highly encouraged in his household. As a teenager, Fiasco participated in Academic Decathlon competitions. His mother described him by saying, "He was a great spirited child. Smart, a bit complex; he kind of was a loner; he didn't hang with a lot of people...He always had the glasses. Always had a book bag over his shoulder and some type of a writing tablet." Fiasco initially disliked hip hop music for its use of vulgarity, and preferred to listen to jazz; he idolized clarinet player Benny Goodman. His struggle to learn to play an instrument led him to create poetry instead, which led to his interest in the lyrical aspects of music.

He began rapping his poems in the eighth grade, and upon hearing Nas' 1996 album, ''It Was Written'', began to pursue hip hop. While attending Thornton Township High School, Fiasco met gang member Bishop G. The two became friends due to their shared interest in music. Fiasco's father allowed him and Bishop to make mixtapes in his basement, and the two gained notoriety at the school for their music. However, they were kicked off stage during their first performance because their eclectic musical style was not embraced by the hip hop community. Early in his career, he went by stage names Little Lu and Lu tha Underdog."Biography Today", p.61 Growing up, Fiasco was given the nickname "Lu", the last part of his first name, by his mother. "Lupe" is an extension of this nickname, which he borrowed from a friend from high school. "Fiasco" is a reference to The Firm song "Firm Fiasco"; the rapper "liked the way it looked on paper." He also said of his name, "You know how rappers always have names like MC Terrorist—like they're 'terrorizing' other rappers? I knew fiasco meant a great disaster or something like that, but I didn't realize that the person named Fiasco would be the disaster, and that you should be calling other MCs fiascos—not yourself...it kind of humbled me in a sense. It taught me like, 'Yo, stop rushing, or you're going to have some fiascos.'"

2000–2005: Career beginnings

When Fiasco was 18, he began creating music as a solo artist in his father's basement, even though his parents were not keen on having their son be a rapper. He scoured flea markets and secondhand stores, where he was able to find an old mixing board and a record player, stacks of vinyl records, and mic stands. At age 19, Fiasco joined a group called Da Pak, which was influenced by other California gangsta rappers such as Spice 1 and Ice Cube. Da Pak signed to Epic Records and released one single before splitting up. Fiasco later described the experience, saying "We had a song out about cocaine, guns, and women, and I would go to a record store and look at it and think, 'What are you doing?' I felt like a hypocrite. I was acting like this rapper who would never be judged, and I had to destroy that guy. Because what Lupe Fiasco says on this microphone is going to come back to Wasalu Jaco. When the music cuts off, you have to go home and live with what you say."

After turning away from gangsta rap, he developed a greater appreciation of the lyricism of Jay Z and Nas. His mother also gave him a record of the influential group The Watts Prophets, one of the first bands to use spoken words with music."Biography Today", p.62 Although he was without a group for the first time, Fiasco continued to record music. One of these first self-recorded tracks was "Could Have Been", which described the career options he could have pursued had he not begun rapping. He viewed the song as a turning point in his career that marked a drastic change in the subject matter of his music. "Could Have Been" was released as a demo tape and discovered by MTV despite the fact that no video was created for the song.

Fiasco later signed a solo deal with Arista Records, but was dropped when president and CEO L.A. Reid was fired. During his short tenure at Arista, he met Jay-Z, who was the president of Def Jam Recordings at the time. Jay-Z referred to him as a "breath of fresh air", saying that he reminded him of a younger version of himself. Jay-Z later helped him get a record deal at Atlantic Records. While Fiasco was working on his debut solo album, he released his mixtape series ''Fahrenheit 1/15'' over the internet, which gained notoriety by word-of-mouth.

He remixed Kanye West's song, " Diamonds from Sierra Leone", renaming the new version as "Conflict Diamonds". With this remix, Fiasco wished to raise awareness of the conflict diamond business. This caught West's attention, and he asked Fiasco to perform on the song " Touch the Sky" for West's album ''Late Registration''. The song, which sampled Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up", became a hit in the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, peaking at number forty-two. After this success, Fiasco's first single "Kick, Push" was released earlier than expected. The song was a love story about two people sharing a passion for skateboarding, a topic generally not discussed in hip-hop. Fiasco explained, " kateboarding culture isjust as deep as hip-hop. I'm not the greatest skateboarder, but I'm a damn good rapper, so I made a damn good skateboarding song." The single, and its accompanying music video, helped Fiasco get attention in the hip-hop community, and was later nominated for two 2007 Grammy Awards. During this time, he recorded guest performances on Tha' Rayne's "Kiss Me" and " Didn't You Know" singles, and also on K Foxx's 2004 "This Life".

2006–2008: ''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor'' and ''The Cool''

Jay Z assisted him in the production of what would become his debut album ''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor''. The title of the album is a reference to 'Food and Liquor' stores common in Chicago. He explains, "The store is where everything is at...Food to me represents growth and progression. You eat food and you get strength. You need it to live. Liquor is not a necessity; it is a want. It destroys you. It breaks you down. I can see why it's prohibited in Islam...I've always felt like liquor represents the bad, the food represents the good, and everyone is made up of a little of both." ''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor'' was officially released on September 19, 2006. The album featured production from Jay-Z, Kanye West, Mike Shinoda, The Neptunes, Prolyfic, among others. The record spawned the singles "Kick, Push", " I Gotcha" and " Daydreamin'" featuring Jill Scott. The critically lauded album was later nominated for three Grammy Awards including Best Rap Album. Fiasco won "Best Urban/Alternative Performance" for "Daydreamin'". In the same year, he was voted by '' GQ'' magazine as the "Breakout Man of the Year." He also received four BET Hip Hop Award nominations, and it made it to number eight on the ''Billboard'' 200 and number two on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. That same year he participated in the first Cypher at the BET Hip-Hop Awards.

In 2007, Fiasco announced his second album, ''Lupe Fiasco's The Cool'', a concept album that expands on the story of the track of the same name on his first album. While recording this album, Fiasco's father died of type II diabetes and his business partner, Charles "Chilly" Patton, was convicted of attempting to supply heroin to a drug ring and was eventually sentenced to 44 years in a correctional facility. These events greatly affected Fiasco and the subsequent themes discussed on the record. The disc was released in December 2007 in United States while the first single and video from the album, "Superstar" featuring Matthew Santos