The released soon after this event single Kick Push, dedicated to the skateboard culture, was highly acclaimed by the audience. The young rapper immediately attracted the attention of the public. In 2006 Lupe made a guest appearance on Kanye West's track Touch the Sky from the album Late Registration. At that period, promising artist Lupe caught the eye of the hip-hop mogul Jay-Z, who decided to help the young talent to record his debut solo album Food & Liquor. His appearance on Mike Shinoda's (member of Linkin Park) solo album Fort Minor: We Major greatly contributed to this. By 2005, Fiasco was a rather popular person in rap underground circles. In the beginning of 2006, Lupe with a friend started a radio show FNF Radio on the campus wave of the Illinois Institute Of Technology. Since that moment Fiasco decided to work independently - he made guest appearances on the tracks of other rappers and distributed his mixes through the Internet, thus creating his fan base. After this disappointing experience in show business, Lupe decided to start a solo career, but the signed with Arista Records contract was torn by the company due to the head staff changes. Before splitting, the band managed to record one single. At the age of 19, Lupe became the participant of the band Da Pak. After listening to the album It Was Wrilleh by Nas in 1996, seventeen-year-old Lupe made up his mind to become a rapper too.įirstly, he decided to choose a pseudonym – Lupe Fiasco, where Lupe is his school and domestic nickname, while Fiasco, meaning failure, defeat – was taken from the song he listened to. While studying at the Thornton Township High School in Harvey, Illinois, Fiasco started rapping not knowing what the consequences could be. It should be noted that for that moment, Lupe's attitude to rap was rather negative than positive – vulgar and aggressive lyrics irritated him, but after the acquaintance with Nas' works Lupe understood that rap differs like people do. However, he always had some spare time for them – so he gave records of Massive Attack to his son. No wonder, Lupe's father had to have several jobs in order to feed such an amount of children. There were many children in his family – Fiasco became the fifth kid among the nine brothers and sisters. Future rapper Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, also known as Lupe Fiasco, was born and brought up in Chicago, Illinois.