The Legendary Podcast

The Legendary Podcast is a sports interview podcast produced by Multiverse Media Group LLC and hosted by Dylan Taylor. It launched in June 2021, where Taylor speaks with top athletes across all disciplines. In 2021, he spoke with American rapper Lupe Fiasco on martial arts, Beat n Path, and Lupe Fiasco versus Daigo Umehara, which was released as the sixth episode on November 9, 2021."The Legendary Podcast Ep 6: Lupe Fiasco". YouTube. November 9, 2021.
== Transcript ==
Title 	Date 	Video
"Lupe Fiasco" 	November 9, 2021 	
Lupe Fiasco, best known as the Grammy Award-winning rapper, is also a legendary martial artist. Beginning his martial arts training at age three by the support of his father, Lupe has a black belt in karate, two black belts in the styles of samurai sword fighting, kinjutsu and iaido, as well as the equivalent of a black belt in Chinese wushu. He has trained in just about every martial art form, and in his recent docuseries "Beat N Path" had a chance to train with the masters in China, taking his craft to the highest levels. This episode, Dylan Taylor of ColoradoWeekendAthlete.com welcomes legendary martial artist, rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur, Lupe Fiasco.	Lupe Fiasco, best known as the Grammy Award-winning rapper, is also a legendary martial artist. Beginning his martial arts training at age three by the support of his father, Lupe has a black belt in karate, two black belts in the styles of samurai sword fighting, kinjutsu and iaido, as well as the equivalent of a black belt in Chinese wushu. He has trained in just about every martial art form, and in his recent docuseries "Beat N Path" had a chance to train with the masters in China, taking his craft to the highest levels. This episode, Dylan Taylor of ColoradoWeekendAthlete.com welcomes legendary martial artist, rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur, Lupe Fiasco.	Lupe Fiasco, best known as the Grammy Award-winning rapper, is also a legendary martial artist. Beginning his martial arts training at age three by the support of his father, Lupe has a black belt in karate, two black belts in the styles of samurai sword fighting, kinjutsu and iaido, as well as the equivalent of a black belt in Chinese wushu. He has trained in just about every martial art form, and in his recent docuseries "Beat N Path" had a chance to train with the masters in China, taking his craft to the highest levels. This episode, Dylan Taylor of ColoradoWeekendAthlete.com welcomes legendary martial artist, rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur, Lupe Fiasco.
Dylan Taylor	Hi everyone, and welcome to The Legendary Podcast. Stories of perseverance and glory in athletics and adventure, the podcast that speaks with top athletes across all disciplines to discuss their journeys to legendary status in their sport with a particular focus on the hurdles they faced getting there. Be sure to follow us for the latest updates and notifications on future guests.
Music plays.	Music plays.
Dylan 	Lupe Fiasco, best known as the Grammy Award-winning rapper, is also a legendary martial artist. Beginning his martial arts training at age three by the support of his father, Lupe has a black belt in karate, two black belts in the styles of samurai sword fighting, kenjutsu and iaido, as well as the equivalent of a black belt in Chinese wushu. He has trained in just about every martial art form, and in his recent docuseries Beat n Path, had a chance to train with the masters in China, taking his craft to the highest levels. Please welcome legendary martial artist, rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur, Lupe Fiasco. Uh Lupe, it's an honor to have you on The Legendary Podcast. How are you doing?
Lupe Fiasco 	Oh wow, uh. Appreciate you having me, brother as, as always.
Dylan 	Yeah, well, I. It's, it's a true honor and you know, I'm so excited about this conversation because, you know. People know you, as they should, as a world famous performer, rapper, poet, artist, um. And just for the record, you're one of the smartest people I've ever met, and I mean that sincerely. And I will talk more about that later.
Lupe 	No, I wish. I wish, I wish more people knew that. I wish for, I wish more people knew that some of the smartest people in the world think that I'm one of the smartest people in the world. Like that is, uh, um. But for everybody who doesn't know, uh, Dylan is one of these smartest people in the world. Just FYI.
Dylan 	Well, you uh, you're too kind my friend. But you know, we'll we'll get to it. But I, I've seen you in the room with Rhodes scholars and people who are brainiacs of the highest order and uh, and, and you've crushed it. But what I admire about you, Lupe, is that, um. You're an incredibly thoughtful, incredibly intellectual, uh, person. And, you know, I've always been fascinated by how, um, how your mind works and how you, how you operate. How you kind of conduct yourself at that elevated plane, and, and that's why I'm so excited to talk to you today because we're going to talk about a little known aspect of your legendary status, which is your martial arts and, uh. At least from my vantage point, it's really an important part of what makes Lupe, Lupe. And maybe if it's okay, maybe we'll start there. Um, you know, your father, uh, Gregory Jaco. He did martial arts for more than 40 years as I understand it, and I've seen you credit him for the dedication of your craft. Can you, can you tell us a little bit more about how he inspired you how this all came about your, your journey into the martial arts?
Lupe 	Yeah, for sure. Um, first and piece, rest in peace. My dad passed uh in like '07. But he did he did martial arts for 40 years. I grew up the, if we had to say what was my family business, it would be martial arts schools. You know, karate schools. My dad had multiple martial arts schools throughout the city of Chicago through his life, through his entire life. And if you asked him you know what was the, the, his business. He might have told you engineering because he was an engineer worked at a Northwest Memorial Hospital in Chicago. It's kind of like a plant operations engineer and. But a myriad of other things, he was an artist, he's a musician, we had army navy surplus stores because he was a military guy came out of special forces and stuff like that. But in that whole narrative of everything that he was doing, was firmly embedded the martial arts. So Japanese martial arts, Chinese martial arts, just a range of all these different styles from judo, which was kind of his specialty, to karate, to aikido, to kendo, to aiki jujitsu, and just like multiple black belts. Multiple, uh, newspaper appearances of him breaking, you know, stacks of bricks chest high-type situations and stuff like that. Breaking stuff with his head, cutting cigarettes out of people's mouths with samurai swords. Uh, having a team of children, you know, marching in parades, dressed up as ninjas and, and kung fu experts. But literally all these kids knew the moves like they were ninjas, you know. It wasn't, they were just dressed up as ninjas, they were ninjas and, uh. One of those kids was me, you know. Um, and it wasn't just me. It was my entire family, you know, so my sisters, my brothers. Even to this day are all kind of steeped into martial arts. Everybody has black belts. And it's just, it was just our, our kind of journey. Our cultural, our first kind of cultural. Even before when you think about what, what is your culture, you know. Like what, what is your culture? My culture. And I say this, you know, honestly. When I was younger, I was more Japanese than I was Black culturally, right, and more to Japanese than anything else. I knew how to count in Japanese before I knew how to count to ten in English. I was just, this, this martial arts culture and everything that came with it, you know. I started to get a sense of. I didn't know what it meant to be anything else other than like a karate kid. And then over years, I learned about slavery. Like, oh, slavery, what was that? Like we were slaves, like what? How did that come about, you know. And then you, you, get the narrative of everything else and what it means to be kind of cultured to either be American, or to be Black, but. So I always land on, you know, the martial arts as my cultural background, my cultural initiation, still prescribes my world view et. cetera, et. cetera.
Dylan 	Yeah, I can, I can see that. And knowing you Lupe, I mean, you know your, your resiliency, your grit, your determination, your, um, groundedness. Uh, you know, the peace that you conduct yourself with. Um. To me, that's all grounded in the discipline of martial arts. Would you agree with that, is that where that comes from?
Lupe 	(laughing) Yeah, all the abuse.
Dylan 	Right, yeah right, the flogging, I guess right?
Lupe 	That's a product of, of years, years of abuse in the martials space. I say, I say that comedically, of course, but I also say that very seriously. You know, the level of the martial arts that we were doing, and the intensity in which we practiced, you know. You, it, it isn't a, a, a fairytale or a hyperbole when I say my dad would take a giant cauldron, fill it with water, and then set a fire around it, and—
Dylan 	Wow.
Lupe 	—heat it up till it was boiling. Then he would put all type of objects into it like boards, and pieces of wood, and stones, right? He would put these things in the water and it would boil, boil, and boil. And then he would say "okay, now go over there and pull that stuff out bare-handed."
Dylan 	Wow.
Lupe 	You know, maybe somebody could pull the wood out, because it was floating, right? Maybe somebody else could get a little bit deep and it was whoever gets the stone, you know, gets the prize for that, for that, that session right?
Dylan 	Wow.
Lupe 	And nobody could get the stone but my dad. So my, after all of us try and scald ourselves, my dad would walk over and he would just reach into this water and pull this stone out.
Dylan 	Wow.
Lupe 	You know, in front of everybody. We're sitting there looking for us that was so normal, that was like of course right. And how old were you, how old were you Lupe? I was five. Right?
Dylan 	Wow.
Lupe 	Jumping out of windows, diving over cars, walking on hot coals, breaking bricks, uh, walking on rocks, kicking out candles, like the whole range of brutality. (laughs) Beats, beats a certain level of discipline inside of you, for sure.
Dylan 	Lupe honestly, uh, to me that explains, explains a lot about your, your fortitude right? Your fortitude, your grit, your, um, your unflappable nature. Um, you know I, I want to recommend highly your, your docuseries, uh, Beat n Path. Uh, for those listeners who haven't seen this, you've got to watch this this documentary that features Lupe in China, uh, studying martial arts with the masters and sort of showing your craft if I, if I can call it that, Lupe. Phenomenally well done, I want to talk a little bit about your experience in making that. But the other, the other thing I don't think people fully appreciate is the athleticism required for martial arts we talk a lot about the mental elements of it, because that's really what it's known for. And you certainly, you need to have a certain mental fortitude to be successful. But the physicality of it is ridiculous, and it really is, uh, can you talk a little bit about that? And I'd love to talk hear more about the series and how that all came about, and again, highly, highly, highly recommend it to folks who haven't seen it. It's really amazing.
Lupe 	Yeah I mean, uh, Beat n Path. I did with my fellow Aspen fellow, uh, Bonnie Chan Woo. We put it together, went to China, went to Shaolin, went to Shanghai, went to Beijing, went to. Kind of these nodes of the martial arts experience, the Chinese martial experience, at the request of my my dad. You know posthumously, at that point, because we did it just a few years ago. But my dad always told his students that he knew that he wasn't the complete, you know. He himself being a Black man in America had to kind of find how to learn it in different spots and you know. And he even knew that, you know, him bringing it back to his community so he would go to the north side of Chicago, train with a a judo expert one of his teachers Mr. Shin from Korea, um, and then to learn judo. Then he would go to the Japanese cultural center with Mr. Toyota who was the aikido expert, and then he would have to bring somehow figure out a way to bring all of that back to the Southside of Chicago, you know, to the hoods, and the ghettos, and his school, and then impart that. So he always knew that he was never the the completion, so he always told us you know if you get the chance go back to the source. You know, go back home, and complete your training, you know. For whatever that is, go back and take if it's to verify what I've showed you that shows you that it's actually authentic. if it's to go back to to get the proper, um, orientation or correction from a teacher who did that art their whole life and is the headmaster of this particular school or extension. So he always said that so he has students that will go on these uh, shugo what is it uh, musha shugyo which is basically like traveling to different schools and challenging people to fights, right? But not not in that sense, but you had his students who would go to Japan, you know, to learn and finish this art. So when I got the opportunity in the space in my schedule, I was like I'm going to China 'cause I want to learn wushu, you know, I want to, I want to I want to go to Shaolin and see if these things that we were doing in the karate class which for us was just fun and play was serious. So we got put together a little docuseries called Beat n Path. It didn't release in the States, um, but it released overseas, uh, Southeast Asia. Asia, different parts of the world, and that was I think in 2018. And I got to, I traveled around again. Reiterate, I traveled around China, I went to different schools. I wasn't, I wasn't there for an extremely long amount of time, but if you see the docuseries, you'll see me like sit with an instructor for a few hours and like this guy learns really fast like what we thought that he was an amateur and I was like, it's my dad, you know. My dad just from the arrows and everything else. And speaking to kind of the physicality like, spinning off that, I actually did Shaolin kung fu at a temple up the street from actual Shaolin temple which is more like a, an amusement park right now, to be honest. It's not really like a, it's still an active temple, but it, it's the the vibe of it. Is your, it's like a tourist attraction and up the street they have a legit temple that's not a tourist attraction, but still the same setup active temple where they pray but also teach you know Shaolin kung fu. And they actually had me teaching, they actually had me learning with a group of kids, you know, for whatever. Imported from around China. For them it was like a boarding school, but their main subject was Shaolin kung fu so I'm surrounded by these like 10-year old kung fu warrior champions and getting a glimpse of what their training regiment is. You know one is, you know, everybody has to know how to do box splits, you know. You're doing acrobatics, you're doing you're flipping over things, you're running up walls, you're, you're frog hopping up steps, frog hopping down steps. You're, you're marching for, you know, you're doing hikes and runs. You're picking up medicine balls and throwing them to each other. It's almost like you're doing hit training and bodybuilding training and Navy seal training and astronaut training, you know. And, and, you have to fight at the end of the day and you have to do box splits and so the the regiment for the martial arts is so intense on a physical, on a physical thing and people get hurt, you know. You'll get hurt in the training process and one of the things that my dad always says is don't, don't hurt anything if you don't know how to fix it. So a large part of our karate school was almost like a medical center where my dad was in there putting people back together, wrapping up wounds and stuff like that.
Dylan 	I could see that. You know, I heard you say one time that once you learn how to do martial arts, it teaches you not to use it. What do you mean by that?
Lupe 	It makes you a coward, is what it does.
Dylan 	Yeah, right.
Lupe 	I mean, so, so the core kind of intention of karate it wasn't that. It was to fight at a certain point, it was like you go back to the history of studying you know because there's a, there's a large kind of um, historical, cultural, historical exposition that you can do in a martial arts outside of the training so you could become a martial artist that just studies the history of clothing or this kind of thing. So once you start to go down kind of like the the history of Okinawan karate, um, and see who were the kind of headmasters and the progenitors of that in his early in his early states. These were dudes who were bar fighters, you know, they learned how to do this so they could go to the to the red light district in Okinawa and get drunk, then fight over girls. And you see that as being part of the process, right. Um, so some of these moves were meant to give them the edge in a street fight that they probably started. But with that said, budo, the whole kind of universe of the martial arts has different flavors and different functions, you know. So different influences one from Buddhism one from Shintoism and as you go around the world you'll see influences dripping in from, from the spiritual side to the political side to what have you certain martial arts were, were, were meant to be only practiced by the high class, you know. And like street fighting was beneath you type situation and you'll be like, oh that's the core of this entire martial arts practice that we do today. Oh, that's why it's peaceful, right, because it's meant to be for the fuddy-duddies, right? It's meant to be the gulf, you know, of uh, or the polo, you know, of, of this particular kind of piece. But you're just doing it with swords almost like tea ceremony to a degree so you had that layer of like this isn't meant for combat because it wasn't meant for combat. These moves won't work in combat, right, so you have to be, you have to not fight, because if you did fight and tried to use this, you'd be killed, you know. That's one kind of more objective piece the other side of it is, you know, once you start to experience and you gain the ability to hurt people and you actually start hurting people, I mean. It is, it, it wears on your psyche you know unless you're a sociopath or a, you know, a maniac, it's like to just want to hurt for the sake of hurting. Kind of wears down on you and you saw that so some of these people who were the originators of some of these styles they were warriors, you know, they were killers and they all went to the temple to kind of redeem themselves became these very peaceful men and kind of made these, you know, claims and demands upon their studentry to say "hey, if I teach you this style, you have to promise that you're never going to use it." But I mean for me, for me I got for me I'll close on this for me. I got, I got punched in the face and I was like I don't like getting punched in the face, so I'm never fighting. Yeah, that was my opinion.
Dylan 	Right, right. Well, yeah. And I mean I, I just don't see you um, escalating that necessarily. Even though you could, I mean, for the people who don't know, you've got a black belt in karate.
Lupe 	Hm.
Dylan 	You've got two black belts in in two forms of, uh, sword fighting, right? The kendo and the, is it iaido, is that right?
Lupe 	Well, not, not kendo. In kenjutsu. So there's like—
Dylan 	Kenjutsu?
Lupe 	Iaido, yeah, both dealing with the samurai sword. But I'm not a black belt in kendo.
Dylan 	Yeah, well. I mean the, the point, the point being I mean you've got, you've got belts on top of belts, right. And you've got, I've seen you with the sword not only in person but, uh, in the show. In the Beat n Path and I mean you're, I mean it's, it's a work of art, the way you. The way you, uh, operate with that thing. I mean it, it's extraordinary. You know, let's talk a little bit about sort of what you're what you're experiencing mentally when you're going through that regiment. Is it, is it, is it violence, is it peace, is it a different plane of consciousness? What what does your training allow your mind to do, when you're in that situation?
Lupe 	For me, mentally, it's so in me. It's, it. There's no difference, you know. It's not, and it's not an escape. It's not that, I'm doing something else when I'm doing the martial arts. Um, because I was born into the martial arts, you know. It's the only thing I've ever known. So when I do it it's just oh, that's what we do. That's how you move your body, you know, that's how you think. That's the space that you're in and over life though, you start to do other things. I get into music, I get into other pieces. You start to lose that because you fall out of practice, and when you go back to it, which I've done over the past like few years, I've kind of went back into it much, much, more heavily because I figured it's the second or the third whatever's left of my life will be. Let me go and master all of my, my martial arts. Let me go back to that and make that primary it is that peace, you know. There, there's something that I can't explain to you about because it, because it's not peace it's harmony right?
Dylan 	Harmony, harmony.
Lupe 	And peace is in harmony.
Dylan 	Yeah, harmony. That resonates, that resonates, yeah.
Lupe 	Harmony isn't always peaceful, harmony can also be violent. Because you're becoming harmonious with what you're facing, right? So harmony can also be tough, harmony can also be soft, right, depending on what you're doing and what the intention is. So, it's finding that harmony and. There's a, there's a, the what, what is meant to be reached in most all martial arts practice is, is two, two things. One's called fudōshin, which is, uh, which comes from one of the the deities of the martial arts as put forth by the Japanese. Uh, this deity named Fudō Myōō, who's again considered to be like the the patron saint or the patron deity of the martial arts. And it's about having an immovable mind. And if you look at Fudō Myōō the, these these statues of Fudō Myōō he or she it is very much so. It looks very fierce, it's holding a sword and it's holding a lasso, a rope. But, you know, the story behind it is, is, it's looking fierce because it's trying to scare away negativity, you know? It holds the sword to try and kill ignorance, right, or it's holding the rope. I'm chopping up the the true interpretation of each piece, but it's holding the rope to bind ignorance, you know. It's, it's holding a sword to kill malevolence, so to speak. It's fierce looking but it's fierce because it's scaring away the demons and then the other piece is uh called mugi, mushin no shin, right? Which is no mind. So fudōshin is is, uh, is immovable mind um or a movable heart and then mushin no shin is is uh, no mind or no heart, right? Um, meaning that you don't preconceive or you you you don't operate off your biases or what you want to happen, right? You go with what is happening, and you become harmonious to that, you know. And in that if that's death, then it's death, you know. If it's life, then it's life, you know. If it's running away, then it's running away, whatever that situation calls for. You don't force the situation and, you know, you you switch into this, this state of kind of mushin no shin, and that's when the years of training take over, right? That's what that is is to eliminate your preconceived notions in your front conscious mind and let your body that has been trained hopefully trained correctly and properly it begins to take over and adjust to what the situation and circumstances may be so those are kind of like what you get to and in that it's such a range of emotions it's such a. I don't think we really experience emotion, and I think emotion is, is, is actually is very kind of toxic in the martial arts space. Because emotion, again, is operating from your conscious mind, right? Once you start to operate in a state of kind of mushin no shin, emotions don't even exist, so you don't even know like is this making me happy. Like is this making me sad, like no, it's pushing you toward this, this this state of kind of no mindedness. Um and then lastly, I mean there's something to that I just can't explain about, we call it noto. So in iaido, there's like four parts. The the last part of it is called noto, and that's when you put the sword back into the sheath. And there's something about that feeling of putting the sword back into the sheath which is, is blissful, you know. And when you're doing it properly, when you're doing it correctly, when you do it you might do it 100 times, and you did it exceptional one time, it just, it makes the world a better place. (laughs)
Dylan 	Wow. You know, Lupe. You, you literally have blown my mind. I don't even know where to go from here, I mean the, um, your comments on harmony. I, I just think that's brilliant. Because to me, you know, I'm thinking about like deep meditative practice and really, tapping into the, the stream, if you will. To me, that's exactly the essence of it. The essence of it is capturing on whatever frequency that is. And it's not good or bad, it's not right or wrong, it's not up or down, it just is, right. The frequency is. So, yeah, that's, that's, that blows my mind. Um, one thing occurred to me. You're world famous in many, many, many, many respects. Um, but the other thing that people might not fully appreciate is, you, you had this just unbelievable experience in um, gaming. Whereas, an amateur—and I use that word in quotes—you, you step into a theater, I think, with Street Fighter. And you win against the reigning world champion. I mean, is that, is that because your, your hand-eye coordination, your ability to process information is, is, this in any way tied to your martial arts training? Your ability to essentially pull off the equivalent of walking onto a golf course and beating Tiger Woods? I mean, it's really extraordinary what you did, but what do you credit that to?
Lupe 	Uh, my dad. In the sense that, you know, we had this martial arts school. And then underneath the martial arts school he had this army surplus store. And it was a store, you know, so. You want to cater to people who come into the store, so we had, he had a gumball machine, right. And he had an M&M machine and he also had stand-up cabinets of arcade games, you know. So again, in our basement at our house, we had a bunch of arcade machines. And, you know, through the years it was always, I don't know if my dad just was a fan of video games or something like that, himself, um. But when we go through the years and the different businesses that he had, and specifically the karate schools, you know, it wasn't uncommon to have a video game in there, right. So—and a stand-up arcade game. So one of the schools, um, we had Street Fighter, you know. We had Street Fighter in the school. Rewind a little bit, you know. When I was going to just regular school, not karate school, not danger school. But correct, regular school, um. The, the corner store up the street from the school that people would go to right before school started, you know, they had Street Fighter. The store, the restaurant that was downstairs from the karate school, you know. Had Street Fighter, you know. So I've just had an affinity for Street Fighter when, you know, we had consoles at home. We would go to blockbuster video and rent some games and we would rent Street Fighter, you know, among other fighting games. And we did it because we were Street Fighter, you know. Like we were dudes, in uniforms, doing karate, throwing—trying to throw, we couldn't. We, my dad actually did teach us how to throw fireballs in real life, you know, but it was. You had a lighter tucked into your sleeve and that was a whole thing, but. We were throwing fireballs, you know. So the first person that I seen the first time I seen someone throw a fireball wasn't in a video game, you know, it was like. It was like this, my dad taught this guy how to throw fireballs. Um, in the school I, I swear to you right and he was dressed up like a ninja it was, it was insane. But you know. So anyway, I got this, I'm steeped in video games. I'm steeped Street Fighter and just so you know, I'm terrible at Street Fighter. What, what you witnessed with me fighting Daigo—his name is Daigo Umehara, he's considered to be the, the man of Street Fighter, right? There's other folks, sure, but he was able to establish himself in a moment in time in history and achieve amazing successes. I think he has Guinness World Records, and all type of craziness. I'm just, I'm just kind of bantering, talk. There's a community called the FGC—The Fighting Game Community—and I'm just kind of like bantering, you know. Just being a fan, you know, just like hey, you know. And one of the, kind of the promoters, or one of the kind of one of the people that was in the game, his name is Mark Markman. He had a connection to Daigo, um. I don't know if they was work for the same sponsorship company, or something like that. But he was like, he offered he said "hey, you know we got this event coming up, do you want to play Daigo?" Just, just like that on Twitter. And I was like, I would. I would be in it, would be an honor to come and lose to Daigo. So I was, it was a few months away and I was like, you know what? I was on tour. So I was like you know what, I'm gonna start training right. I'm finna just put myself and just really consume this whole experience. I know I'm gonna lose, but I'm gonna make the most out of this. It's like I'm finna start preparing. Kind of how you would train for an iron man, right, or prepare, I'm going to prepare for the Olympics. So we went and bought consoles for the van, right, to. We were trained different, I bought a joystick for it and the whole thing and. I just was like you know what, I'm, let's do it, let's go. I got a training partner, did the whole thing, and then fast forward we get to the to the it took place in San Francisco. Um, get, get to San Francisco, it's my birthday, just FYI. I'm, I'm backstage training and that they, the game that we want the version of Street Fighter that we winded up playing is a version that I had never played until that night, literally that night.
Dylan 	What?
Lupe 	So before then, I was playing like Street Fighter IV, and we're going to play Street Fighter V, and I didn't start playing Street Fighter V until that day. So I'm like. And I'm getting destroyed, getting destroyed. Everybody who comes up, because I'm playing like developers of the game, and just random players, but everybody there is a professional Street Fighter player that plays Street Fighter all day and play and compete and da, da, da, da. So I'm, I don't even know the basic mechanics of the game they're they're playing frame data and all this other stuff. I have no idea how to execute that. So I just like, you know what, whatever. I came to lose, you know, so throw, throw caution into the wind. Okay, it's time to to fight get in there and. I just go into that state of like mushin no shin, you know, of like.
Dylan 	Right, right.
Lupe 	No mind, just play as wild as you possibly can, and try and get one round, and don't embarrass yourself.
Dylan 	Right, right.
Lupe 	You know, first I think, the first two games he wins and I was like, I just got to get a game off him. If I can just get a game off of him, then at least I'll be able to hold that. And something was happening with my controller, so I had a technical issue. I swapped out controllers, got a new controller in the middle, and then it started to go the other way, you know. The wildness started to work. And it came down the last game, last round, last moment. And I, I was able to squeeze out the hit, and I won. But if you watch the video—there's a video of it on YouTube. If you watch the video, you'll see that I was in a complete state of muji mushin, because I did not know that I had won. And it took Geiger to tell me that I had won because I thought, like. I'm just ready to die, like I'm just it's bushido code. I'm ready to die, and he's like no, you won and then the celebrations commenced.
Dylan 	Can't imagine.
Lupe 	Yeah, but it had been it had nothing to do with technical skill whatsoever. It was actually the complete opposite. It was like complete and utter wild man chaos, pressing every button in the shuttle. Hopefully, hopefully hoping that we turn, yeah.
Dylan 	But again I, I credit. You just operate at a different level, Lupe. You just do, I know that about you and, uh, that is extraordinary to me. You know I play I, I don't know if I ever told you this, but I had the privilege of playing Garry Kasparov in chess one time. I'm—you know, I'm a decent chess player, but nothing to write home about and. You know, the only difference with that story and the one you just told is you know he, he, he beat me at about five minutes. Um, yeah, and then he proceeded to say well, you know your third move was this, and your fourth move were that, you should have done this on the fifth move. And I'm like, "Gary, I don't even remember. I don't remember my second move much less your second move or my third move." And it's just extraordinary. Not only did he have the the board mastered, but he had every move that I made. And he had every contingent move I should have made. And uh, it was. But it was an honor, right? It was an honor to play him and it's your point, I just kind of went into that saying, you know. If I can take a couple of his pieces, I'm going to feel like I you know accomplished something. But um, but you know good, good on, good on you.
Lupe 	Uh, take, take the pieces and uh, dip them in gold. And like keep them on your shelf, like I took these from Garry Kasparov. I got a couple pawns.
Dylan 	Exactly. I had him actually, funny you mentioned that, I had him sign the chessboard, um. And, and I've got the picture of the match uh, on top of it. But uh, well, that's an amazing, that's an amazing story, uh. You know, just maybe a couple other, uh, final questions from, from my side. Um, you know, you're enormously busy. We're coming out of COVID, you got a world tour, uh, North American, European tour coming up this fall.
Lupe 	Hm.
Dylan 	So enormously busy, but you know, based upon what you said earlier—and what I, what I think your, your goals are. You have some additional martial arts focuses that you'd like to turn your attention to. So, what's next for you in the martial arts world? How are you thinking about that going forward?
Lupe 	I mean, I'm thinking about building a brand, first and foremost. And so kind of working through the thought process and the mechanics of what does that mean to do a martial arts brand, you know, you know. Just doing a lot of the rnd, a lot of my time is that I kind of compartmentalized the music kind of got it out the way um so I could focus on that, that piece. And then just kind of back to training and, and kind of for health reasons, kind of for other reasons, just like you know about the turn 40, uh, next year. And kind of want to have a real heavy athletic regiment and. Luckily, you know I did martial arts for 30, 38 years, right. So it's just kind of like go back into that. Um, so experiencing that, I can't kick as high as I could when I was 17, and that kind of is disheartening, so. Trying to get my kicks back up to, at least face level with ease, without without throwing my back out. And then thinking about just, kind of extending, you know, at the mercy of COVID, but. Want to kind of get back to Japan, you know. Wanna, we were, we were wanted to do a Beat n Path uh, Japan and was working kind of through the mechanics of that and kind of put it again the music kind of comes in and other things, put it to the side, so. Um, but now Japan is kind of closed because of COVID and stuff like that, you know. Hopefully we we can kind of get this pandemic, uh, behind us. And like the first thing I'm doing, is going to Japan, just to be in that culture again. But then also maybe pick up and expand on a new art form out there, so.
Dylan 	Yeah, that makes perfect sense. You know the other thing about you, Lupe. Uh, the people probably don't know is you're an extraordinary athlete. I remember vividly you and I, I don't know it was probably an eight, nine mile run that you and I hammered out at seven minute clip. You went from the couch to that run and back to the couch. I'm not even sure he broke a sweat on that run. And, uh, true story. I mean I'll vouch for that I was there so, uh, you really are an extraordinary athlete. I know that helps you in the martial arts, but I imagine you know just the amount of physicality of touring every night putting in the performances you put in uh, which are exhausting not only physically, but mentally. And then doing it all over again and new city and knew this. I mean, it really is an endurance sport right being a performer, isn't it?
Lupe 	Yeah, I'm running off this theme you know. I create these little brands for myself, personally. The martial arts brand will be public, but the the, you know. The little personal brand that I have for myself is, rap is a sport. So train like it, you know, and that's my mantra and stuff like that. And I literally, that's, that's why I train, you know. That's why I do, and train at the extent I do, because I think, you think about these shows and everything that goes into it. It isn't just the performance itself, it's, you know, you're on a plane. You know, then from the plane, to this place, in a new hotel. The shows, you might not get off stage until midnight, and you got to get up at six in the morning to go do it again. So, it's really like this marathon that you're on for six weeks, right, in a different place, in a different time, with your body reacting to adjusting to climb it. And, and, different altitudes and literally, you know, venues with bad sound. But then amazing venues with—but, but, it's half empty, so now you're dealing with the emotional stress of like, Am I a failure because we only got this place half full, blah, blah, blah. And so you're dealing with all of this stuff, and it's just like you have to be in an athletic state of mind. Like you have to be in the state of mind of an Olympic level competitor that no matter what, the venue is what's happening from a climate standpoint, you're there to execute on a job, right? And do it. And so it's a lot of training that goes in before then. So again I'll say that you know rap is a sport so I, I train like it well.
Dylan 	Well, I can see that. And, and for those of you who haven't seen Lupe in concert, one of the best all-time performances you can ever see anywhere. So highly, highly, highly recommend seeing Lupe live uh, now that we're coming out of COVID. Just final question, Lupe, on my side you know people plugging into what you're doing. You've got all these different interests, you've got the music, you've got the martial arts, you've got your clothing company, and a lot of other projects. Your non-profit, which we didn't even get to. How do people plug into what you're doing?
Lupe 	My social medias are just Lupe Fiasco at Lupe Fiasco. So, that's uh, Twitter and uh Instagram. And I think I have a Facebook, and that should be at Lupe Fiasco as well. And then LupeFiasco.com is the main kind of website. And then it'll take you to the touring and the merchant, and all merchandise, and all of that information. And then if you're interested in kind of the martial arts piece, um, which we kind of separated from the Lupe Fiasco world, you'll see me throw up little stuff on my Instagram page, um. But I have another page called Nishigawa Iaido Club. And I'll, I'll let you figure out how to spell that, um. That'll be part of your first training.
Dylan 	Yeah, right, that's, that's your first task.
Lupe 	If you can get there, um, then then welcome, the training will commence. But I got a separate Instagram page called Nishigawa Iaido Club where I, you know, put up different information about the martial arts and stuff like that. And, yeah, that's me. That's how you get in contact.
Dylan 	Well I got to tell you uh, Lupe, I, I admire so much what you have done. Uh, the kind of human you are and have become. You know, you truly are legendary in every sense of that word, and we're just so honored to have you on The Legendary Podcast. Uh, thanks so much for your time.
Lupe 	Uh, Dylan brother, appreciate you, man. And just so folks know, yes, I know Dylan. We know, we've known each other for years. And even with that said, um, he's, he's, he's even. If I didn't know him, Dylan Taylor's one of the most amazing individuals walking this face of the earth and is a legend himself. So don't let him fool. Don't think that he isn't legendary in his own right, this man right here is uh, is a king among king.
Dylan 	Thank you brother, thank you for that. Well, best, best, uh, wishes to you. And hope to see you soon. Take care, Lupe, thank you so much.
Music plays.	Music plays.
Dylan 	For more information about The Legendary Podcast, make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts and on Twitter at The Legendary Pod. This podcast is a production of Multiverse Media Group LLC, and is produced and written by Will Henry, and hosted by Dylan Taylor. We'll be back next episode with another legendary athlete.
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== References ==
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