If you are a fan of rap music, you have likely heard of Lupe Fiasco. But one thing that you may not know about the Grammy-winning performer is that he is also a huge fan of the game Street Fighter. In fact, not only has he included a variety of Street Fighter related raps into his songs, but he actually has a song titled “Yoga Flame”, which is a special attack for the character Dhalsim in Street Fighter II. But recently, Lupe shows he is more than just a big fan of the game, he is also pretty damn good at playing it.
Back in January, known gamer Lupe Fiasco was contacted via Twitter and asked if he wanted to be part of a session to play the brand new Street Fighter 5 against Daigo. For those unfamiliar, Daigo is seen by most people as the best Street Fighter player of all time and currently holds the Guinness World Record for being the most successful player in Street Fighter tournaments. Fiasco eagerly and excitedly accepted the invitation and, a few days ago, the battle took place.
While most people (including Lupe Fiasco himself) were expecting Daigo to breeze to an easy win, that is not quite how things played out. In a best three of five match, Lupe Fiasco (playing as Ken) actually managed to shock the gaming world and upset Daigo (who was playing as Ryu) 3-2 as he won the first game, fourth game and fifth games of the match. After winning, Lupe Fiasco looks on top of the world and shocked that he won, and we don’t blame him, beating Daigo is no easy task. Lupe also admitted that he almost cried on the stage and that competing against Daigo was a “bucket list thing”.
Unfortunately, there are some out there who believe the match was fixed and that Daigo was told to throw the match the less experienced guest in Fiasco, but according to a Mad Catz representative, this was not the case at all and the match was 100% legitimate. The representative (Alex Verrey) also claimed that Daigo “would never allow such a thing”. I, for one, will take their word for it and believe that Lupe is better than we thought and legitimately pulled off the upset.
This battle between Lupe Fiasco and Daigo is the latest example of the increasing and ever growing mainstream appeal of eSports and video gaming as a whole. From Twitch always getting more popular as a streaming service and platform to the humungous $18.5 Million prize pool at last year’s DOTA 2 tournament, there is a ton of indicators that gaming is becoming a bigger and bigger fixture in mainstream media and pop culture. Even the late night television talk show “Conan” (hosted by Conan O’Brien) has a segment called “Clueless Gamer” in which Conan himself and/or his celebrity guests play a wide variety of games. And with the fact that his is one of the more popular talk shows out there, you can be sure these video games that are played on his show are reaching a whole new type of audience that they would have never reached if they didn’t appear in this segment.
Also, in terms of celebrities that love and play video games, Lupe is not alone as there are a number of other famous celebrities that play games much more than you would expect, and the skills of some will shock you. For example, super athlete and multiple time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Michael Phelps is a huge fan of the Call of Duty and I mean HUGE. In fact, Phelps admitted in an interview in 2012 that he played approximately 30 hours of Call of Duty a week. The fact he was able to do that while still being one of the best American athletes of all time is mind boggling. While Phelps isn’t anything super special at the game, there are a few celebrities who are. For example, the founder and creator of the file-sharing website Megaupload (Kim Dotcom) is an avid gamer who’s prowess may surprise you. In fact, he was once the number one player in the world in both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Call of Duty: Ghosts. Now that is impressive.
I, for one, am extremely excited for the future of eSports and video games as a whole and would expect to see more and more celebrities and influential figures become involved with it like Lupe Fiasco did. I believe these kinds of events can open up the world and culture of video games to a whole new audience that may not have been into them until they figured out that their favorite celebrity was.