Gregory Jaco

Gregory Jaco
Born	April 5, 1952
Died	February 26, 2007 (aged 54) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Occupations	Martial arts instructor
Years active	1980s–2007

My father was The Man. He was a big influence in so many areas. That's what keeps me from limiting myself, because he was such a Renaissance man. I've always wanted to be like my pops.

Lupe Fiasco to Chicago Magazine

Gregory Hamza Jaco (April 5, 1952 – February 26, 2007) was the father of Wasalu "Lupe Fiasco" Jaco. He worked as a martial arts instructor for 40 years, had eight black belts, was an operating plant engineer, and owned Army surplus stores. He was a member of the Black Panther Party, a former Army Green Beret, and also a musician, where he could play the bagpipes, xylophone, saxophone, and African drums. He opened his first karate school—Tiger Dojo—in his teens, and continued to open martial arts schools around Chicago for inner-city Black youth. One of the dojos was The Tornado School of Martial Arts, which he founded after returning from Vietnam. He appeared in the 2002 documentary film, South Side Warriors, which observes Chicago's growing martial arts scene.

Jaco opened martial arts schools during the 1980s-90s, where Fiasco and Ayesha Jaco would train. One of the schools Gregory ran was on the block where Stony Island Arts Bank is presently at, and where Fiasco held a private screening for Beat n Path in 2019. Ayesha added that their work to "make your community better than you found it" was part of remembering their late father.

Background

Wasalu's parents divorced when he was five years old, where he lived with his mother but remained close with both. He noted how his father was still involved, visiting on weekends, and had eclectic interests that resulted in him experiencing "everything" and being exposed to different cultures. At age three, Fiasco received his first iaitō katana from his father. In sixth grade he went to live with his father in the suburb, Harvey, where he also attended Thornton Township High School. It was comparatively safer from the violence of the West Side, though he remembered living next door to a crack house. He talked about the impressive gun collection his father owned: "He had like a floor-mounted 20-millimeter machine gun. I remember playing with actual dummy bazookas. I have pictures of me holding live M-16s, fully loaded, laying down on my neighbor's lawn, and they're like, 'That's so cute; look at him!' We'd go out to some camping ground somewhere and leave rounds there. So I know guns." His father was also immersed in "the Zulu culture for which he had great affinity and a direct connection," and kept a collection of Zulu weapons.

Fiasco recalled being surrounded by music since he was young, telling Chicago Magazine, "My father used to play sitars and African drums and he had this record collection that was just vast. I got my first djembe when I was like four and we'd go out to 67th Street beach and have this huge jam session." Eventually, Fiasco immersed himself in writing with the help of Dusean "Bishop G" Dunbar, and discovered lyrical storytelling through hip hop. Fiasco's father would take them to secondhand shops to buy equipment, and they created mixtapes in his father's basement.

Gregory Jaco died on February 26, 2007, from complications with type II diabetes and heart failure. He was buried the next day in the Islamic tradition on February 27 at the Mosque Foundation of Chicago, and memorial held at Bethel Church on March 2. Fiasco dealt with grief during the recording of his sophomore album The Cool, where "Fighters" in particular mentioned lost loved ones. Fiasco said, "I knew I had to write it, but I got all choked up. Talking to yourself, having some therapy with yourself—it was the hardest record to write because of the emotions. This wound is fresh. I couldn't even let my little sisters hear the song. It would come on in the car and I would just cut it off."

His 2019 documentary series, Beat n Path, is in tribute to his father. In the intro Fiasco stated, "[B]efore the music, it was all about the martial arts. Something my father passed down to me from the age of three. He always said that I should head to the source of kung fu to complete my training." He explained his style, "Our school was traditionally based in the Japanese and the Korean systems, so either Aikido, Hapkido, Karate, but it was opened to whatever styles we wanted to practice or train in. I still practice Iaido—that's what my father was famous for—using samurai swords to cut cigarettes out of other people's mouths. That's what I continue to train in today." Ayesha added about the series, "When he told me he was doing this, I was just amazed. If our father was living, I think it would have been a dream come true to have his son go to China to learn Kung Fu and to fuse that with his music."

When asked about their training experience, Ayesha reported to Chicago Tribune, "We trained at 63rd Street Beach and 35th and Michigan, I remember having to run barefoot in the snow about a quarter mile. That was conditioning your body. We used to run barefoot from the spot next door to Jackson Park. It didn't matter how old you were, we trained in the park, we trained in the Japanese Garden. It was a mandate in our house that once you were born, you studied the martial arts. Wasalu has taken that to the next level and just brought it to a larger audience—not in a commercial way but in a really heartfelt exhibition of our family tradition. It's kind of an homage to dad and out of all the children, he is the one who studied the art and continued on with the practice—from the samurai sword to Jiu Jitsu, Aikido—everything that was implanted in us, he continued it."

In 2021, the film Amen Break documented fashion designer Virgil Abloh's Spring/Summer 2022 collection, which was an abstract interpretation of Lupe Fiasco, depicting a father and son united by an unnamed loss. Fiasco recalled Abloh asking for a picture of one of the karate schools (Tornado School of Martial Arts: "School of the Four Winds"), which Virgil was able to recreate, dubbed as "a Louis Vuitton dojo."

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