Shirley Jaco

Shirley Perkins (born December 14, 1954) is the mother of Wasalu "Lupe Fiasco" Jaco. Working as a gourmet chef, she and Gregory Jaco raised Fiasco in Chicago, Illinois. They split when Fiasco was five years old, and he lived with her while maintaining a strong relationship with his father.^[1]

Background[]

Shirley Jaco grew up in the Mississippi Delta, seeing racial, healthcare and food-access disparities.^[2] She moved to Chicago, where she met Gregory Jaco and got married.^[3] Gregory served as an Army Green Beret in 1969, and after completing his years of service, the Jaco family moved to West Side, Chicago in 1988.^[4]

On February 16, 1982, she gave birth to Wasalu Muhammad Jaco at 10:14 A.M.. Fiasco, who was born at Bethany, grew up in the areas of Washington, Albany, and Madison.^[5] Around 1987, Shirley divorced her husband, where they shared three children.^[1] Shirley described Fiasco as "Smart, a bit complex; he kind of was a loner; he didn't hang with a lot of people. But I had all these books-on medicine, anatomy, philosophy, religion. And he would just pick them up and read. He would be thumbing through a National Geographic or listening to music. He loved Tchaikovsky." She added, "He always had the glasses, always had a book bag over his shoulder and some type of a writing tablet. He loved to skateboard, too. You could hear those little raggedy wheels… ka-kunk-ka-kunk-ka-kunk, all night long." She helped introduce him to books like Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and groups like The Watts Prophets.^[6]

Fiasco told magazine Bon Appétit in 2012, "My mom was a chef, but my father was a straight fast food guy. So you knew, if we were with my father, we were eating out. But my mom's a good cook, and wouldn't splurge. She'd be real basic: lentils, rice, eggs and rice, or she would make these White Castle-style little sliders. Every so often, she would dip off to gourmet land, challenging us with some tofu or a machination she learned in school."^[7]

The track "More Than My Heart" from his 2017 album Drogas Light was released, dedicated to his mother. The lyrics include: 'Gotta honor my mama, so that's what I'm tryna do / Ayy, better love my mama.'