Rapper Lupe Fiasco Beats Daigo Umehara in Street Fighter 5 Exhibition Match

In what could be described as potentially the biggest upset in fighting games for the year, rapper and producer Lupe Fiasco has defeated professional fighting game player Daigo Umehara in a Street Fighter 5 exhibition match.

Fiasco, who was playing Ken, emerged victorious over Umehara (who was using Ryu) with a tense final round which led to a 3-2 win. The match took place at The Foundry in San Francisco, and was live-streamed via Twitch. The challenge was initially proposed by Mark "MarkMan" Julio, former community and sponsorship manager for peripheral company Mad Catz.

In the lead-up to the exhibition match Lupe Fiasco shared that he was training and "going over strategies and drills." It seems all that practice paid off, seemingly much to the surprise of Fiasco himself. Although there have been several observations of Daigo not capitalising on punishment for certain moves and not appearing to be up on his usual defence, the match itself proved to be a great piece of entertainment, with over 75,000 viewers tuning in to the live stream.

Fiasco is a known fan of video games, often penning lyrics that reference various game titles and consoles. A recent example can be found in the track Adoration of the Magi:

"Yeah, lots of options, now up is down, two player // Now A is jump and B is punch // You seein' somethin' that weren't there // To find friendliness in a nemesis, it's a old test // 3 buttons, see somethin' // That's emphasis on genesis."

Street Fighter 5 launches on February 16 for PlayStation 4 and PC. For more on how the game plays so far, check out our review in progress.