Art Imitates Life: Inside The Music And Movies That Mirror Luke Lessei’s Grind
Every fighter has a story written into their record. Luke “The Chef” Lessei has one tucked into his playlist and his watch history, too.
The American star will face British striker Charlie Guest in a featherweight Muay Thai clash at ONE Fight Night 48: Erdogan vs. Elliott on Prime Video. The card will broadcast live in U.S. primetime from Bangkok’s Lumpinee Stadium this Friday, October 2.
Before Lessei steps back onto the global stage, here’s a closer look at the artists, movies, and moments that continue to inspire the Midwestern warrior.
The Beat Behind The Grind
Not every kid growing up in the Midwest falls in love with country music, and that is especially true for Luke Lessei.
Dubuque, Iowa, sits right where rugged river bluffs give way to rolling farm country. It’s the kind of area where country radio fills pickup trucks and a deep-rooted rural culture bleeds right into the city’s industrial edges. For anyone growing up there, small-town county fairs, acoustic twang, and steel guitar are simply the inevitable backdrop of everyday life.
While Lessei appreciates his hometown, he doesn’t necessarily enjoy the musical sounds that are often associated with the local community. Simply put, it doesn’t match his vibe.
He shared:
“Oh, it was all country music. The people I grew up with were just farmers and people who loved country music. But I don’t know. I’ve never liked it. I never liked country music.”
Then again, Lessei isn’t the stereotypical Iowan.
“The Chef” didn’t grow up on the farm or work in the cornfields. Instead, he spent much of his childhood learning martial arts from his father and dreaming about a career as a prizefighter.
But aside from influencing his son’s Muay Thai career, the family patriarch also shaped his early musical tastes. Instead of blasting country music on the stereo, he introduced his son to the melodic sounds of reggae.
Lessei reflected:
“My dad was on Bob Marley before it was the cool thing to do. My dad used to have dreadlocks, too. So yeah, I grew up on Bob Marley, and a lot of the classic [artists] like Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff, and Gregory Isaacs. A lot of the OGs.”
Reggae planted the seed, but it was indie hip-hop that eventually took hold, built on razor-sharp wit and a hypnotic beat that neither reggae nor country ever quite captured. And it was not simply the sound that pulled him in.
Between the bounce and lyricism, Lessei found something that spoke directly to the life he was living: an American kid chasing Muay Thai stardom in a country where the sport is still finding its footing, a path that demands the same relentless grind those hip-hop artists spit about on their way up.
The 30-year-old revealed:
“Think about me as a fighter, right? The weird independent artist trying to make a name for themselves, trying to do it all on their own without the signing of a big label. [They’re] smaller artists who are trying to make a name for themselves.
“So, I relate to those types of artists. The things they talk about – on the grind, on the come-up – I just relate to that a lot. I think a Muay Thai fighter trying to make a name for himself relates to that a lot.”
Finding Himself In Every Frame
Like the songs that fill his headphones, Luke Lessei draws that same kind of inspiration from the movies he watches, too.
The American will check out the occasional comedy flick with his friends, but he absolutely loves action films. Blood-and-dirt survival stories, ancient battlefields, and lone warriors clawing their way through hostile terrain make up most of what actually holds his attention.
He said:
“I watch a lot of ancient warrior, adventure, and action drama movies. My favorite movie of all time is Apocalypto. I like stuff like that. I was actually just watching 127 Hours, which is not even exactly adventure or action, but the thing is … I like inspiring sh*t.
“I like seeing a scene and just getting those tingles in your face, where you’re like, ‘This is just sick.’ Movies like medieval-time war movies, Viking-leaning genre movies. Apocalypto is sick.”
That taste for the intense and the epic did not come from a casual hobby. Lessei’s childhood left little room for movies at all, with most of his free time spent in the gym under his father’s watch rather than in front of a screen. And, of course, listening to reggae classics.
Without much early exposure to film growing up, he never picked up the background-noise relationship with entertainment most people take for granted. What he looks for instead is something closer to a mirror, a reason why a scene or story sticks with him at all.
In many ways, the films that portray characters with a warrior spirit and a mission worth fighting for is what truly resonates with Lessei.
“The Chef” explained:
“I always want to find a message and relate it to myself in all genres of art. So, when I’m searching through Netflix, I’m trying to find something where I’m like, ‘Ooh, I could be moved by that.'”
That search for meaning paid off in a big way ahead of his most recent outing against “The Eagle” Mohamed Younes Rabah at ONE Fight Night 45 this past July.
Lessei found himself revisiting Apocalypto the night before, drawn back to its most iconic scene: the moment the heroic Jaguar Paw, cornered and hunted through the jungle, finally turns the tables on the men chasing him.
It hit differently that time around. Facing his own kind of hunt the next day, “The Chef” had stumbled onto the exact secret ingredient he needed to propel him to victory:
“I posted a picture of that while I was in Thailand for my last fight because I was watching it the day before my fight, where he jumps off the waterfall and he’s like, ‘This is my forest.’
“And then I’m like, ‘Holy sh*t. This is me right now, Jaguar Paw.’ So hell yeah, of course. That’s the freaking Mayan Rambo.”
