All awards season, Lupita Nyong’o has played her personal life very close to the vest. There have been hints along the way, about “close friends” and “school friends” and I was actually under the impression that she spends a lot of her time with a male friend from Yale who may or may not be her gay BFF. That’s just what Lupita has said in her own words – she’s never confirmed a boyfriend (or girlfriend) either way. There are also tons of tabloid reports, people trying to hook her up with everyone from Chiwetel Ejiofor to Michael Fassbender to Leonardo DiCaprio to Jared Leto and on and on. But what if she’s been dating a Somali-Canadian rapper named K’Naan this whole time? A photographer snapped a photo of Lupita and K’Naan embracing a few days ago – go here to see. Now everyone is like, “OMG, they’re dating.”

Lupita Nyong’o was the belle of the ball on Oscar night. But the man who was by her side the morning after — clutching her statuette and comforting her as she prepared to make the rounds of press — isn’t exactly Prince Charming. RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned that the new man by Nyong’o’s side, Somali rapper K’Naan, is a former gang member with a history of past arrests!

K’Naan, born Keinan Warsame, was born in Somalia but fled with his family to Canada in the 90s after seeing his young friends killed in the beginning of that country’s civil war. But life in North America would only prove to be more dangerous. In a tough Toronto neighborhood, K’Naan fell in with a Somali gang.

“We Somalis weren’t treated well because we didn’t know how to dress cool,” he’s explained. “We didn’t have Nike trainers; instead, we had stuff from Walmart and kids would be laughing. There was always conflict there …”

Ultimately, he would be arrested more than a dozen times during his teen years, according to multiple reports, including at least once for violence involving a firearm.

“I learned to fire guns at the age of nine or so,” he’s revealed, “but luckily [I] was not out killing people. We zigzagged the streets to escape those trying to kill us.”

Now a successful rapper — and a devout Muslim who does not drink or smoke — he’s come a long way from the streets of Mogadishu and the ghettoes of Toronto. But he still has sympathy for those back home. K’Naan has drawn criticism in recent years for his stance on Somali pirates like those featured in Captain Phillips: He says they’re “serving a purpose.”

Citing illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste off the coast of Somalia, he’s said, “Our pirates were the only deterrent we had from an externally imposed environmental disaster. One man’s pirate is another man’s coast guard.”

[From Radar]

I don’t know, he doesn’t seem that thuggy to me? Like, Radar is trying to make it sound like he’s all hard like Lil’ Maple Leaf (SO GANGSTA, YO) when really K’Naan just sounds like he grew up in an impoverished area of Toronto and he’s matured a lot since then. Is this Lupita’s type? I have no idea. There’s a lot we don’t know about her and what kind of guy she goes for. My interpretation of that hug is that they’ve met each other a handful of times and they’re friendly, and they came in for a nice hug. But maybe I’m saying that because I’m still trying to make Lupita and Benedict Cumberbatch happen (please, please let that happen).

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.