Newton was born to 14-year-old parents and became the family breadwinner as a teenager, a role that landed him in prison for a year at age 18.

[3] Newton's career began with the Bay Area rap group Mob Figaz after the teenaged Newton and several friends were approached by established rap artist C-Bo in a record store and went to a recording studio that day.

[3] Their debut album, C-Bo's Mob Figaz, released in 1999 was a minor hit on the Billboard Hip Hop chart entering in at #63, doing fairly well selling 160,000 units.

Though great support came from the Bay Area, sixty percent of Jacka's sales came from outside of California.

[6] On February 2, 2015, Newton was fatally shot by an unidentified gunman in Oakland on 94th Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard.