MIT Visiting Scholar Wasalu Jaco (Lupe Fiasco), Grammy Award-winning rapper, collaborates with the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble to premiere "Ghotiing," the first installment of his project creating raps inspired by MIT's public art collection.
"The project," Jaco explains, "combines plein air painting, field recording, and rap."
MIT Visiting Scholar Wasalu Jaco (Lupe Fiasco), Grammy Award-winning rapper, collaborates with the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble to premiere "Ghotiing," the first installment of his project creating raps inspired by MIT's public art collection.
"The project," Jaco explains, "combines plein air painting, field recording, and rap."
MIT Visiting Scholar Wasalu Jaco (Lupe Fiasco), Grammy Award-winning rapper, collaborates with the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble to premiere "Ghotiing," the first installment of his project creating raps inspired by MIT's public art collection.
"The project," Jaco explains, "combines plein air painting, field recording, and rap."
MIT Visiting Scholar Wasalu Jaco (Lupe Fiasco), Grammy Award-winning rapper, collaborates with the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble to premiere "Ghotiing," the first installment of his project creating raps inspired by MIT's public art collection.
"The project," Jaco explains, "combines plein air painting, field recording, and rap."
MIT Visiting Scholar Wasalu Jaco (Lupe Fiasco), Grammy Award-winning rapper, collaborates with the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble to premiere "Ghotiing," the first installment of his project creating raps inspired by MIT's public art collection.
"The project," Jaco explains, "combines plein air painting, field recording, and rap."
MIT Visiting Scholar Wasalu Jaco (Lupe Fiasco), Grammy Award-winning rapper, collaborates with the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble to premiere "Ghotiing," the first installment of his project creating raps inspired by MIT's public art collection.
"The project," Jaco explains, "combines plein air painting, field recording, and rap."
To close out Artfinity, Grammy Award-winning rapper and MIT visiting scholar Wasalu Jaco (Lupe Fiasco) collaborates with the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble to premiere music inspired by MIT's public art collection. "Ghotiing," Jaco explains, "is plein air painting meets field recording meets rap." He elaborates on its role in his MIT Rap Theory and Practice course: "We take a novel approach to in situ rap creation through field activities called 'Ghotiing,' where students brainstorm, write, and record in outdoor settings, expanding their creative horizons." The concert also includes performances by Prof. Jaco’s MIT rap students and MIT Hip-Hop dancers.
This concert marks Jaco's first public performance of his own Ghotiing works. Members of the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble (MIT FJE) will provide arrangements for Jaco's raps and perform additional pieces inspired by visual art. The ensemble and music director Fred Harris previously collaborated with Jaco and his rap students in spring 2024.
Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, better known by his stage name Lupe Fiasco, is a Chicago-born Grammy award-winning American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and community advocate. Rising to fame in 2006 following the success of his debut album, Food & Liquor, Fiasco has released more than four acclaimed studio albums; his latest, Drogas Wave, was released in fall 2018. His efforts to propagate conscious material helped solidify him as GQ’s Man of the Year in 2006, and garnered him recognition as a Henry Crown Fellow. While musical genius and ingenuity are at the forefront of Fiasco’s achievements, the artist extends his innovation to projects that aim to foster creative discourse and opportunities in underprivileged and impoverished communities.
As the co-founder and co-owner of community initiatives such as We Are M.U.R.A.L, The Neighborhood Start-Up Fund, Society of Spoken Art (SOSA), and Studio SV with Bonnie Chan Woo, Lupe Fiasco proves that he is more than just a mouthpiece for change, but a committed facilitator of intellectual community discourse and outreach.
Lupe Fiasco’s conscious efforts to propagate social and artistic change continue to inspire his musical and community efforts, serving as a distinguished example of giving back and paying it forward.
The MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble (MIT FJE) was founded in 1963 by Boston jazz icon Herb Pomeroy and led since 1999 by Dr. Frederick Harris, Jr. This advanced 18 to 20-member big band/jazz ensemble is comprised of outstanding MIT undergraduate and graduate students studying a wide range of disciplines. An advanced combo is formed from the membership of the MIT FJE. MIT FJE performs traditional and contemporary jazz ensemble literature, including student compositions and new works written for the MIT FJE by major jazz composers. Improvisation is a prominent part of the MIT FJE experience. MIT FJE has released five professional recordings including its major jazz label debut on Sunnyside in 2015, Infinite Winds, which received a five-star review from DownBeat and was chosen by the magazine as one of its “Best Albums of 2015 Five-Star Masterpieces.”
Dr. Frederick Harris, Jr. is the Director of Wind and Jazz Ensembles at MIT, where he serves as Music Director of the MIT Wind Ensemble, MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, and Jazz Coordinator, overseeing jazz chamber music programs including three combos, MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and the Emerson Jazz Scholars Program. Harris is also the creator and director of It Must Be Now!, a project creating music and visual art on themes of racial justice. He is also leading a project combing Brazilian music and environmental research, focused on the Amazon rainforest.
MIT Music & Theater Arts invites its students to explore artistic disciplines as cultural, intellectual, and personal avenues of inquiry, discovery, and innovation.
Kresge Auditorium
W16
48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Building location on the MIT Campus MapDesigned by Eero Saarinen and built in 1955, the 1,200-seat main performance hall rests upon a circular plan that echoes Saarinen's MIT Chapel located just across the quadrangle. Learn more about the architecture
MIT is committed to providing an environment that is accessible to individuals with disabilities. View the Accessibility Web App, designed for the MIT community to view accessible routes across the MIT campus. Please contact the event organizer directly for specific accessibility information or to discuss your needs.
Prof. Wasalu Jaco (aka Lupe Fiasco)
Music Director: MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, Frederick Harris, Jr.
Arrangements by Prof. Evan Ziporyn, Matthew Michalek (G), Kevin Costello, ’21
This concert is part the inaugural season of events in the Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building at MIT.
