Lupe Fiasco To Teach at MIT During 2022-2023 School Year
He's a Grammy-winning rapper, entrepreneur and community advocate. Now Lupe Fiasco can add "professor" to his resume with a fellowship at MIT starting next month.
Fiasco is coming to the school to teach a course on rap that is technically for students majoring or minoring in Comparative Media Studies, Writing and Literature, but will be open to students at Harvard, Wellesley and MassArt, where MIT has cross-registration agreements.
Sadly non-students are not welcome to just sit in on what I imagine will be captivating classes from Fiasco (Yes, I asked the school).
MIT began its MLK Visiting Professors and Scholars Program back in 1991 and since then has welcomed 137 guest professors in a wide range of disciplines. Fiasco is the first recording artist to become a part of this program, but hopefully won't be the last.
Starting July 1, Wasalu Jaco, known by his stage name Lupe Fiasco, will be on campus popping in for class visits to begin and then teaching his own course on rap for the spring 2023 semester.
Lupe is not new to the campus of MIT. He collaborated with the school in 2021 when he presented his work with the Society of Spoken Art at MIT's Center for Art, Science & Technology and ran a one-day student competition called "Code Cypher" with Comparative Media Studies/Writing professor Nick Montfort.
His appointment now is hosted by Montfort and literature professor Mary Fuller.
Fiasco is definitely exploring lots of new things during his time on campus. Montfort says "he’s going to work with us as a researcher as well. We are already putting together plans to bring computing and rap together in new ways, with the involvement of my colleague Professor Fox Harrell. We will be studying rap through lenses that include mathematical and scientific ones.”
As for Fiasco's take on his new gig?
“I’m overjoyed to have the opportunity to be in the midst of some of the world’s greatest minds to offer my humble perspective and absorb new practices and principles," he says.