Lupe Fiasco to Teach at MIT

Photo Credit: Instagram @lupefiasco

Call him Professor Fiasco.

Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, the Grammy Award-winning rapper better known by his stage name Lupe Fiasco, will be teaching at one of higher education's most famed institutions next year.

The backpack rapper's backpack rapper, who rose to hip-hop prominence in 2006 behind the breakout success of his debut album "Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor," will be part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's MLK Visiting Professor Program for the 2022-2023 academic year.

Fiasco broke the news himself Friday on social media.

“I been holding this for a while,” he tweeted. “I’ll put together something more sophisticated later that really captures the nuance and gravity but for now I’ll just say it straight and raw: I’m going to teach Rap at @MIT.”

I been holding this for a while. I’ll put together something more sophisticated later that really captures the nuance and gravity but for now I’ll just say it straight and raw:

I’m going to teach Rap at @MIT

🥲

— “DRILL MUSIC IN ZION” JUNE 24th (@LupeFiasco) May 20, 2022=

MIT confirmed the news that the Chicago rapper, who was previously a visiting artist from 2020-2021 and who also ran the “Code Cypher” programming competition — teaching rapping cyphers in a “computational way” alongside Professor of Digital Media Nick Montfort —at the school would be one of three new teachers provided by the program this year along with theater teacher Eunice Ferreira and documentary maker Louis Massiah.

Grammy-award winning rapper Lupe Fiasco and @mit_cmsw Prof. Nick Montfort join to engage the MIT community at the intersection of rap, computing, and activism. The MIT community is invited to register for CAST Visiting Artist Lupe Fiasco: SOSA: https://t.co/m4bUSFH0H3@LupeFiasco pic.twitter.com/hN3qtDH4Pq

— Arts at MIT (@ArtsatMIT) February 11, 2021

As for what he will be teaching at the school, Fiasco said his syllabus was not yet complete but offered a possible synopsis in a since-deleted tweet.

“Syllabus isn’t built yet but I’m thinking its fruit to be had in looking at neuromorphic computation through the lens of Rap as a lossless data compression model with a dash of energy efficiency via refining Landauer’s principle applied to cytoarchitectonics,” Fiasco wrote. “And some rapping…”

The announcement is the second time Fiasco has made headlines this month. The artist announced that his next album "Drill Music in Zion" will drop on June 24 just days before signaling his move to MIT. It is his first LP release since 2018's "Drogas Wave."