Fresh—Jazz, Rap, and Hip-Hop @ MIT

Building W16: Kresge Auditorium

Fresh—Jazz, Rap, and Hip-Hop @ MIT MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble Wasalu Jaco (aka Lupe Fiasco) and MIT Rappers McKersin and Hip-Hop dancers from MIT and surrounding communities Students from the Hamilton-Garrett Center for Music & Arts, Boston Members of FaMLE (MIT’s Laptop Ensemble) Amanda Shea, MCThis special event brings together the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble with rappers from MLK Visiting Prof. Jaco's (aka Lupe Fiasco) "Rap Theory and Practice” class along with Hip-Hop dancers from MIT and surrounding communities led by MIT’s McKersin, for an innovative amalgam of big band jazz, rap, and dance. Special guests include Hamilton-Garrett Center for Music & Arts Drumline and Youth Choir and members of FaMLE (MIT’s Laptop Ensemble). The concert includes music by J.J. Johnson, Chick Corea, Guillermo Klein, Horace Silver, Lupe Fiasco, and MIT students Andrew Li, Matthew Michalek, Mike Jiang, Michael Peters, Noble Harasha, Nina Musuelli, and Artem Laptiev.LIVESTREAM: https://mta.mit.edu/viewlisten/live-kresge-auditoriumABOUT THE PERFORMERSWasalu Jaco, professionally known as 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, Lupe has released eight acclaimed studio albums; his latest being Drill Music In Zion released in June 2022. His efforts to propagate conscious material garnered recognition as a Henry Crown Fellow and he is a recipient of the MLK Visiting Professorship Program at MIT for the 2022-2024 academic years.More info: https://www.lupefiasco.com/Resilience is the word that comes up when describing McKersin. He overcame a troubled environment and upbringing in order to become the dancer, educator, and artistic director that he is today. With Ethnic-Haitian dance as his base vocabulary, McKersin started building a bigger arsenal with Hip-Hop, Jazz, and Tap. Today, he leads workshops throughout various parts of the world orientated towards social justice and the roots of African American culture and movement. McKersin is currently leading an international research project that involves the ties and spread of the African Diaspora in the western hemisphere as well as many projects throughout his community. His local projects promote emotional competency, healing, and conversation through the Arts all while running his non-profit Lakai Arts which aims to build stronger communities of color towards self-sufficiency using the arts, and Lakai Dance Theatre, a subdivision of his non-profit.More info: https://mta.mit.edu/person/mckersin-previlusAmanda Shea (she/her) is the 2022 and 2023 Boston Music Awards Spoken Word Artist of the Year. Shea is an artist, performer, educator, artivist, co-founder, publicist, host, and curator. She has hosted and produced numerous intergenerational poetry/hip hop events as well as performed at festivals; including Boston Calling, BAMSFest (Boston Art & Music Soul Festival), and the Jos Literary Festival in Nigeria. Her work can be found in the Museum of Fine Arts, The Boston Globe, TEDX, TEDXRoxbury, Netflix, Prime Video, BBC News, and much more. Shea will be releasing her first book, “Pieces of Shea” and her first EP titled, “God, Again” in the Fall of 2023. Amanda’s work examines her personal life experiences, social justice issues, and healing through trauma utilizing art as the tool.More info: https://www.amandashea.com/The Hamilton-Garrett Center for Music & Arts is a 501c3, non-profit organization based in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, MA. For over 20 years it has been committed to the development of Boston's next generation of innovative artists through the celebration and preservation of Black music. It strives to provide high-caliber formal music instruction to youth throughout Greater Boston, preparing them for a future in music that challenges inner-city youth to see themselves as positive producers of culture, music, and the arts as a whole, rather than merely consumers of it.More info: https://www.hamiltongarrett.org/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.”The FJE has a long history of performing original music by MIT students and composers from around the world. Since 2001, it has presented over 50 world premieres. Among others, Mark Harvey, Herb Pomeroy, Jamshied Sharifi, Ran Blake, John Harbison, Chick Corea, Joe Lovano, Gunther and George Schuller, Kenny Werner, Don Byron, Steve Turre, Magali Souriau, Guillermo Klein, Chris Cheek, Miguel Zenón, Dominique Eade, and Luciana Souza have collaborated with the MIT FJE. In January of 2019 the FJE participated in a highly successful cultural exchange, touring Puerto Rico with Miguel Zenón, presenting concerts in various venues and STEM workshops in middle and high schools.In March of 2023 the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, along with the MIT Wind Ensemble and MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble, toured and performed in the Brazilian Amazon. The project was focused on cultural and environmental sustainability and music’s power as a vehicle for change.Dr. Frederick Harris, Jr. is the Director of Wind and Jazz Ensembles at MIT, where he serves at Music Director of the MIT Wind Ensemble, MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, and oversees jazz chamber music programs including three combos, MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and the Emerson Jazz Scholars Program.He and the MIT Wind Ensemble have been featured on PBS in the 2014 Emmy-winning documentary Awakening: Evoking the Arab Spring through Music, with music by Jamshied Sharifi. Harris and his students also are featured in the 2018 Emmy-winning documentary Imagination Off The Charts: Jacob Collier Comes to MIT.He is a strong advocate for the creation and performance of new music, having commissioned and/or premiered 95 works for wind, jazz, and mixed ensembles, recently leading pieces by Jamshied Sharifi, Chick Corea, Don Byron, Jacob Collier, and Miguel Zenón. He has also been highly active with public school students and music educators throughout his career. Harris is the author of Conducting with Feeling and Seeking the Infinite: The Musical Life of Stanisław Skrowaczewski, and is currently writing a biography of Herb Pomeroy. He has performed as a drummer with the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, John Harbison, the Boston Pops, and Grammy-winning jazz saxophonist Joe Lovano.Nominated by his students, Harris is a 2013 and 2019 recipient of the James A. and Ruth Levitan Award for Excellence in Teaching in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at MIT.Don't miss a downbeat! Click here to subscribe to the Events Newsletter.