M.U.R.A.L.

M.U.R.A.L. (Magnifying Urban Realities & Affecting Lives), formerly known as The Lupe Fiasco Foundation, is a non-profit charity organization based in Chicago, Illinois, which strives to aid and empower youth in inner-city communities. This includes through educational advancement, service learning, and leadership programs, such as The Little Man Project, The Youth Committee, Sensei Jaco Scholarship Fund, and Block-by-Block. It was co-founded by siblings Ayesha and Wasalu Jaco in 2009.

Beginning as The Lupe Fiasco Foundation, it publicly underwent a name change in February 2015, which happened to coincide with Fiasco's 33rd birthday. In a statement, they said, "M.U.R.A.L. will continue to support programs inspired by the early philanthropy of Mr. Wasalu Muhammad Jaco [Lupe Fiasco] and Co-founder Ayesha Jaco. The foundation will also encompass every aspect of the current program initiatives and the legacy of the Jaco family."

Lupe Fiasco Foundation

Description

The Lupe Fiasco Foundation is a uniquely interdisciplinary, grassroots-driven organization that works to inspire and unite Chicago communities and their youth by providing transformative resources and platforms that are in short supply or unavailable.

Introduction

Greetings and Welcome to the Lupe Fiasco Foundation. This is a contribution to positive youth development, resiliency and hope for Chicago youth. We are honored to give back to communities where greatness dwells. We subscribe to the proverb "it takes a village to raise a while" We are obligated to nurture the genius of youth who live in the same communities from whence I came. We strive to be a relevant provider of quality programs that inspire youth to reach their highest potential as world influencers, artists and scholars.
Peace and much love to ya,
- Lupe Fiasco

Mission

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The Lupe Fiasco Foundation provides inner city youth ages 14-24 with comprehensive positive youth development programming that embodies educational advancement, service learning and leadership, global capacity building and music education.

Lupe's own mission to provide warm meals and coats to families in need quickly expanded to include music education, curriculum and a host of other arts-based initiatives in Chicago inner-city communities. By 2009, Lupe and co-founder Ayesha Jaco realized the need to organize and expand this outreach, and the Lupe Fiasco Foundation was born with the mission of empowering inner-city youth as artists, activists and global citizens.

Guiding Values

• Youth Empowerment
• Capacity Building
• Artistic Expression

Encouraging youth to reach their highest potential by providing opportunities for service and leadership.

Increasing the global awareness of young adults and enhancing their ability to make decisions that influence change and progress.

Providing a creative space for youth to express themselves using hip-hop music to enhance their writing and production skills.

Programs

• Block-by-Block
• The Little Man Project
• Sensei Jaco Scholarship
• The Youth Committee

One of the Foundation's programs that funds "community-based workshops, campaigns and events that promote healthy eating in food deserts."

Little Man is in partnership with The Chicago West Community Music Center and After School Matters, where they "provide a hip-hop curriculum, music production and business workshops to inner-city youth ages 14-24." It is in efforts to building social awareness among urban youth through hip-hop. This includes reflection and gaining knowledge of different living realities and subjects such as food justice and family structures. The website makes note, "The Foundation works to infuse elements of hip-hop music into common core education standards, as certified by the state of Illinois, including through an eight-week teacher certification training program and a variety of community-based speaking engagements."

The Sensei Jaco Scholarship was awarded annually in memory of their late father Gregory Jaco. It provided $1,000 to three Chicago Public seniors. The requirements were a GPA of 2.5 or higher and demonstration of leadership qualities.

A "governing body of inner-city youth throughout the city of Chicago." They assist in planning and conducting community-based to global events and projects.

History

As children, Lupe and I created many memories during the summer time. We were always challenged to make our communities better than we found them. Many times that meant picking up garbage in empty lots and staying engaged in a program that gave us the tools to contribute something meaningful to our neighborhoods. Our father's karate school was bustling with neighborhood youth and families who looked forward to the positive programming and especially the prestigious Bud Billiken Parade.

Ayesha Jaco

In 2010, Rhymefest and the Lupe Fiasco Foundation joined together to feed families within the 20th Ward of Chicago.

In August 2011, the LFF hosted a community feeding as part of the Block-by-Block initiative, aiming to feed 100 people in need daily. They partnered with The New Birth Christian Center and The West Englewood Methodist Church to provide these meals. On October 10, 2011, the Foundation launched their first annual winter coat drive, which aimed to collect and distribute 1,000 coats to CPS students and homeless shelters throughout Chicago. Fiasco shared in an interview, "The Lupe Fiasco Foundation is basically something that me and my sister and my family and different people around the city put together to just launch different initiatives to uplift the community from the education side to just the hands-on side with... food drives and this is our first annual coat drives. It's just something that I've been doing personally for a long time behind the scenes. It's just something now where we can reach out and hopefully mobilize other people to come out and help... And help put some positivity back into their city."

In 2012, Fiasco teamed up with After School Matters on the program, The Little Man Project, which provides a hip-hop music curriculum to inner-city youth. He explained to Splash magazine, "It's music, art, theater, all these multimedia things. One kid's going to write the score, another kid's going to write the raps, another's going to stage it, another's going to act. [...] [It's] all about restructuring the cultural agency from one of corporate exploitation on every level to one of cultural advancement. It gives people an incentive to stay alive, to do better for themselves, to participate in something."

On March 1, 2013, the event "Streets on Fire Peace for Hire" was held following the death of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old who was killed from a bullet. It discussed "strategies for peace" and featured Fiasco at the Jacob Carruthers Center for Inner-City Studies. It was stated, "Out of this meeting and several follow up meetings with the teens, @projectorangetree was born." In March 2013, at a town hall meeting, Fiasco attended and supported the campaign Project Orange Tree to end gun-violence. With LFF, he held a community forum that spread awareness and gave youth opportunity to communicate with each other about violence in their home city. Project Orange Tree was created by friends of Pendleton, and people wore orange on April 1 to promote gun violence awareness. At the rally at Chicago State University, Fiasco said, "We're in the zero stages of what Project Orange Tree could be—this is just the beginning, things are on the horizon. This is your opportunity to invest in the future of your city." This event was recognized by XXL, where Fiasco and the Foundation was added to the list of "8 Rappers Trying to Save Chicago."

On June 19, 2014, the Foundation launched a new website which detailed their mission, programs, and initiatives. On July 25, 2014 they held the inaugural annual event, Iftar Dinner & Conversation with Lupe Fiasco, which was hosted by board member and fundraising chair, Cyrus Rab. With an organized dinner and private meeting with Fiasco to learn about the Foundation's mission and steps to take action, afterwards guests could bid on items signed by Fiasco during the live auction. They also awarded "Mission Ambassador" to Kwesi Ronald Harris for his philanthropy and spreading cancer awareness. Their monthly newsletter reported, "All proceeds from the event benefited our Food Justice program, in which we were able to raise $10,000!" During Ramadan, LFF teamed up with IMAN's Refresh the Hood Challenge, a month-long initiative that focuses on food justice within the community. They hosted an event on July 31, 2014, in front of Payless Grocery to provide food from Soul Vegan and raise awareness of nutrition. On September 29, 2014, the Foundation hosted their first community call event "What's Your Mission?" at the Jacob Carruthers Center for Inner-City Studies. The keynote address was done by their ambassador, Kwesi Ronald Harris. The Foundation also participated in the community events, Bud Billiken Parade and Creative Career Day. The latter was joint forces by Ayesha Jaco, Briahna Gatlin, and Anthony Winfield, who were panelists at the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. They "got to engage with youth about their experiences in their career fields and the many struggles they faced."

One of the programs, Food Justice, seeks to provide nutritional foods and information on health-related issues and healthy eating in impoverished neighborhoods. Ayesha Jaco informed Rolling Out in 2015, "M.U.R.A.L. began with Lupe Fiasco providing a blank canvas with a few specks of paint. He handed me the paintbrush and I found board members and community partners who enhanced our vision and mission as we continue to magnify urban realities and positively affect lives via food justice, hip hop and international travel." The foundation has sponsored Healthy Lifestyles Essay contests for students at Prosser, Douglass, Roosevelt and Austin High Schools. It has also partnered with a host of Chicago agencies providing an empowerment conference at Roberson High School to address the high rates of teen pregnancies in Englewood.

In 2017, Lupe was part of TBS' televised special, ELeague Street Fighter V Celebrity Showdown, in support for charity where he represented the foundation. He was awarded $25,000 for M.U.R.A.L.

In 2019, Ayesha explained the name to AllHipHop, "For the organization, it was inspired by the song "Mural." We were rebranding at the time. It's an acronym for Magnifying Urban Reality and Affecting Lives. Look at a mural, depending on where it is and the motivation behind it, it captures the community beyond the artist's intent. It tells a story about where it's placed. I think that's true to his music. So if I could guesstimate, that's what I would say, but you never know with Wasalu."

Gallery

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1st Annual Coat Drive