Rap beats meet public art: Lupe Fiasco’s GHOTIING MIT

Visitors to the MIT List Visual Arts Center can experience their public art collection in a new light, as reimagined through the collaborative rap and field recording project GHOTIING MIT with hip-hop visionary Lupe Fiasco. Engaging directly with the sculptures and installations across MIT’s campus, the rapper composed and recorded his “Flavor” tracks on site, using the works’ forms, histories, and environments as catalysts for creation. As a result, you can take a walking tour of seven public art works by Alexander Calder, Antony Gormley, Dimitri Hadzi, Anish Kapoor, Jacques Lipchitz, and Jaume Plensa, viewed through the prism of Fiasco’s unique sonic creations, exclusive to Bloomberg Connects.

Lupe Fiasco’s innovative approach to creating and recording rap en plein air has an art-historical precedent: French Impressionists in the 19th century pioneered the idea of taking their easels out of the studio to paint in the great outdoors. By venturing outside the controlled sonic environment of the recording studio, Fiasco encourages spontaneous improvisation and a deeper connection to place, allowing ambient sounds, direct responses, and social encounters to infiltrate the compositions.

Who is Lupe Fiasco? Five facts about the musical artist.

• Born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, the Grammy Award-winning rapper, songwriter, and producer, is considered one of the most distinct voices in hip-hop
• Known for his intricate lyricism, complex storytelling, and socially conscious themes, Fiasco’s debut album, Food & Liquor, was released in 2006 to critical acclaim and multiple Grammy nominations
• His most recent release, Samurai, which blends ancient samurai traditions with modern-day urban experiences, was named one of the best albums of 2024 by publications such as Okayplayer and FLOOD Magazine
• Beyond making music, he has held visiting scholar positions in rap theory and practice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University
• Lupe Fiasco has founded several community organizations, including We Are M.U.R.A.L, The Neighborhood Start-Up Fund, and Society of Spoken Art

GHOTIING (pronounced “fishing”) takes inspiration from fishing expeditions, reimagining “rap creation as a hunt for big ideas—where beats serve as bait, microphones as fishing rods, and both the object and the artist’s mind act as the body of water,” writes MIT List. “By immersing themselves in different environments, rappers cast their creative lines, hoping to reel in unexpected inspiration.” In this way, Dimitri Hadzi’s Elmo-MIT (1963), which the artist intended to communicate brutality and martial strength, becomes the catalyst for a lyrical meditation on modern American masculinity in “ALL CAPS FLAVOR.” 

The intro for “Funhouse Flavor” harnesses warped, echoing sound effects to suggest the playfully distorted reflections produced by Anish Kapoor’s Non-Object (Plane) (2010), while the imposing riveted steel plates of Alexander Calder’s La Grande Voile (The Big Sail, 1965) inspired a rolling meditation on its “full mass, half myth” in “Sailing Flavor.” By capturing ambient sounds and crafting lyrics in response to each piece, the GHOTIING project brings MIT’s public art collection to life as a sonic experience in which rap and visual art intersect in real time.

What are some other highlights to see at MIT List Visual Arts Center?

• A solo exhibition by American Artist, To Acorn, which takes inspiration from Octavia Butler’s speculative fiction to consider issues of racial capitalism, technological surveillance, and knowledge production
• Flare-Up, the first US museum show by Stockholm-based duo Goldin+Senneby, explores autoimmunity, accessibility, and ecology through the lens of living with multiple sclerosis
• The 34th iteration of List Projects, which spotlights emerging artists, features photographs by Brittany Nelson that combine the imagery of space exploration with evocations of queer experience

If the GHOTIING project whets your appetite for public art, there’s plenty more to explore on MIT’s campus, with indoor, outdoor and highlights tours on Bloomberg Connects guiding you to landmark works by Olafur Eliasson, Jeffrey Gibson, Alicja Kwade, Henry Moore, Elizabeth Murray, Pablo Picasso, and Sarah Sze, among others.