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Wasalu “Lupe Fiasco” Jaco smiles at event attendees. A Grammy award-winning rapper and a visiting scholar at MIT, Lupe Fiasco led an event for Harvard Law School affiliates to learn about the Royal Game of Ur this March.
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Wasserstein Hall, the location of Lupe Fiasco’s Ur event, is located at Harvard Law School. The event was hosted by the HLS Recording Artists Project.
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Crimson arts reporter Dylan R. Ragas and other participants watch as Fiasco explains the basics of Ur — the oldest board game in the world — which involves two players and originates from ancient Mesopotamia.
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Participants begin to play Ur. Harvard affiliates, including alumni, faculty, and students, were present.
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Ragas asks event leaders a question. Sophia Hasenfus, organizer and staff member at MIT, explains that the société internationale d'UR has been “running tournaments, teaching people how to play Ur, [and] telling people about the history of Ur” through events like this one.
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Lupe Fiasco assists participants as they begin to learn Ur. Mo Light, participant and HLS alumnus, attended the event because he “heard that [his] friends were coming and that Lupe Fiasco was going to be here.”
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A group of participants gather to observe Ragas’s practice game. “What’s so funny is, when I was thirteen, I made a cover of ‘Words I Never Said’ and I uploaded it to YouTube, and I had to unlist it because it was terrible,” Light noted. “But I’m here to redeem myself and have a good night and play Ur.”
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Players and observers smile, enjoying a game of Ur. The tournament was conducted with multiple elimination rounds, culminating in a one-on-one final competition for a premium Ur board.
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Lupe Fiasco holds up an Ur board, emphasizing that the tournament is structured for everyone to enjoy themselves and have a good time. Fiasco’s love for Ur is evident as competitors learned a lot under his guidance.
—Staff writer Stella A. Gilbert can be reached at stella.gilbert@thecrimson.com. Staff writer Dylan R. Ragas can be reached at dylan.ragas@thecrimson.com.
