Ayesha Jaco

Ayesha Jaco (born June 13) is an American philanthropist, educator, and choreographer. She is the older sister of Lupe Fiasco, and has provided tracks across five of his albums, usually as the intro. She is also the co-founder of their youth empowerment organization, M.U.R.A.L., founded in 2009. She was an educator at Northeastern Illinois University's Jacob Carruthers Center for Inner-City Studies, is the executive director of organization West Side United (WSU), and the founder and artistic director of the youth dance company, Move Me Soul.
== Background ==
Jaco was born and raised in the East Garfield Park community. She and Fiasco grew up practicing martial arts, where she recalled to Chicago Tribune, "We trained at 63rd Street Beach and 35th and Michigan [...] It was a mandate in our house that once you were born, you studied the martial arts."Rockett, Darcel (July 3, 2019). "Lupe Fiasco Goes to China: Artist Reconnects with Martial Arts, Lessons Learned As a Youth in New Docu-series". Chicago Tribune.
In 2019, she performed with her brother at Red Bull Music Festival Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor live for the first time in Chicago. She told AllHipHop, concerning the "Intro," "I didn't realize the impact. To me, it wasn't nothing deep. It wasn't an Ursula Rucker on The Roots or even a Lupe where you got to dig and find the double entendre and think about what this is and what that is. It was just spoken from the heart, raw words. So I didn't realize the impact that my role on the album doing the intro has had over time. Honestly, if I knew that it was going to play such a heavy role, I probably would've went back and wrote a little harder. I would've tried to get my Lupe on. Like, 'People are going to have to decode this.' But it's all good."Kyles, Yohance (December 27, 2019). "A Conversation with Ayesha Jaco on Providing the Poem for Lupe Fiasco's 'Food & Liquor' & Their Childhood in Chicago". AllHipHop.
== Discography ==
=== Guest appearances ===
Title 	Year	Other artist(s)	Album
"Intro" 	2006	Lupe Fiasco 	Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor
"Baba Says Cool for Thought"	2007	Lupe Fiasco 	Lupe Fiasco's The Cool
"Ayesha Says (Intro)" 	2012	Lupe Fiasco 	Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1
"Prisoner 1 & 2" 	2015	Lupe Fiasco 	Tetsuo & Youth
"The Lion's Deen'' 	2022	Lupe Fiasco 	Drill Music in Zion
== Gallery ==
File:Lupe Fiasco - December 12 2014.jpg|@lupefiasco: "Mama Fiasco is 60! Born in a small town in Northern Mississippi. Picked cotton as a child then moved up to the Windy City. Westside momma raised us in that drama. Made us into soldiers full of dignity and honor. A teacher, healer and provider with so much more to discover. Remember that heaven rests at the feet of your mother!"
File:Lupe Fiasco - October 4 2018.jpg|@lupefiasco: "A nappy head karate kid" Ready To Give You Them Hands since 1982...🥋 At the Jaco Paramilitary Camp 1986..."
File:Lupe Fiasco - September 16 2021.jpg|@lupefiasco: "It's nothing new. People be so used to riding trends and staying current they don't know how to behave around the authentic longevity of a polymath. They retreat to ridicule or point fingers or project out of despair because they themselves have only limited skill sets and a lack of meaningful disciplined experience. Just do you. I just make sure my Me does everything."Born Into This"- Bukowski
File:Chicago Tribune - July 2019.jpg|(L-R) Afrika Jaco, Wasalu Jaco, and Ayesha Jaco on July 2, 2019 at the Stony Island Arts Bank before the premiere of Beat n PathPhoto by Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune
== References ==
Category:Choreographers
Category:Educators
Category:Family
Category:People
Category:Philanthropists