At one of the world’s largest music festivals, Nachelle Pugh works to keep the memory of her son alive

CHICAGO (WGN) — Lollapalooza draws hundreds of thousands of music fans to Grant Park every year, making it a music festival of elevated importance to artists big and small. It’s part of the reason one Chicago mom turned her grief into grace, and led to the development of an organization dedicated to helping grow the city’s brightest musical minds.

“I started the foundation due to the death of my son. He was a Chicago Hip Hop artist [that was] a part of the hip hop collective ‘Pivot Gang,'” Nachelle Pugh said. “After his passing, we wanted to do something in his honor, and that thing was to start a scholarship fund for youth between the ages of 14 to 24 who are young aspiring artists.”

Pugh’s organization—The John Walt Foundation—is named after her deceased son. Walt was one of nine members of Pivot Gang who all grew up on the West Side of Chicago. Some are related by family, others are the children of their parents’ friends. The group released their first single in 2012.

Five years later, Walt was stabbed to death on the way home from work in February 2017. It led Pugh and music artist SABA to give back to the community. Most notably, the two worked to feed West Side communities during the peak of the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020.

“During COVID, it was really important that families in the community had food and different things, and we stepped in to kind of help with that as well,” Pugh said. “We continue to do, annually, a back-to-school event. We secure 500 backpacks each year. Make sure that all the young kids that come out, they’re able to take home a backpack full of school supplies.”

Back-to-school events and helping support young Chicago music artists aren’t the only two things the John Walt Foundation does, either.

They also offer an apprenticeship program that helps anyone between the ages of 14 to 24 become more skilled in their respective creative fields.

“Throughout my apprenticeship at the John Walt foundation, it has been an incredible experience. I’ve learned so much,” Allison Bolden said. “I’ve developed so much, both as an individual and as an artist. I’ve gotten opportunities that I could have not gotten unless I was in this program.”

One of those opportunities for young music artists who come through the John Walt Foundation is a partnership with Lollapalooza called Lolla University.

Lolla University invites participants to listen to panels of industry professionals and get a behind-the-scenes look prior to performing at the festival. Then, a program co-founder and an artist-teacher help prepare the program’s apprentices for a performance at the music festival through regular meetings and practices.

The group met for their last group prep meeting this year in the city’s Austin neighborhood. Together, they wrote about their best memories of each other ahead of their performance at Lollapalooza on Sunday afternoon.

“When we first met, a lot of them didn’t know each other,” a teaching artist said. “So, they were able to make new friends and kind of build a family amongst each other.”

One of the apprentices, an up-and-coming rapper named ‘Youngin,’ shared how the John Walt Foundation helped strengthen his love for the artistry that comes with his music.

“I felt like I lost that way of expressing myself,” Youngin said. “Because I didn’t know if that was a thing that could be as productive for me as how many years it was when I first started.”

When Pugh hears kids from Chicago like Youngin speak to the impact the John Walt Foundation has had on their lives, she said it proves they are doing important work that needs to carry on.

“All of the things that we are doing in the City of Chicago [are] to make sure that young people have safe spaces to express themselves with their art,” Pugh said. “No matter what type of art.”

With the 2025 apprenticeship program ending, more creatives can sign up next year through an application on the John Walt Foundation website.