Student Union Treasury voted to allocate funding toward an individual appeal for U.S.-Mideast Hip Hop Exchange Week.

The week will feature hip hop artists from the Middle East and St. Louis and will take place from April 10 to April 17.

It will be focused on breaking down the misconceptions Americans have about the Middle East and Middle Easterners have about America through the artistic medium of hip-hop.

Universal Beatz, the group running the event, appealed for all of the $18,220.30 remaining in the individual appeals account but was allocated $12,799 by Treasury on Tuesday.

The group will bring Soultana Sawt Nssa, a female Moroccan rapper; Yisrael Moshe Chaim aka Marvin Casey, an Israeli rapper who is originally from St. Louis; and Y-Love and Diwon, Hassidic artists from Brooklyn, to Washington University. The artists will perform and interact with student groups and local St. Louis hip-hop artists.

Universal Beatz is working with more than 20 student groups so that as many people as possible will have the opportunity to exchange ideas with the artists during the week.

“We’re really trying to focus on this idea of building personal relationships,” Universal Beatz President Nicole Lopez said.

Students will have the opportunity to be ambassadors to the artists and spend time with them on and off campus.

The week will include an informal panel about hip-hop, a formal panel featuring artists and professors about the Middle East, a workshop on creative activism, a conference with high school students, volunteering with City Faces, and other programming.

There will also be a rap battle on the Swamp and a performance at the end of the week.

Universal Beatz would have used the funding it did not receive to fund additional artists, including Shadia Mansour, a Palestinian woman at the forefront of the Middle East hip-hop world, and B boy Zilla, a Bahrainian break-dancer.

Week organizers are looking for more money from campus departments and other venues.

Lopez first got the idea for the week when she was studying abroad in Jordan last year.

“I find that hip-hop is a lot more than music, especially in the Jordanian context,” Lopez said. “It’s a medium for people who otherwise wouldn’t have a voice to criticize society or talk about the day-to-day realities they might face.”

This event is the second to be funded through the individual appeals account. The other event sent students to the Rally to Restore Sanity in October.

The money that remains in the individual appeals account is likely to be moved back into the regular appeals account, but it has not yet been moved.

Treasury representatives were hesitant to fund the week in full because they knew that Universal Beatz was looking for other funding sources as well. Some were unsure about paying for items like food for the artists, which would cost just under $1,000.

“We are spending our student activities fee entertaining them (the artists) for eight days,” Treasury Representative Daniel Bernard said of using the entire $18,220.30. “I think it eliminates the extra step we wouldn’t take for anyone else.”

The final amount was based on a budget compiled by Universal Beatz. The group created three separate budgets including an “optimal” week and two other options with fewer artists. Treasury voted to fund the third and cheapest option.

The optimal option was set at $28,783, and the second at $18,899.

“We’re a little concerned about sources of funding because we’ve explored off-campus sources, and while they’ve been enthusiastic about the event, they haven’t necessarily had the type of money we needed to put this event on,” said Sarah Griffin, vice president of Universal Beatz. Some sources did say they would commit money after the group received substantial funding from SU.

Twelve Treasury representatives voted to approve the appeal for $12,799, four voted against, and zero abstained.