Terrence Thompson is a filmmaker and Chicago native who's been documenting, shaping, and retelling stories throughout the city. His most recent film, "Drive Slow," just premiered through the Chicago Track program, an initiative of Free Spirit Media and DCASE. It also stars one of your favorite podcast cohosts (it's Damon).
Episode 94 - Rachel Leider
Rachel Leider understands momentum. She's a central organizer for the Chicago chapter of IfNotNow, a national community of young American Jews committed to erasing American Jewish support for the Israeli occupation. She stops by the show to talk movement-building, Jew stuff, and more.
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Episode 92 & 93 - Zohran Kwame Mamdani & Ayinde Cartman
This week, we're doing something a little different–an AirGo doubleheader featuring two one-on-one interviews. Daniel's back in New York for the week talking with an old friend, while Damon holds down the on-air slot. Enjoy all of the conversation!
Daniel sits down with Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a rapper and old friend back in New York. The son of acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair and postcolonial radical scholar Mahmood Mamdani, he is one of Daniel's oldest friends. The two talk family, Uganda, social media, and growth.
Back in Chicago, Damon sits down with Ayinde Cartman. Ayinde is a poet, organizer, and caretaker, who actually was featured with a live performance all the way back on AIrGo Episode 11. They chop it up one-on-one, live on WHPK.
Episode 91 - greenSLLIME
greenSLLIME may have been traveling around the world for the past couple years as Mick Jenkins' DJ, but his style stays lowkey, homemade, hilarious, and fly. In addition to spinning for Mick, he's the host of SLLIME's Broke Ass Low Budget Show, a brilliantly, bluntedly surrealist talk show that has featured Joseph Chilliams, Sharkula, Dally Auston, Qari, Smino, and AirGo alums Jean Deaux and theMIND. He also has more than his fair share of bars for you.
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Episode 90 - LaSaia Wade
LaSaia Wade is the forceful, brilliant voice at the front of the movement for trans liberation in the city of Chicago. She's the director of Brave Space Alliance, a "grassroots funded initiative created by trans people of color, for trans people of color, to generate opportunities to engage in healing, community building and the creating of kinship." She's also a member of the Chicago's Trans Liberation Collective, and owns Mystical Bee Hive, a South Side-based beehive.
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Episode 89 - AJ Christian
AJ Christian is coming for your television with an eye to the future. He is the founder of Open TV, a Chicago-based platform for intersectional television that has been the home for web series Brown Girls (written by AirGo alum Fati Asghar), Brujos (created by AirGo alumn Ricardo Gamboa), and many more programs reimagining the form and distribution of television in the digital age. He's a professor at Northwestern's School of Communication.
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Episode 88 - Kaina
Kaina's twitter bio says it best–she works hard and she loves her city. She's a wonderful singer who has stepped onto larger and larger stages over the past year with her musical collaborators The Burns Twins, including festival Mamby on the Beach this summer. They recently put out an EP together, entitled sweet asl. She's also one of the associates holding down Chicago footwear brand Bucketfeet's Wicker Park location.
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Episode 87 - Thaddeus Tukes
Thaddeus Tukes is a master on the vibes and community journalist in the making. Featured across Chicago's music scene, including on The Social Experiment's Surf, Thaddeus is a gigging jazz musician, producer, and rapper. He also is in a masters program studying new media innovation and entrepreneurship at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, where he was a central figure in the campus' music and social justice community as an undergrad.
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Episode 86 - Rebel Diaz
Rebel Diaz is about the work. The brother-brother duo came up in Chicago as self-described "movement kids," and has since traveled the world bringing their music and radical framework to resistance moments and movements around the world. They've been organizers and community members in the Hunts Point neighborhood of The Bronx for the last 15 years.
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Episode 85 - Eddie Sanders
Eddie Sanders both holds down one of Chicago's most popping spots, and holds the degree to get you out of trouble if things get a little too wild. A veteran of the Chicago creative community, he is a lawyer for many of the artists in the scene, as well as one of the main folks at popular night spot East Room. He also spins records, has dope glasses, and runs distribution label Freshly Baked, and definitely has some stories to tell. We unfortunately lost about 2/3 of the episode due to recording mishaps, but we still have a bunch of goodness to share!
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Episode 84 - Monte Booker
Monte Booker makes sounds you've never heard in a song before, but seem like you've heard them around you your whole life–the clicks and whirs of machinery, the hums and whistles of a flock of birds, the resonances inside our heads. An undeniably innovative talent, The Chicagoan producer has been making sonic tidal waves with rapper/crooner Smino, AirGo alum Ravyn Lenae, a bunch of other talented folks, and the groovy radio show Soulection. He takes a break from a studio session at Classick Studios and gets groovy.
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Episode 83 - Naledge
Naledge may be a student at Northwestern's School of Communications within the Media, Technology and Society Program, but he's a kid no more. One half of 2000's-era rap group Kidz in the Hall, who sold more than 100,000 records worldwide on both Duckdown Records and Rawkus Records, he is also the founder of the Brainiac Project, which provides safe spaces and professional training at a recording studio in Auburn Gresham.
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Episode 82 - #StrongYoungVoices DJMix
As an antidote to all of the endless yammering we bring you week-in and week-out, this week AirGo presents music by all of the musical artists who have come on AirGo through the first 82 episodes. The mix is done by AirGo's own DJ Empathy (aka Daniel). Peep the tracklist below!
Divine Love - @wowtashawow
Untitled 04 (summertime) - @jhonmyquale
Suitcase - @bellabahhs
Blk Girl Soldier - @JamilaWoods
West Side in the Rain - @MalcolmLondon
Pressure - @Thatsjeandeaux
Whippin' - @RicWilsonisme
Liberation - @DavidEllis00
Summer Camp - @theMINDmusic
Walk Away - @DramaDuo
Promesa - @Lesterreymusic
Symmetry - @SabaPIVOT
Silk Pillows - @Sminoworld & @Akenya
Spice - @Ravynlenae
Bloom - @BLAckxpARty
Noir - @Defcee
Green Light Party - @Add2theMC
Ham Sammiches - @averyryoung
Love, Peace, and Happiness - @SamTrump
Creflo (Almighty) Dollar - @SirtheBaptist
No Service - @LaVanGogh
Mariame Kaba - @SolPatches
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Episode 81 - Safia Elhillo
Safia Elhillo is a badass and poet of Sudanese origin who manages the space between her words with fearless grace. She's in town for Halal if You Hear Me, a special event for Louder Than A Bomb that shares its name with the anthology of which she is co-editor with AirGo alum Fati Asghar. If you have any questions about Ja Rule and Ashanti, she is your go-to person. Her first book, The January Children, is available now.
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Episode 80 - Charles Preston
Charles Preston is an organizer and radical spacemaker. A central figure in CSU's fight for survival, which AirGo alum Dave Ellis broke down on Episode 73, Charles is also the creator of Church on the 9, a popup cypher and community-building event on 79th Street here in Chicago. He talks spacemaking, organizing, and mental/emotional health with the AirGo crew.
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Episode 79 - Ellen Mayer
In the frantic recallibration of what is, what isn't, and what might be since January 20th, our definitions of journalism, the press, media, and the truth are all in flux as real threats solidify and old tensions reemerge. How do we humanize our journalism and root it in the information different communities want and need? Ellen Mayer is the Engagement Consultant at Hearken, an "audience-driven tech platform and editorial framework that enables journalists to partner with the public throughout the reporting process," and a smart-ass person with a bunch of ideas about how we can engage with each other to report the information we need.
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Episode 78 - Amika Tendaji
Amika Tendaji is a mother, a longtime Chicago youth and community organizer, a co-founder of Ujimaa Medics (UMedics) a collective focused on health justice and self-determination for Black people and a lead organizer of BLMChicago. She is also a poet, photographer, artful dodger, orca lover, storyteller, base builder, amateur comedian and a flamethrower extraordinaire.
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Episode 77 - bLAck pARty
bLAck pARty, also known off the mic and boards as Malik Flint, is an old friend and raw music-maker whose most recent project, Mango, is available everywhere now. A Little Rock native, he moved out to LA a couple years ago when he began to work with Wolf & Rothstein, Childish Gambino's management company. We break down some big ideas, how he got to this moment, and even a few UFO sightings.
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Episode 76 - DJ Oreo
DJ Oreo is like the mayor of Chicago's cool kids, if the mayor was a backflipper who DJs around the world rather than a neoliberal despot intent on lining his buddies' pockets. The current DJ for beaded wonder Lil' Yachty, Oreo has been at the Chicago's hip hop and footworking scenes for years. He's the founder of Oreofest, an irregular and surreal pop-up hip hop festival in the city.
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Episode 75 - Xavier Ramey
Xavier Ramey walks through the different worlds of Chicago with a grace, humor, and devotion rarely experienced. A North Lawndale native, he currently works at UChicago teaching students how to build organizations, structures, and companies that work to address harm and inequality. A Louder Than A Bomb kid turned commodities trader turned mentor and activist, Xavier is a core member of the #LetUsBreathe Collective and is a photographer. He also makes more corny jokes than Daniel does–it's documented.