Episode 39 - Black Girl in Om

As a moment continues to transition to a movement, one of the most pivotal questions is how a generation of people fighting for liberation can maintain their spirits, bodies, souls, and presence while still actively doing some of the most difficult work one can do. Black Girl in Om is an organization that creates "spaces for women of color to breathe easy" through their online publication and pop-up wellness experiences across the country. Founder/Creative Director Lauren Ash and Art Director Zakkiyyah Najeebah join Damon and Daniel to wellness, art, and more.

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Photo by Erica Jone

 

Episode 38 - Summer Fields

Summer Fields is a student at the University of Chicago, where she has seemingly been making cool stuff since she first showed up. She is the founder of The Quad, a podcast telling the stories and sharing the voices that are often unheard at UChicago. She also works as an intern at Hearken, "an audience-driven framework and platform enabling journalists to partner with the public throughout the reporting process." A former ABC News Politics Fellow, she's currently writing her thesis on race and public media. Plus she's as much of a Larry David fan as Daniel is.

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Episode 37 - Highness

Highness is a band and collective whose unique sound, which they call omnisoul, lights up stages and eardrums across the city. With each show, their appeal and energy becomes even more undeniable. Daniel and Damon go offsite to interview the band at the rehearsal studio as they prep for the release show of their new The Highness Collective EP.

Buy Tickets for their release Show on 4/9

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Episode 36 - Emon Lauren Black

Poets are expected to be in touch with their emotions. A stoic poet is viewed as holding back or guarded. As a result, some folks tend to manufacture the markings of emotion–a crack in their voice, a tear down their face, shoulders shaking with emotion. When real passion is performed, however, the result is far more impactful. Emon Lauren Black doesn't hold back, on stage or off, and is becoming a forceful and important voice in the city's poetry community. 

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Episode 35 - Kevin Coval

This week's guest has been mentioned on AirGo more than anyone else, for good reason. Kevin Coval is a poet, educator, and community builder who is the artistic director of Young Chicago Authors and the co-founder of Louder Than A Bomb, the world's largest youth poetry festival. He has worked to center the stories of strong young voices from Chicago and beyond for decades, and the legacy of art and community that trails him is unmatched in this moment and city. 

Come see LTAB Indy Finals on Thurs. 4/17 or Team Finals on Sat. 4/19.

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Episode 34 - Fatimah Asghar

Fatimah Asghar is a poet, photographer, and writer whose forceful presence and fierce work from stages, on pages, and behind lenses have made her one of the city's strongest young poetic voices. She is a member of the Dark Noise Collective, a teaching artist at Young Chicago Authors, and is the creator of Let Me Love Me, a "a nude photo project for people of color to talk about [their] bodies and [their] journeys with self love." Her chapbook After dropped last November through YesYes Books.

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Episode 33 - Akenya

Akenya is a singular talent in the Chicago music community. She commands the stage like a combination of James Brown, Billie Holiday, and a hungry MC conquering a cypher. She has collaborated both with Chicago hip hop stalwarts including Chance the Rapper, Noname Gyspy, Mick Jenkins, Eryn Allen Kane, Donnie Trumpet, and the O'My’s, as well as performed alongside contemporary luminaries like Esperanza Spalding, Fred Hersch, Vijay Iyer, Jason Moran, Luciana Souza, and Dave Holland. She is preparing to drop her first LP, titled Moon in the 4th, this year.

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Episode 32 - Chante Linwood

Chante Linwood fills rooms across the city like Chance the Rapper's Open Mike, Louder than a Bomb, and nightlife hotspot East Room with good music, and perhaps equally importantly, a wonderful, hilarious spirit and smile. The DJ, filmmaker, and mother is one of the cofounders of We Are Cliché, a self-described collective by women for women."

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Episode 31 - City Bureau

Many of the organizations and groups mentioned on AirGo have developed in response to ways that existing institutions have failed to successfully serve the purpose they claim to serve, from the classroom to the corner to the studio. News media has also largely failed its purpose of honestly, fairly, and accurately telling the stories of Chicago. This week's guests, Andrea Hart and Darryl Holliday, are editors of City Bureau, an organization "aiming to restore civic media coverage of the South and West Sides of Chicago by training a new generation of young reporters in the practice of urban journalism." In this meeting of the media minds between City Bureau and AirGo live some ideas for how to continue extending the Chicago Renaissance onto the newsprint and airwaves that are tasked with telling the truth.

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Episode 30 - Sam Trump

In the performance spaces and venues of Chicago's cultural renaissance, it becomes easy to tell who has the work ethic to keep growing, learning, performing, and moving forward. Couple that work ethic with undeniable talent and a warm soul, and you get Sam Trump. The soul singer and musician creates very rare vibes across the city, and tours the country with band Sidewalk Chalk. 

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Episode 29 - Mariame Kaba

After 27 episodes, we've started to hear some consistent threads and ideologies emerge. In a city with a broken education system and a massive amount of misinformation, these Strong Young Voices have to have learned these shared ideologies from somewhere. Mariame Kaba is one of the city's great mentors and community builders–she's the founder and director of Project NIA and co-founder of We Charge Genocide, and has worked to combat violence against women and girls for decades. Just a few weeks before she moves from Chicago, she joins AirGo for a conversation.

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Episode 28 - Ricardo Gamboa

Ricardo Gamboa isn't here for hypocrisy. The Chicagoan artist, actor, director, and activist challenges the hypocrisies and half-truths of the city and nation's institutions through his work tirelessly, and his work has both exploraed and created space for others to explore diaspora in Mexican(-American) communities. His videos, productions, and performances have forcefully issued rallying calls and challenges with a fist behind his winking humor. He joins AirGo for a conversation.

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Episode 27 - Jamila Woods

When did you first hear a voice that cut through madness and helped the listener heal and grow? Perhaps more so than any other person in the city of Chicago, Jamila Woods brings meaningful empowerment to the spaces and people with whom and which she connects. She's the Associate Artistic Director of Young Chicago Authors, an award-winning poet who is member of the illustrious Dark Noise Collective, and a magnificent vocalist and songwriter, who listeners may know as the voice of the Social Experiment's hit song "Sunday Candy." The wonderfully talented and supportive Woods is a Chicago native. 

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Episode 26 - Britteney Black Rose Kapri

Britteney Black Rose Kapri is a poet, educator, and the Pettiness Queen of Chicago. A recipient of the 2015 Rona Jaffe Foundation's Writer's Award, she pushes every space she's passes through across the city toward less bullshit and more honesty. She teaches in classrooms across the city, including Nancy B. Jefferson Alternative School in the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center, and is a teaching artist at Young Chicago Authors.

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Episode 25 - Veronica Morris Moore

In the world of organizing, it can feel like victories are few and far between. Strong Young Voices participating in the work can sometimes find it hard to face these immense challenges with no guarantee of success. This makes moments of success, where objectives are met, very complicated. Veronica Morris Moore has organized around various injustices in Chicago, but her voice became heard clearest in the fight for a Level 1 Adult Trauma Center on the Southside, which the University of Chicago recently agreed to build. We discuss this win, other challenges, joys, and more.

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Episode 24 - Stretch and Bobbito

There's a small door on 115th Street and Broadway in New York City. For nearly a decade, hip hop's royalty passed through the door and climbed a fluorescent-lit stairway to WKCR, Columbia University's community radio station, and dapped up kings of the underground Bobbito Garcia and Stretch Armstrong. The two New York natives introduced the world to an unsigned Nas, Jay Z, Biggie Smalls, Wu-Tang Clan, Fugees, and so many more, while creating a meaningful, radical platform for the largest youth culture in the history of the world. On this very special New Year's episode, Stretch and Bob chop it up with Damon and Daniel in promotion of their transcendant new film Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives. 

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Episode 23 - Damon Williams

Families tend to come together around the holidays. Comedian Damon Williams chats with Junior and Daniel on Christmas, breaking down the twists and turns of his comedy career, which includes stops on BET's Comic View, the Kings of Comedy tour, and stages across the country. Most importantly, he has a cachè of embarrassing Damon stories. 

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Episode 22 - Defcee

Defcee has been raised in the renaissance. He is a rapper, educator, and mentor who has been a stalwart of the creative community in the city for years. He just released a tremendous new album called Damn Near Grown, his first in seven years–the project reflects both his own growth and the growth of the community. 

Episode 21 - The Mind

The Mind has lent his ear and voice to much of the best, most ambitious music to emerge from Chicago in the last few years. The vocalist is a core member of THEMpeople, the collective of creators that Via Rosa discussed a few weeks back. Fresh off a world tour with Mick Jenkins, The Mind hops on AirGo for a conversation.

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Episode 20 - Bryant Cross

Bryant Cross' thoughtful words dig in his personal intersection of "blackness & how it relates to being a man, an artist, a socialist, Christian, junkie, scholar, weed-smoker, American, chronic asthmatic, hip-hop, traumatized, army brat, writer, and bastard." Even Strong Young Voices contain multitudes. The Belgian-born, Southside-raised performance poet, writer, and activist seems to balance them well.

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