Vanessa Sanchez is the Director of Yollocalli Arts Reach, a remarkable organization and branch of the National Museum of Mexican Art that works with youth, primarily in the city's Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods. In a city full of of nonprofit efforts that talk the talk, and ultimately take up space and resources without fostering dynamic spaces for young people to create, Yollocalli stands tall as a welcoming, unpretentious home for free art and new media programs, including street art, mural internships, experimental video, music, storytelling, radio and journalism. Vanessa is also one of the creators of Villapalooza, a fantastic annual festival, community celebration, and block party in Little Village.
Episode 45 - Tweak Harris
Tweak Harris is an MC and activist whose forceful bars and warm smile have been central to the movement across Chicago, especially in the victorious fight for a trauma center on the South Side of the city. Coming off an electrifying performance at the magnificent "Ain't No Mothership: An Expedition of She" event last month, Tweak comes by the studio to talk about her new music and more.
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Episode 44 - Sol Patches
Sol Patches is an actor, rapper, poet, organizer, and gender abolitionist from Chicago. Under the guidance of AirGo alum Ricardo Gamboa and Coya Paz at the Free Street Theater, Patches has tackled roles on stage and screen, including Louder Than a Bomb as a member of the Goodman Theater team and in Pronouns, a new film that has been accepted to the Tribeca Film Festival. They are also an activist and organizer, working with the Let Us Breathe Collective and other organizations across the city.
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Episode 43 - Shani Crowe
Shani Crowe is an interdisciplinary artist from the South Side of Chicago. Her newest exhibition, Braids, is a series of portraits of Black women whose hair has been braided and styled into "a variety of original looks and wearable works of art." She joins Damon and Daniel to talk about the project, her lineage as a visual artist, and more.
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Episode 42 - Felonious Munk
Felonious Monk is a comedian and commentator who has built some of the city's most vibrant, subversive comedic rooms. His work with Dave Helem on the Blipster Life comedy series, produced in venues across the city, has brought comedy into the movement, and has created in-between spaces for one of America's most segregated art forms. He is a regular contributor to The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore.
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Episode 41 - L.A. VanGogh
L.A. VanGogh is a multitalented rapper, vocalist, producer, and musician whose fantastic new collaborative project with producer and DJ Ambi Lyrics is entitled safensound presents L.A. VanGogh. The project's sound, birthed from both artists' hands, ears, and minds, is grounded in this sonic moment more completely than most, and in self reflection that dodges Drake-like corniness in favor of honest thoughts and declarations.
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Episode 40 - Mariame Kaba Rebroadcast
This week's episode is a rebroadcast of AirGo's conversation with organizer and educator Mariame Kaba, whose decades of work in Chicago have unceasingly pushed the city toward the more equitable. As she prepares to leave the city, we return to our conversation with her from a few months ago.
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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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