This week's guest is Ciera Mckissick, the founder and voice behind arts and culture multiplatform space AMFM. A Milwaukee native, she brought her AMFM brand to the city and worked to build a home for it, an effort that led to her new performance space and gallery in Pilsen.
Episode 104 - Ric Wilson Returns
We #runitback one more time with Chicago's nouveau disco rap superstar, Geneva-visiting activist, and community goofball Ric Wilson. Since his (late) appearance on Episode 3, the musical world has opened up for Ric–he's sold out Schuba's, performed at a bunch of festivals, and opened for Chuck D, DRAM, and The Roots. Together, we delve into the mystery wrapped in an enigma with a side of dance that is Ric.
NOTE: this is the last episode of #AirGoRunItBack, a five-week series featuring return conversations with folks who have been on the show through the first 100 episodes. Share your favorite episode on social media with hashtag #airgorunitback!
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
Episode 103 - Malcolm London Returns
This week we run it back with the guest who started it all. AirGo first guest Malcolm London returns to the show to talk growth, masculinity, raggedy growth, and much more.
NOTE: this is the fourth episode of #AirGoRunItBack, a five-week series featuring return conversations with folks who have been on the show through the first 100 episodes. Share your favorite episode on social media with hashtag #airgorunitback!
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
Episode 102 - Eve Ewing Returns
The Champ is here! Eve Ewing returns to the airwaves as part of our #AirGoRunItBack series. Since she was on all the way back in 2015, she got her doctorate from Harvard, became a tenure-track professor at UChicago, launched a bajillion community-based creative projects here in the city, and gained MANY twitter followers. She goes the distance on the longest episode of AirGo we've ever done–we could've talked forever.
NOTE: this is the second episode of #AirGoRunItBack, a five-week series featuring return conversations with folks who have been on the show through the first 100 episodes. Share your favorite episode on social media with hashtag #airgorunitback!
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
Episode 101 - Ricardo Gamboa Returns
As part of AirGo's #RunItBack Series, Ricardo Gamboa comes back to the show to catch up and bring some more gems to the airwaves. Since previously appearing, Ricky has returned full-time back to the city and launched numerous projects, including web series Brujos, bimonthly talk show and podcast The Hoodoisie, and community theatre project Meet Juan-ito Doe. The dimple chin remains unchanged.
NOTE: this is the second episode of #AirGoRunItBack, a five-week series featuring return conversations with folks who have been on the show through the first 100 episodes. Share your favorite episode on social media with hashtag #airgorunitback!
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
Episode 100 - Mariame Kaba Returns
As AirGo hits 100 episodes, we run it back with the parent of Chicago's radical renaissance Mariame Kaba. The wonderful organizer, educator, and community creator talks about her move back home to New York, angry old Socialists, a shift in battlefield since the election, and more.
NOTE: this is the first episode of #AirGoRunItBack, a five-week series featuring return conversations with folks who have been on the show through the first 100 episodes. Share your favorite episode on social media with hashtag #airgorunitback!
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
Episode 99 - Sadia Nawab
Sadia Nawab creates across media as an arts educator, youth educator, artist, curator, DJ and organizer. She is the Youth & Arts Manager of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN), an organization aiming "to serve as the model of the Muslim tradition of facilitating transformational change in urban communities, by inspiring others towards critical civic engagement exemplifying prophetic compassion in the work for social justice and human dignity beyond the barriers of religion, ethnicity, and nationality." She is currently launching the Beloved Community Ceramic Arts Studio.
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
Episode 98 - Elgin Bokari
Elgin Bokari is a multidisciplinary artist, creator, and Program Director for Free Write Jail Arts & Literacy, an organization that teaches writing and creative arts at the Cook County Juvenile Detention facility. A St. Louis native, he DJs, produces, raps, and makes visual art. He is a member of the Elephant Rebellion creative collective.
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
Episode 97 - Emma Mckee
The Stitch Gawd is here. Emma Mckee is a cross-stitch artist whose work has blessed the sleeves and jackets of pretty much every rapper and singer you know and love from the city of Chicago. She breaks down her craft, talks getting kicked out of Canada, her love for Pivot Gang, North Korea vs. Mormons, and more. She has a mixtape featuring many of the hottest acts in the city coming soon.
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
Episode 96 - Jorge Mikell
Jorge Mikell is a true veteran of the Chicago Renaissance. He just released Soliloquy, his debut full-length album, which is available literally everywhere. He is also deep in the Chicago urban agriculture game, facilitating all types of programs through his role at the Experimental Station to connect Chicagoans with affordable, delicious, fresh food.
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
Episode 95 - Terrence Thompson
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).
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
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.
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
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.
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
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.
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
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.
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
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.
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
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.
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
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.
HELP SPREAD THE WORDS OF THESE STRONG YOUNG VOICES BY BECOMING AN AMPLIFIER WITH A MONTHLY DONATION THROUGH PATREON, THE ARTS PATRONAGE SITE.
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!