AirGo

As part of AirGo's coverage of Pitchfork Music Festival, which is taking place July 19-21 at Union Park in Chicago, we're releasing two #GoBack episodes with AirGo Alums who are playing at the fest. Ric Wilson was the third guest ever on AirGo, back in August 2015. He had just released a boombapy rap project called Penny Raps, and was still really plugged into local organizing work with We Charge...

As part of AirGo's coverage of Pitchfork Music Festival, which is taking place July 19-21 at Union Park in Chicago, we're releasing two #GoBack episodes with AirGo Alums who are playing at the fest. When we first talked with Tasha in November of 2016, she had just released her first musical project and was a staff member of BYP-100. She's now a nationally touring act, and her album Alone At Last r...

Resita Cox has spirit, and she wants to share it. In her two and a half years in Chicago, the poet and story-shaper has built relationships and collaborations that have resulted in some of the most compassionate and engaging new spaces in the city, from the People Say open mic at Trap House Chicago to the documentary about development and revitalization in East Garfield Park that she's currently d...

Stacey Sutton spends her time figuring out why our systems of capital work the way they do, their effects, and what some better, more human ways of creating industry and cities could be. She is a professor of Urban Planning at the University of Illinois-Chicago, a long-time organizer, and, according to Damon, the best-dressed person in Chicago’s social movement community–what a claim to fame, huh?...

Toaster is a comforter. At first glance, that sentence sounds like a madlib that makes no sense. But once you spend anytime with the poet, teaching artist, and cofounder of Big Kid Slam, you’ll know exactly what we mean. This gem of a human talks about Richard Pryor being spoken word, learning and unlearning what it means to be there for the women in his life, the origins of his name, and so much...

Tonika Lewis Johnson is a photographer, organizer, space-maker, and city thinker. She’s the creator of the Folded Map Project, a brilliant, humanizing arts project and advocacy tool that connects neighbors at mirror-image addresses of Chicago’s grid system. She’s also the cofounder of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood (R.A.G.E.), and a fierce advocate for her block, neighborhood, and c...

Schenay Mosley is singer, songwriter, and pianist whose most recent, excellent project Lotus is available now. The Dayton, Ohio native has been in Chicago for years now, and just got off a wildly successful tour with Smino. She talks disaster plans, Myspaces, finding herself through adversity, and more! Recorded 6/11/19 in Chicago Music from this week's episode: Intro - @schenaysmusic Loversgold -...

Davon Clark is a photographer, poet, graphic designer, and cutie pie. A Philly native, he is approaching a year in Chicago, and has spent the time setting the foundation for a vibrant creative career and life. He performs at poetry readings across the city, hosts a monthly open mic at Build Coffee, is a graphic designer for the Chicago Reader, and holds AIrGo down as the Associate Producer handlin...

Enjoy AirGo's first live show in the city of Chicago, featuring J. Bambii & greenSLLIME! Recorded 5/16/19 at the Cards Against Humanity Theater. Watch the video of the show here: https://youtu.be/BkgJqC_eIww Thanks to Cards Against Humanity, WHPK, Windmill Ginger Brew, Rosie Fitz, Ellen Mayer, and Jennifer Pagan for making the show possible! Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio bsky.app/pro...

Ashley Battle knows her craft, and is figuring out what do with it. She's a filmmaker, director, DP, and music producer who has worked extensively on both the commercial and indie sides of the Chicago film and TV industry, and has directed or DPed a few projects alongside Damon and Daniel including the web series Signal Flow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFHLM5g0rxs). She talks about figuring o...

Andy Clarno is an associate professor of Sociology and African American Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, who has developed a research collective model in collaborations with local radical organizers. He has recently been heavily involved in the Erase The Gang Database campaign (http://erasethedatabase.com), and is the author of Neoliberal Apartheid, a book focusing on the overlaps of...

adrienne maree brown is brilliant. She is a Detroit-based organizer, doula, facilitator, community builder, and writer of seminal books Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism. While in town for a talk at the Chicago Humanities Festival, adrienne swings by AirGo to talk with the guys about her birth work, learning from Grace Lee Boggs, fluidity, and much more. Plus, Damon and Daniel geek out about...

Squeak is on the boards! The DJ, producer, and West Side native swings by with a very special guest (his daughter Xuri) to talk about the rise of Pivot, getting comfortable with himself, learning through experience, and much more. Plus stay tuned at the end for a special cameo in the commercial! Recorded 5/1/19 in Chicago Music from this week's show: Bigger - Broadway Muse x SqueakPIVOT Snow - @fe...

Trina Reynolds-Tyler is an organizer, community builder, restorative justice facilitator, and graduate student at UChicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. She also works at the Invisible Institute, a journalism production studio founded by Jamie Kalven (who was on the show a couple weeks back). She talks about the University’s relationship to her childhood and neighborhood, learning from experie...

Richard Wallace is breaking down our economy. And not just explaining it–like trying to break it down into pieces and rebuild it more equitably. He’s the founder of Equity and Transformation (EAT), an organization that works with individuals operating in the informal economy to uplift the faces, voices, and power of the vast disenfranchised and excluded Black workforce in Chicago. He’s also a memb...

Cathy Cohen brings the pieces together beautifully. She is a professor at UChicago, a long-time organizer, a founding board member and former co-chair of the board of the Audre Lorde Project in NY, on the board of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press as well as the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) at CUNY, and the founder of Black Youth Project, a website devoted to Black youth from which...

Jamie Kalven fights for his neighbors. He’s a journalist, human rights worker, and founder of the Invisible Institute, a journalism production studio based on 62nd and Dorchester. He comes into the studio ready to swing through the years with Damon and Daniel, and shares his thoughts on guerilla journalism, his years working out of an apartment at Parkway Gardens, transparency and data, and much m...

Southpaw Swade is a mensch, to get Yiddish about it. The Florida-born, Chicago-based rapper and producer shares podcast space with a grace not often seen, and is truly a joy to talk to. He recently put out his Three Piece EP, which is available everywhere. Get tuned in, and make sure to stay tuned at the end for some bonus Hebrew Israelite conversation! Music from this week's show: FLTM - @southpa...

Essence McDowell is a communications strategist, organizer and co-author of Lifting As They Climbed: Mapping a History of Black Women on Chicago’s South Side. Working in collaboration with AirGo alum Mariame Kaba, Lifting As They Climbed maps dozens of locations across Chicago's South Side and connects them to the Black women who have shaped the histories of Chicago. She talks about the project, u...

Odinaka Ezeokoli is a comic, actor, and writer who came into the AirGo studio ready to talk, dig deep, and laugh. He starred in an episode of Easy, the Netflix series by Joe Swanberg that takes place in Chicago; was a central cast member of Brown Girls, the hit web series by Sam Bailey and AirGo alum Fatimah Asghar; and performed in Nothing to Lose But Our Chains, the hit Second City show written...

Charlene Carruthers is with the shits. She has served as the founding National Director of BYP-100, an activist member-led organization of Black 18-35 year olds dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people, for the last five years, and is the author of Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements. She talks about stepping out of her role at BYP-100, ste...

Krista Franklin just might be a whole-ass genius. She's definitely brilliant. The Ohio-born spirit is a poet, visual artist, curator, educator, mentor, and semi-professional hermit who has supported and shaped so many of the people we've interviewed on the show. Her humility and commitment to herself and the people she loves shines through in her poetry, collage, and mentorship. Her transgenre boo...

Mister Wallace is glowing up, out, and all around. They're the cool mom and founder of Futurehood, a collective spaceship full of emerging Chicago hip hop artists who are queer, which has reached a new level of visibility in recent months with a showcase performance and spectacle as part of last November's Red Bull Music Festival Chicago. Wallace also recently dropped a new project entitled Cool M...

Alex Fruchter is the man behind Chicago independent label Closed Sessions, the founder of hip hop blog Ruby Hornet, and a writer and DJ. His work has helped bring forward multiple waves of Chicago hip hop, from the Napster days into the streaming age and beyond. He talks about the industry, the role of a label, his own shift in perspective in the last year, and Morgan Park Academy, which is both h...

Wow. Hoda Katebi is a brilliant style designer, organizer, and writer who comes through for one of our favorite episodes ever. She's the founder of JooJoo Azad, a radical online fashion publication; the author of Tehran Streetstyle, a street fashion book of photos taken on the streets of her home country; and the founder of the newly launched Blue Tin Production, a fashion production co-op run by...