AirGo

NOTE: 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 r...

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 theMI...

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 Libe...

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 professo...

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...

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' musi...

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. Recorded 4/5/17 in Chicago Music from this week'...

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 d...

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...

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 s...

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! Music on this week's show: Divine Love - @wowtashawow Untitled 04 (summertime) - @jhonmyquale Suitcase - @bellabahhs Blk...

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 Chil...

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. Recorded live 3/2/17 at WHPK 88.5FM i...

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 te...

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. Recorded live 2/16/17 at WHP...

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. Re...

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. Recorded liv...

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 #LetUsB...

Leor Galil's work is some of the most thoughtful and writing about the city's creative renaissance. The music writer for the Chicago Reader, Leor grounds his features in the stories, neighborhoods, and sounds of the city with an open ear and a dedication to honest relationship with his subject. He also hosts the new Red Bull Music Academy radio show The Deepest Dish, which has already featured qui...

We've all heard "conscious" rappers preach their asses off in a song that nobody wants to hear–the onslaught of big words and holier-than-thou declarations can be exhausting. David Ellis' autotuned bars reverberate with a catchiness that help his thoughtful, loving ideas shine through clearly and without pretense. The other half of duo FYI (Fuck Yo Institution) with AirGo alum Ric Wilson, he's als...

Lester Rey is a singer and musician whose unflinching and infectious creations remold and reimagine in the spirit of boogaloo, overlapping the edges and sounds from Puerto Rico, across Latin America, and his home city of Chicago. His most recent project, entitled PROMESA, is a fierce and loving reflection based off the passage of the PROMESA Act, passed this past summer, which placed governance of...

DJ, curator, creator, radio-maker, and teacher Rae Chardonnay is one of the best vibe-creators and party-builders in the city of Chicago. Voted the best DJ in Chicago by the Reader, she is one of the cofounders of the remarkable Party Noire, alongside AirGo alum Lauren Ash and Nick Alder. If you haven't been to this remarkable celebration of Black Joy, make sure you come through the Party Noire Bl...

Because of a last-minute cancellation, Damon and Daniel take the opportunity to check in with each other and share some ideas and stories, from sphinxes to imagining new futures to Daniel's contentious dilemma about a moose antler. Recorded live 12/8/16 at WHPK 88.5FM Music from this week's show: I Need to Know - @kanyewest Cha Cha - @BigbabyDRAM Zombies (feat. @karifaux) - @childishgambino Strang...

Sir The Baptist is a preacher's son, rapper, and singer who is reimagining what it means to celebrate one's faith in public and in one's art. Born and raised in Bronzeville, he embraces challenging hypocrisy of the church as part of his religious practice, all while compelling folks to dance in celebration. He has recently performed at Afropunk, the Made in America festival, and the Tidal Showcase...

This week's episode shares some of the voices, stories, and experiences of the Standing Rock occupation on indigenous land in North Dakota. First, Daniel and AirGo alum Kristiana Colón discuss their experience visiting last weekend. Then, we share three audio portraits by the podcast series "Voices of Standing Rock," produced by Bo Hakala and Bill Prouty. Hear "Voices of Standing Rock" here: https...