Jaimie Branch’s 2017 debut LP, Fly or Die, heralded the arrival of an already mature talent. While it wasn’t a secret that she’s a superb trumpeter, it was her chops as a composer and bandleader that made the record stand out. She devised bold themes and galvanic grooves that inspired a band of elder musicians, all fellow ex-Chicagoans, to outdo themselves. (Branch is now based in Brooklyn, but she lived here till 2012....

Courtesy of Priority Male Ennui‘s reissue Back in 2012, local labels Galactic Archive (run by Steve “Plastic Crimewave” Krakow) and Priority Male (operated by Matthew Hord of Running) teamed up to reissue Machines That Kill People, the long-lost 1983 debut of south-side art-rock legends Ono. The bizarre, noisy, and theatrical band blew minds in the 80s, but were all but forgotten by 2007 when they were resurrected by Krakow. They’ve since firmly planted themselves as the focal point of the weirdo-Chicago-underground-rock scene, reinventing themselves over and over and constantly incorporating young blood into the lineup—a roster which now boasts experimental musicians like Brett Naucke and Ben Billington as part of the team....

The Invisible Institute’s Jamie Kalven will receive the George Polk Award for local journalism for his coverage of the killing of Laquan McDonald by Chicago police in October 1014. His winning article, “Sixteen Shots,” was posted online by Slate in February of last year. Kalven is being honored not only for what he reported but for what he predicted. At the time he wrote, the police video of McDonald being shot repeatedly by Officer Jason Van Dyke had not been released....

Chicago has many independent hip-hop labels, but few maintain rosters as multigenerational as that of Machine Wash Music. Rapper Daryl “Decay” Stewart cofounded Machine Wash after he had an unsatisfying experience putting out his 2008 album, The Unlikely Hero, through Molemen Records—he wanted a more mutual artist-label relationship. “The process wasn’t the same and I didn’t enjoy making that record as much,” Stewart told Voyage Chicago in 2018. “I went back to my friends and felt we needed to help artist [sic] realize their dream without taking their control....

A new Pew Research Center study offers some good news I’m not so sure about. Given everything the Internet is telling us 24/7, Pew was pleasantly surprised to find out that “the large majority of Americans do not feel that information overload is a problem for them.” Young adults and college graduates are especially likely to express positive feelings about navigating today’s information-rich world. Political arguments I got into prior to the recent elections were marked by a near total lack of uncertainty by either party....

In Adam “Amine” Daniel’s breakout video for “Caroline,” the Portland rapper goofs around with pals in the parking lot of a classic drive-in burger joint, in a car—and on top of said car while it’s in motion. He also drops a skit into the middle of the video (which has amassed more than 200 million YouTube views since 2016), an absurd bit in which he asks about the bananas scattered behind him in the car that, according to the driver, are for “decoration....

Benji Espinoza played a key role in promoting early Chicago house music to a global audience, both as founder of Quantum Distributors and by working in sales, distribution, and artist management for the pioneering D.J. International label. On Thursday, October 22, he passed away at age 57. Footage from a 1988 D.J. International showcase in the Netherlands In spring 1985, Espinoza was working at a record store called Baby O’s in West Chicago....

On Tuesday, September 13, a burger joint in Fresno, California, called Take 3 transformed itself into a pop-up restaurant called the Powamekka Cafe, named after a business Tupac Shakur once dreamed of opening. Tupac’s restaurant would’ve used other rappers’ recipes, but they weren’t on the menu at Take 3’s pop-up. According to Billboard, the options at Powamekka included “Tupac-inspired dishes such as ‘Thug Passion’ cake pops, ‘Mac-and-Cheeseburgers’ or even a ‘California Love’ chicken sandwich....

Q: I’m a twentysomething straight woman. About a month ago, I had a really vivid dream in which I was at a party and engaging with a guy I had just met. We were seriously flirting. Then my fiance showed up—my real, flesh-and-blood, sleeping-next-to-me fiance—who we’ll call G. In the dream, I proceeded to shower G with attention and PDA; I was all over him in a way we typically aren’t in public....

Chicago rapper Joseph Chilliams is one of the tens of millions of Americans for whom the night of November 8, 2016, was a nightmare. But Chilliams’s evening went south even before the election was decided. While walking home in Austin, he was robbed of his wallet and backpack (the latter empty but for a broken umbrella and some Altoids) and badly beaten. His assailants left him bleeding on the ground with a shattered face....

Veteran conguero Sammy Figueroa is steeped in the heritage of Latin music (he’s the son of 1940s Puerto Rican bolero singer Charlie Figueroa), but 50 percent of his sound is jazz. In that world, he’s worked with artists such as Miles Davis, Chet Baker, and Sonny Rollins as a sideman, and he’s made his mark on pop as well, providing persuasive percussion behind mainstream artists such as Mariah Carey and Dr....

Last month London hardcore label La Vida Es un Mus released a digital edition of Doble LP Discografía, the career-spanning compilation of the music of Pilsen punk heroes Los Crudos. Long-running Bay Area punk zine Maximum Rocknroll originally released the Crudos collection last year as a fund-raiser to help sustain itself, and La Vida Es un Mus handled the physical and digital version for the European release—it coincided with Los Crudos’ European tour last month....

Except for The Return (2003), Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev has shot all his films in wide-screen. The format is crucial to the thematic content because Zvyagintsev uses negative space within the frame to convey his characters’ sense of alienation. This technique peaked with the searing anti-Putin allegory Leviathan (2014), Zvyagintsev’s best film to date, in which his compositions take on a political dimension, making the characters seem like pawns in a system beyond their control....

At 6:15 PM on Sunday, December 4, in the middle of the season’s first real snowfall, there was already a line snaking down the block and around the corner at Ashland and Foster, awaiting entry to the Neo-Futurists’ second-floor theater and another sold-out performance in the 28-year run of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. In 1988, given the opportunity to create a late-night weekend show at Stage Left, Allen, then 26, came up with a concept he’d been thinking about since he studied Italian futurism at Oberlin College....

For the last few weeks former governor Pat Quinn has been going around town, trying to build support for a proposal to impose term limits on the mayor’s office. Obama’s speech was so inspirational it almost made me forgive him for dumping Mayor Rahm on us after he booted him out as his White House chief of staff. America, Obama said, does not need a demagogue or a dictator to take over....

Dozens of activists gathered—and one was arrested—in the west side neighborhood of North Lawndale Wednesday evening during a series of #BlackLivesMatter events that included a rally, a community party, and a civil disobedience action. As more than 20 police officers stood by (the number of cops more than doubled over the course of the evening), activists gathered in front of the entrance to Homan Square. Activists taken into police custody Wednesday during police divestment rally #LetUsBreathe Collective, Black Youth Project 100, and other activists gathered in Homan Square Wednesday for protest and party....

F ew genres stoke snobbery quite like the humble American sitcom. It’s a pity how many viewers write off the format altogether, because for the last few years, the much-maligned art form has been doing much of the creative heavy lifting in reframing thorny social discussions as approachable, empathy-building entertainment as well as in telling stories by and of people of color. Incensed and motivated by a false sense of entitlement, Lillian’s daughters (Louise Lamson, Linsey Page Morton, and Grace Smith) conspire to change their mother’s mind, employing tactics ranging from Wile E....

This weekend, Humboldt Park event space Reunion Chicago partners with queer party collective Slo ‘Mo and Web TV platform Open Television for the three-night virtual Pride festival #4theQulture. Reunion founders Elijah McKinnon (who cofounded OTV and just won a Leaders for a New Chicago grant from the Field Foundation) and Kristen Kaza (who cofounded Slo ‘Mo and collaborates with the Reader) have put together an intersectional, intergenerational lineup that centers Black LGBTQ+ artists and their communities....

Upon its opening in 1982 at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., “Black Folk Art in America, 1930-1980” shook the art world. The show was the first to highlight the work of self-taught black artists and introduced curators to an “undiscovered” scene that flourished in close-knit black communities in the South. To many black artists, however, the Corcoran show reeked of marginalization. Many significant black folk artists were excluded, and some challenged the distinction Corcoran made between fine art and folk art....