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IN EARLY DECEMBER, Ben Joravsky interviewed mayoral candidate Amara Enyia. She has a PhD in educational policy and a law degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and at only 35, she’s perhaps one of the better-known mayoral candidates in Chicago thanks to her endorsement by Chance the Rapper. This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity. There’s a segment of the city that gets very cautious when it comes to a mayoral election—they fear if a person who comes into office is an outsider who’s not enshrined by corporate Chicago, things will fall apart....

Egyptian American playwright Yussef El Guindi is mostly known to Chicago audiences from several productions with Silk Road Rising, including the world premiere of his 2005 comedy Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith, about an Egyptian immigrant family wrestling with assimilation in America. Back of the Throat, in which an Arab American man in post-9/11 America faces down government agents who take over his home in an increasingly hostile “investigation,” followed a few months later....

“We have eaten meat on a stick ever since the caveman killed his first chicken. It was a simple logic. Bones make great handles.” So said chef Sanjay Thumma, aka Vahchef, in a 2008 YouTube video posted around the time he sold his Chicago-area minichain Sizzle India, moved back to India, and went viral among the Indo-expat diaspora. In the video—which at press time was clocking just over 1.4 million views—Thumma demonstrates increasingly Fieri-esque variations on Hakka-style lollipop chicken wings—chubby frenched drumettes first marinated in a masala yogurt, then battered and fried hard in a turmeric-and-chile-stained fry suit....

Jacques Audiard is perhaps the only filmmaker in France who makes art-house films that could and should be successful Hollywood blockbusters. In his 2009 movie A Prophet, a green newly convicted felon is forced to commit a murder and from there gradually works his way up the ranks of the prisoners—it would fit perfectly on AMC daytime programming, right between First Blood and The Matrix. Rust and Bone (2012) is one of the most moving love stories of the past decade, and it stars trendy A-listers Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts....

Until his recent fall for swapping zoning changes for Viagra, 25th Ward alderman Danny Solis was, in my opinion, the luckiest alderman in Chicago for his ability to dodge his way out of any predicament. But with Danny out of the picture—probably in witness protection for wearing a wire on Alderman Ed Burke—I’m ready to announce a new Alderman Lucky: Sox fans don’t like the Rickettses ’cause—duh, they own the Cubs....

Melkbelly shouldn’t work so well. This Chicago four-piece yoke together musical elements that seem about as compatible as a soap bubble and a shotgun: on the one hand you’ve got simple pop structures and eerie, often delicate vocals, while on the other you’ve got feedback, noise, disjointed rhythms, and a drummer who lashes at his kit like the second coming of Lightning Bolt’s Brian Chippendale. Plus their lineup includes two brothers and a married couple—and as anybody who’s ever been in a band knows, those kinds of close relationships are vulnerable to upheavals....

courtesy of No Quarter Records Bob Carpenter It’s no secret that in the music business, the business is often the biggest enemy of the music. The Canadian singer-songwriter Bob Carpenter provides an excellent but depressing case in point. In 1973 the folk-rocker signed a deal with producer Brian Ahern (well-known for producing some early classics by Emmylou Harris), who had his own arrangement with Warner Brothers Records. Together they made a lush, literate album called Silent Passage....

In a city with as much talent as Chicago, live music was going to find a way to keep happening, even with venues forced to close and public gatherings prohibited. Artists and institutions have begun livestreaming concerts (just as they’ve begun livestreaming classes, readings, theater performances, and much more), and some are even announced far enough in advance that the Reader can tell you about them. Below you’ll find a few to look forward to over the next week—some are one-off shows, while others are ongoing series....

Gossip Wolf has only heard one song by Charlie Reed, but if the beautifully languid, psych-tinged acoustic garage-pop of “Love Hangover” is any indication, then they’re gonna be one of the best new bands in town! That’s right, Charlie Reed are a band, not a person—with roots in the solo project that singer-songwriter Luke Trimble started after his band Uh Bones called it quits. Trimble decided to ditch Uh Bones’ shaggy electric guitars and experiment with a nylon-string acoustic, recording on an eight-track reel-to-reel in his bedroom....

Meshell Ndegeocello is a monster bassist and captivating singer who can mine gold in numerous styles, including funk, soul, electric jazz, pop, and rock. Her versatility once seemed to hold her back—early in her career she rapidly bounced between ideas—but she refined her style as time passed, and now she’s one of the most satisfying, rigorous, and varied artists in contemporary pop music. Ndegeocello’s new album, Ventriloquism (Naïve), carries on her winning streak....

A refreshing take on the coming-of-age story, Brett Haley’s Hearts Beat Loud follows the lives of Frank Fisher (Nick Offerman), a middle-aged rock musician preparing to close his record store in Red Hook, Brooklyn, after 17 years, and his daughter, Sam (Kiersey Clemons), who’s about to move to California to begin college. Music is a shared passion of theirs and the glue that holds their relationship together. In fact, music is so central to Hearts Beat Loud that it’s connected to everything, from the characters’ emotions to important events taking place in the story....

Chicago would have been a much more mundane place over the last two decades without the tireless efforts of musician, artist, promoter, historian (and Reader contributor) Plastic Crimewave, aka Steve Krakow. Sometimes his music can seem overshadowed by his work organizing and promoting shows of great psychedelic trip-meisters from all over the world, but a new Plastic Crimewave Syndicate album is always a cosmic event. The power trio—currently includes Anjru Kieterang on bass and Jose Bernal on drums—is about to drop Thunderbolt of Flaming Wisdom on EyeVybe (run by erstwhile drummer Karissa Talanian)....

Local singer-songwriter Christopher Keener has led psychedelic country crew the Keener Family since 2015. After posting occasional demos on Bandcamp, in November the band dropped two tracks from their first full-length, Tender Beast, which Keener calls a “critique of my past experience with abuse, abandonment, and being ‘too sensitive,’ and how those experiences can push me to be a stronger man and a more present, accepting father and partner.” Lead single “Raised on the Roar” is filled with swirling, shoegazy twang (the band half-jokingly call their music “bootgaze”), and when Keener sings with his wife, Aubrey Ann Howard, they sound like Bill Callahan and Emmylou Harris....

courtesy of Fat Cat Records Tal National In January of 2014 Chicago recording engineer Jamie Carter took his third trip to Niamey, the capital of Niger, to record another new album by the high-energy guitar band Tal National. With each visit Carter has become more tightly enmeshed in the group’s orbit by helping to land them a Western record label and serving as the band’s US liaison on tours. The fruits of his most recent trip will finally be shared with the rest of the world on April 14 when Fat Cat Records releases the group’s fourth and most assured album, Zoy Zoy....

Tuesday’s Chicago sports headlines remind me of a story I heard years ago back in the dorm: the story of the man in the black leather. The rancher remounted. On the horizon he saw pitch-black smoke spiraling to the sky. He galloped in that direction, and over a rise confronted a horrific tableau—his house in ashes, and out front his fair daughter lying prostrate in the grass. The rancher stood. He wrung any drop of mercy from his heart....

There are plenty of shows, films, and concerts to see this week. Here’s some of what we recommend: Tue 5/1-Thu 5/3: In this week’s restaurant review Mike Sula recommends Astoria Café, a Serbian restaurant and bakery in Irving Park. Sula has particular praise for its komplet lepinja, which he describes as “an enormous toasty Serbian bread bowl filled with a thick, bubbling scramble of egg, roast pork drippings, and kaymak, the tangy Balkan clotted cream that behaves like a seductive butter....

Managers’ Special is a collective of Chicago music managers who strive to support emerging artists and music industry executives through community building and strategic collaboration. The board members of the organization believe in investing in local talent and infrastructure so that artists can develop thriving careers without leaving their hometowns. For more information, visit www.managersspecial.org or e-mail info@managersspecial.org. Chris Classick: Managers’ Special came together because we realized there were so many managers in Chicago working with amazing talent, but they weren’t really connecting with each other....

Shimer College is on track to be acquired by North Central College, a change that’ll move the tiny, 163-year-old school from its current quarters on the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Chicago campus to suburban Naperville. The Shimer board announced last week that it has signed a memorandum of understanding that will set the acquisition in motion. If it goes through, Shimer will be operating its “Great Books” liberal arts college on North Central’s Naperville campus by the fall term of 2017....