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David Weathersby, documentary filmmaker
David Weathersby is a filmmaker and founder of video production company City Vanguard, which focuses on documentaries about underrepresented communities of color. In 2018, he received a Black...
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Aline Kaze, aka DJ Bonita Appleblunt
Aline Kaze is a freelance audio engineer and DJ affiliated with multidisciplinary arts platform AMFM. Kaze, who performs as DJ Bonita Appleblunt, has spun records around the city with the likes of...
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Van Paugam, City Pop evangelist and DJ
Van Paugam, 36, is a DJ who specializes in the 70s and 80s Japanese jazz, disco, funk, and fusion records collectively known as City Pop. In 2015, he started a YouTube channel that helped renew...
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Karen Valencia, aka Karennoid of reggaeton DJ collective Agua de Rosas
DJ collective Agua de Rosas spread the gospel of reggaeton, and though they’re based in Milwaukee, they have an evangelist in Chicago too: Karen Valencia, better known as Karennoid. In November, the...
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Elton ‘L10MixedIt’ Chueng, recording engineer
Elton Chueng, 33, began his career as a professional recording engineer with an internship at Classick Studios in 2011. He’s since worked with some of the brightest stars to emerge from Chicago’s...
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Jill Hopkins, new media and civic events producer for the Metro venues
Jill Hopkins is a Chicago broadcaster, DJ, writer, musician, and storyteller. After an eight-year stint at Vocalo Radio, Hopkins kicked off 2022 by joining the Metro family of venues (which also...
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Jeremy Alvarez, founder of DJ night Research & Development
It’s romantic to imagine a DJ dropping a track so profound it can save your life, but what about a DJ who can open up possibilities away from the dance floor? Jeremy Alvarez, founder of a dark...
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Angel Day, aka producer and vocalist Yesterdayneverhappened and Daybreak...
Angel Day, 23, is a visual artist, pop musician, and show promoter. They make eclectic underground tracks that draw from experimental dance and hip-hop, using the name Yesterdayneverhappened; they...
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Del Hale, aka DJ Miss Twink USA of Rumors and Legion of Doom
To friends and family, they’re Del Hale, a 23-year-old Chicago native finishing their English degree at East-West University. But in the electronic-music community, they’re Miss Twink USA, a dandy...
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Celia Rose, cofounder of music agency What Up Pitches
Celia Rose is one of the three founders of What Up Pitches, a music agency that combines a production house and a sync-licensing operation. Her colleagues, Mariela Arredondo and Pei Pei Chung, are...
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Julia Dratel, music curator and visual artist
Julia Dratel, 30, is an events producer, curator, radio DJ, activist, and visual artist. She’s taken photos for album artwork by Circuit des Yeux and Devouring the Guilt and created music videos for...
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Jessie Montgomery, CSO Mead Composer-in-Residence
In April, violinist and composer Jessie Montgomery was named the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s new Mead Composer-in-Residence. Montgomery will split her time between New York and Chicago throughout her...
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Making music immortal
“There’s a satisfaction in knowing that our work will survive us by generations. That’s something that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.” Pipe organ conservator Jeff Weiler, 62, founded...
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Eli Schmitt, jack-of-all-trades in Chicago’s young DIY arts and music scene
Eli Schmitt, 20, moved to Chicago a couple years ago to attend DePaul, where he studies journalism and art history. In that time he’s become a crucial connector in an emerging youth arts movement best...
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Paul Natkin, concert photographer
Chicago native Paul Natkin is a prolific concert and portrait photographer who’s shot more than 4,300 musicians and celebrities since he started his career in 1975. He’s also worked as road manager...
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Samantha Jordan, aka Austin-based rapper and activist FURY
Chicago native and Austin resident Samantha Jordan, 33, has been rapping as FURY since 2015, with a sound that emphasizes live-band instrumentation and politically conscious lyrics. Her community...
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Bill Connors, art director for the Empty Bottle
There’s a lot that makes going to shows magical besides the live music, and no one knows this better than Empty Bottle art director Bill Connors. The Illinois native never expected to be guiding the...
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Sam Thousand, Chicago soul Renaissance man
Multi-instrumentalist, producer, and vocalist Sam Thousand moved to Chicago from Texas in 2009, and within a year he’d joined hip-hop fusion outfit Sidewalk Chalk. He’s since become deeply embedded in...
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Jessica Risker, licensed counselor, singer-songwriter, and host of Music Therapy
Jessica Risker is an experimental singer-songwriter and a licensed clinical counselor. After the COVID-19 pandemic sent Chicago into lockdown in March 2020, Risker merged those pursuits for a podcast...
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Patrixia, in-person and livestream DJ
Patrixia reigns supreme in digital clubspace. It’s where the 29-year-old DJ feels empowered to be her spookiest, silliest Latinx self. Locally, she’s known for DJing goth and industrial parties at […]...
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Anna-Michal Paul, chalk artist extraordinaire
If you’ve ever been to a show at Thalia Hall, you’ve walked right past Anna-Michal Paul’s work. She creates the hand-drawn chalk art that greets concertgoers as they ascend the […] The post...
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Amanda Flores, aka DJ Flores Negras, founder of Mictlan Productions
Amanda Flores is a Chicago musician, DJ, event promoter, and licensed massage therapist. While fronting metal band Rosaries in 2017, she launched Flores Negras Productions to help create new inclusive...
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Jermaine Collins, aka DJ and producer Composuresquad
Chicago producer, DJ, and promoter Jermaine Collins, aka Composuresquad, has been part of the city’s dance scene for the past decade. He hooked up with local dance collective and record label Them...
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Dan O’Conor, the Great Lake Jumper
Dan O’Conor is best known as the Great Lake Jumper, but he’s also a Chicago-based artist and owns T-shirt company Dtox Designs. Raised in the north suburbs, O’Conor began going to concerts in the city...
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Mare Ralph, board member at Girls Rock! Chicago
Chicago native Mare Ralph has been a board member at Girls Rock! Chicago since 2021 and a camp organizer since 2019. From 2014 till 2018 they lived in Louisville, where in 2015 they began working with...
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Caroline Patton, founder of the Chicago Weekly Show Calendar
Caroline Patton is the faceless giant behind the Chicago Weekly Show Calendar, an Instagram account and weekly email newsletter that tries to detail all the concerts happening in the city at a range...
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Heather Gabel, collage artist and singer of Hide
Heather Gabel is an icon of the midwestern industrial scene. As singer for Hide, their electronic duo with Seth Sher, they control the stage like a bionic witch who’s just emerged from a scrap heap to...
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Ash Dye, music scene photographer
In 2013, photographer Ash Dye moved to Chicago from Athens, Ohio, where she’d first become involved in an underground music scene. Within a few months of arriving here, Dye landed an internship at the...
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Molly Compton, founder of Ur Mom Records
Molly Compton is a scene mom and mentor who founded the independent label Ur Mom Records in December 2021, using her savings and support from family. Compton is a recognizable face in the local DIY...
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Czarina Mirani, founder and editor of 5 Magazine
In 2005, Czarina Mirani launched 5 Magazine to spread the word about the house-music scene she loves so much. Along with managing editor Terry Matthew and a pool of contributors, Mirani has published...
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Gray Schiller, ambient musician and founder of StretchMetal
Gray Schiller didn’t expect to be running a nonprofit at 26. From middle school through college, they were relentlessly focused on becoming a folk singer. After growing up in the North Shore area,...
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Bill Harris, improvising drummer and community platform builder
Pittsburgh native Bill Harris moved to Chicago in 2011 because he wanted to play improvisational and experimental music. Four years later, the drummer, engineer, and composer launched Amalgam, a...
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Nataliia Kuryliak, piano instructor and Ukrainian refugee
Nataliia Kuryliak is an accomplished musician and educator working as a piano instructor at the Christopher Laughlin School of Music in Northbrook. Born in Koropets in western Ukraine, Kuryliak...
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Emma McKee, aka hip-hop cross-stitch firebrand Stitch Gawd
In 2012, Emma McKee taught herself to cross-stitch to make a Christmas present for her mother. Shortly after taking her talent public, she began making elaborate cross-stitched jackets for local...
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Lily Glick Finnegan, drummer and Option Series curator
Lily Glick Finnegan, 25, is a drummer, composer, improviser, and curator. A Chicago native, she returned to the city in 2022 after completing a master’s degree in music at Berklee. She manages the...
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Josh Horton, music videographer
I discovered the work of videographer Josh Horton through local music-media outlet Real Ones, which began as a podcast in 2020 and evolved to produce concerts and shoot interviews with local and...
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Manae Solara Vaughn, sound engineer, musician, and cofounder of Oux
Manae Solara Vaughn is a young Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist and sound engineer who put down roots in the local music scene much earlier in her life than most of her peers. Daughter of Chicago...
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Josh Piotrowski, DIY haunted-house builder and noise musician
Josh Piotrowski was born to make you scream. The 41-year-old Chicago native grew up in Albany Park as part of a family full of haunt enthusiasts, including a younger sister who worked on a haunted...
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DJ Slugo, ghetto house champion
For more than three decades, Thomas Kendricks, better known as DJ Slugo, has been DJing, producing, and celebrating ghetto house, a sound he helped pioneer. Slugo grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes...
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R. Brent Decker, Racetraitor bassist and anti-violence worker
R. Brent Decker plays bass in Racetraitor and works as chief program officer for Cure Violence Global, a Chicago-based nonprofit that takes a public health approach to reducing violence. As a college...
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Izzi Vasquez, music-adjacent multimedia artist
Izzi Vasquez is a multimedia artist who has helped some of Chicago’s most celebrated musicians with the visuals for their visions. Vasquez has created animations and designed album packaging for the...
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Nix Campbell, dance party lighting designer
In the church of electronic music, Nix Campbell performs baptisms with light. The 33-year-old lighting designer grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he spent his childhood nights at amateur hockey games....
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Kyle LaValley, Ramova Theatre programming and creative director
In the fall, Bridgeport’s soon-to-be-opened Ramova Theatre announced two key positions: director of operations Pete Falknor and programming and creative director Kyle LaValley. Both hires gave me a...
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Lidia Vomito, DJ of the Graveyard Hour
Lidia Vomito is a Chicago DJ and vinyl collector who also works at the Loop location of Reckless Records. She got her start as a punk and metal DJ in the mid-2000s, and in 2015 she launched the Lumpen...
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Kai Akili, neosoul artist and founder of Forever Noir
Born and raised in Chicago, Kai Akili (aka Tyler Martin) is a neosoul musician and recording artist who also works in performing and visual arts, event curation, and fine arts curation. He’s the...
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Ishmael Ali, cellist and cocurator of Elastic’s Improvised Music Series
Improvising cellist and guitarist Ishmael Ali moved from Columbus, Ohio, to Chicago in 2013 to study music at DePaul, and he’s lived here ever since—except for a brief stint in New York that ended...
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Melon Sprout, ceramicist and noise artist
Noise artist Melon Sprout lives to create new sounds. In 2018, they moved from a Boston suburb to Chicago to study at the School of the Art Institute, where they focused on ceramics and analog...
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