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Nacrobats alumni celebrate the history and legacy of their Chicago hip-hop crew
Hyperprolific rapper and Culture Power45 label owner Marcellous “Infinito 2017” Lovelace and Chicago hip-hop scene player Sterling “Pugs Atomz” Price are both former members of the Nacrobats crew, and...
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Hardy is the new, loud voice of modern pop-country
Today’s biggest pop-country stars take lyrical tropes from 80s and 90s hits—drinking cold beer, driving trucks, praying, partying, feeling heartbreak—and bulk them up with hip-hop beats, hyperslick...
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Mick Jenkins fills the short Circus EP with considered, complex verses
With his 2014 breakout release, The Water[s], Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins demonstrated that his complex vision and deep lyrics benefit from the large canvas of a full-length record. That said, he...
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Saint Icky brings hesher-friendly hip-hop to Badluck Records’ anniversary show
Local label Badluck Records is celebrating its first birthday with a showcase at a Logan Square DIY venue. (Direct message @badluck_records on Instagram for the address.)…
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Sessa creates seductive, minimalist tropicália
São Paulo singer-songwriter and guitarist Sessa called his 2019 debut Grandeza (Boiled), which means “greatness” in Portuguese. The record lives up to its title; Sessa’s stripped-down, minimalist...
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YBN Cordae sounds like he could charm the entire music industry on The Lost Boy
Since hip-hop seized control of pop music, artists such as Juice Wrld, Lil Nas X, and Lil Tecca have rocketed to fame with little industry experience. Even among this wave of fast-breaking acts,...
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Meth. pummel listeners with aggression and noise
Loading up a Meth. song is a prelude to being viscerally blasted; the local six-piece, which debuted in 2017 with The Children Are Watching, operate at full boil 100 percent of the time as they blend...
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The Leopard Play, or Sad Songs for Lost Boys examines a fractured Mexican...
Isaac Gomez's world premiere at Steep takes us over the border of trauma and truth. If you're in the mood for some serious decolonizing after the Jeanine Cummins American Dirt backlash, Isaac Gomez...
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Roe is a history lesson and a warning
Lisa Loomer's docudrama examines the landmark abortion rights case. In 1984, my roommate drove across two states so she could get a legal abortion. It took a week and cost her a month's rent.…
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Grease revs up the revival engines at Marriott
Scott Weinstein's staging is far more knock-out than knockoff. It is hard not to have low expectations for yet another revival of Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey's 1971 parody of/homage to late 1950s...
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Nonpareil improvising guitarist Sandy Ewen returns to Chicago
Ever since guitarist Sandy Ewen moved from Texas to New York City in 2017, she’s been a prolific performer, both at conventional venues (Bushwick Public House, Downtown Music Gallery) and at house...
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With Piece of Mind, Hxry brings a laid-back vibe to Chicago’s R&B scene
Chicago R&B artist Hxry got his start as a producer—at least as far back as 2016, he was releasing stylistically scattershot instrumental tracks on Soundcloud—but he got his first real taste of...
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Experimental musician Daniel Wyche celebrates his 40th birthday with a show...
Composer and guitarist Daniel Wyche has long been a vital figure in Chicago’s experimental music scene, most notably at Elastic Arts, where he’s curated, produced, and organized concerts since 2013....
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Legendary percussionist Kahil El’Zabar brings the Afrocentric spiritual-jazz...
Prolific musician Kahil El’Zabar has hardly gone unnoticed, but I wish every music fan knew about this living legend. The son of a drummer, El’Zabar was born Clifton Blackburn in Chicago in 1953, and...
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Local rockers High Priest and Cloud Cruiser offer different takes on stoner rock
Several bands call themselves High Priest, but we’re here to talk about the homegrown Chicago four-piece, who debuted in 2016 with the five-song EP Consecration. Last spring, they put out a new...
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Brooklyn-based saxophone and drum duo meld composition and improvisation...
Saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Tom Rainey have been married to each other since 2010 and playing together since 2007, working as a duo as well as within larger ensembles, where they’ve...
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iLe creates new old school sounds from the island of enchantment
As a member of Calle 13—the politically conscious Puerto Rican hip-hop band formed by her brothers René Pérez Joglar and Eduardo Cabra Martínez—Ileana Mercedes Cabra Joglar began performing onstage...
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After a bout of self-doubt, Chicago rapper Kembe X re-emerges with a star’s...
In an October interview with Lyrical Lemonade, Chicago rapper Kembe X (born Dikembe Caston) described a rocky patch in 2017 that brought him to a breaking point in his career. He’d been talking to...
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Roddy Ricch cements his place in the top tier of hip-hop with Please Excuse...
Compton rapper Roddy Ricch dropped his debut mixtape, Feed tha Streets, in November 2017, and he’s since earned a spot in hip-hop’s top tier. In the year leading up to his first full-length album,...
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Hip-hop goes pop with Swae Lee and Post Malone
The future of hip-hop is here, and it’s poppy as hell. Two of the biggest names in the game these days are rappers who frequently lean into the sweet and sensitive side of the genre: Post Malone and...
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