Music |Year in Review

potential donors. “The unfortunate reality is people will always need help with food, at least based on the way the world is currently set up,” Adigun says. “So it would be great to continue the Slide By next summer and every summer, but it depends on funding.” In the meantime, Delacreme Scholars has turned its attention to its annual scholarships and a holiday toy and coat drive, which ended December 15.

art-rock duo Ohmme likewise had to cancel their tours when the pandemic hit the U.S. in the spring, but they soon began livestreaming performances as fundraisers, starting with a March 24 performance to benefit the KC Tenants mutual aid fund in Kansas City. The group released their sophomore album, Fantasize Your Ghost, on June 5 (the first Bandcamp Friday to fall during the current wave of Black Lives Matter protests) and donated all proceeds from the day’s sales to Assata’s Daughters.

Ohmme have also used livestreams and merch sales to raise funds for Chicago Community Jail Support, Brave Space Alliance, the Montessori School of Englewood, votingaccess groups, and Kooyrigs, an organization that supports Armenian women and refugees from the recent armed conflict in Artsakh (Cunningham has Armenian heritage). The duo estimate they’ve raised between $5,000 and $6,000 in 2020, as individuals and together. “It’s been an intense year to say the least,” they say. “We focused primarily on young Chicago-based organizations that are building up a team to do really impactful work in communities we think are important and deserve more resources.”

Ohmme also contributed a track to this month’s compilation Warm Violet, which benefits Chicago Community Jail Support’s e orts to winterize its post outside Cook County Jail. Stewart, a CCJS volunteer, was also one of several curators for the 46-track compilation (along with Avery Springer of Retirement Party), and its packed roster of local indie talent includes Fire-Toolz, Ariel Zetina, Bill MacKay, Angel Bat Dawid, and a collaboration between Nnamdï and Post Animal. Two runs of 90-minute cassettes quickly sold out, but digital sales continue; so far the compilation has raised more than $8,000.

Ogbonnaya also appears on Art Is Love Vol. 1 , a similarly scene-spanning comp released in May by indie label and rap crew Why? Records and benefiting the Chicago Community Bond Fund. “We wanted to donate locally, because we’re firm believers in starting at a community level,” Why? member Ruby Watson told Chicago magazine. The release has raised around $2,000 to date.

Regardless of their approach, Chicago’s activist-musicians had to improvise in 2020—even old hands were forced to adapt to the evolving pandemic. The Scholars Slide By learned as they did the work, coordinating volunteers for purchases and deliveries while raising funds for their wholly donation-based program. “It was kind of made on the fly, so all logistical adjustments had to be made on the fly as well,” Adigun says. Meanwhile, Ohmme faced challenges unique to fundraising livestreams: they had to find work-arounds to link to organizations that aren’t 501(c)(3) certified, due to limitations built into Instagram.

Ogbonnaya notes that donations slowed down as the year progressed. “Like most announcements, the initial reveal garners the most attention, and then donations dwindled as the days went on,” he says. “But I was lucky enough to have some good donation days right at the beginning.”

All the artists interviewed for this story hope to continue their activism next year, but they’re still figuring out how to do so sustainably, without exhausting themselves or their

Ogbonnaya is prioritizing consistent donations in the future. “I read a lot of places love consistent monthly donations, even if they are smaller, because it’s something they know they can always rely on,” he says. “Big donations are also good, obviously, but the consistency really helps organizations budget better, so I’m finding places to donate to every month.”

Many other musicians worked for their communities in 2020, at every level. Sen Morimoto and Tasha played an August 5 livestream to benefit the Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project, for instance—and too many artists to count made unpublicized donations to individuals and organizations in need. Some focused on supporting unemployed musicians and venue staff, via livestream performances such as the CIVLization series (which raises money for the CIVL SAVE Emergency Relief Fund) and compilations such as July’s Situationchicago. Ravenswood’s Experimental Sound Studio hosts the Quarantine Concerts, an ongoing livestream series that between March 21 and December 1 presented 182 shows and distributed more than $87,000 in fan donations to 1,100 or so artists.

Like many other Americans faced with a uniquely di cult year, Chicago’s musicians are looking for ways to make a long-lasting positive impact, to help their neighbors when existing structures of government and business fail them. “We had been talking about how to make fundraising, social justice, and accountability sustainable parts of our band before this year, but are certainly taking a deeper look at it going forward. It’s a balancing act, but it is well worth the e ort,” say Stewart and Cunningham of Ohmme. “We know we won’t always do it quite right but know that the right thing is to continue doing, learning, listening, and uplifting our community.” v @jackriedy