April 23, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

APRIL 23, 2014

ARTS, CULTURE, & POLITICS

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Loud and Clear

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The Clear the Airwaves Project fights negative influences in hip-hop

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CAKE FRAME 2 WHPK VET PJ WILLIS SAVIOUR?

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2 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

APRIL 23, 2014

IN CHICAGO A week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks, inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is a newsprint magazine based out of the University of Chicago, for and about the South Side. The Weekly is distributed across the South Side each Wednesday of the academic year.

In fall 2013, the Weekly reformed itself as an independent, student-directed organization.

Previously, the paper was known as the Chicago Weekly.

Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Deputy Editor

Bea Malsky Spencer Mcavoy John Gamino

Senior Editors

Josh Kovensky, Harrison Smith

Politics Editor Stage & Screen Editor Music Editor Visual Arts Editor Education Editor Online Editor Contributing Editors

Osita Nwanevu Meaghan Murphy

Editor-at-Large Photo Editor Illustration Editor Layout Editor Senior Writers

Staff Writers

Senior Photographer Staff Photographers

Staff Illustrators

Zach Goldhammer Katryce Lassle Bess Cohen Sharon Lurye Jake Bittle, Emma Collins, Jack Nuelle, Rachel Schastok Hannah Nyhart Lydia Gorham Isabel Ochoa Gold Emma Cervantes Ari Feldman, Emily Holland, Patrick Leow, Stephen Urchick Olivia Adams, Christian Belanger, Jon Brozdowski, Cindy Dapogny, Lauren Gurley, Olivia Dorow Hovland, Olivia Markbreiter, Paige Pendarvis, Arman Sayani Luke White Camden Bauchner, Juliet Eldred, Stephanie Koch, Siddhesh Mukerji Ellie Mejia, Wei Yi Ow, Hanna Petroski, Maggie Sivit

Editorial Intern

Zavier Celimene

Business Manager

Harry Backlund

5706 S. University Ave. Reynolds Club 018 Chicago, IL 60637 SouthSideWeekly.com Send tips, comments, or questions to: editor@southsideweekly.com For advertising inquiries, contact: (773)234-5388 advertising@southsideweekly

Cover by Amber Sollenberger, zine queen. thefemmezine.wordpress.com

Feds Fed up with Chicgao Crime The Chicago U.S. Attorney’s Office—best known for its work involving acts of terrorism and corruption—has just established a “Violent Crimes” section of its office, in order to address the issue of gun violence throughout the country. The decision does not mean that new resources will be allocated to addressing violence—a third of the U.S. Attorney’s budget is spent on prosecuting crimes involving gangs, guns, and drugs—but it does mean that a team of attorneys is focusing more directly on violent crimes.

The announcement comes after a particularly violent weekend in Chicago, with thirty-nine people wounded and nine killed. When asked on Monday, Rahm Emanuel was unclear on exactly what the federal decision will do for Chicago. “I don’t know whether it means more resources, I don’t know what it exactly is, but I’m pleased they’re doing it,” he said.

Joke’s On Us According to a recent study by the University of Colorado at Boulder, Chicago is the funniest city in America. Just how this was determined is unclear, but apparently, even though Chicagoans could not come up with any “zingers” off the top of their heads, they are allegedly excellent at making situational jokes about the weather (?) and the CTA (??). Curiously, the study makes no mention of the Second City comedy club, and even more curiously, it makes no mention of the South Side Weekly’s notes section. I guess we’ll take it anyhow.

N’Digo Goes GOP Earlier this week, N’Digo publisher Hermene Hartman defended her fierce promotion of Illinois GOP candidate and multimillionaire Bruce Rauner. Hartman claims that her endorsement of Rauner was primarily motivated by a desire to reinforce the nominal two-party system within Illinois politics and to assert her belief that the African American vote in Chicago should not au-

tomatically lean left. She also claims that Chicago needs “Bruce the Businessman” to wage his money-making prowess against the tide of unemployment and bad credit in Chicago. She also claims, however, that the $51,000 her company, Hartman Publishing, reportedly received from the Citizens for Rauner campaign earlier this year did not influence her decision. While Hartmann may say that she is not “a paid mouthpiece” for the GOP, money does talk, and $51,000 certainly has a lot to say. As Rauner continues to try and bolster support from black Chicagoans, focusing particularly on church and community leaders on the South and West Sides, we’ll be see who else chooses to speak up for Bruce.

Chronically Healing Almost a year has passed since the City of Chicago decriminalized marijuana. And, with recent legislation, it seems like reefer madness has migrated from the city’s jail cells to the state’s hospital beds. Illinois is introducing medical marijuana this year under the Illinois Medical Cannabis Pilot Program. After a lot of shrieking and gnashing of teeth from local pot advocates, officials have decided to lower the price for reefer registration down from $150 to a more reasonable $100 per patient. Across the board, however, the price of raising aesculapian dank will remain high, if still legal.

Marijuana vendors will have to lay down a total of $485,000 in fees and bonds to get the necessary paper, and growers will be required to pony up a whopping $225,000 for a permit and application, in addition to $500,000 in liquid assets to operate a pot farm. It seems that grass will be helping get Illinois in the green again.

A South Side Weekly Interviewing Workshop This Saturday, we’ll be hosting Let’s Get Working Festival Organizer Paul Durica as he talks about the great Studs Terkel and his approach to the common interview. All welcome; no Weekly affiliation required. South Lounge, Reynolds Club, 5706 S. University Ave. Saturday, April 26, 2-3pm. southsideweekly. com/workshops

IN THIS ISSUE

caKE framE 2

“Rickert’s lively art and passionate reading investigated Miley Cyrus’s personal renaissance as a psychological acknowledgment of ‘otherness.’ ”

SavIOUr?

“He records a note to self and an accompanying ‘note to black self.’ ”

olivia stovicek................4

sarah claypoole..............4 WHpK vET pj WILLIS

“I do strictly dusties parties, nothing but dusties. I don’t think there’s enough money that anybody can give me to get me to play new music.”

zach goldhammer........10

cLEar THE aIrWavES

fIxaTIOn

“If I hear disrespectful music, well, I’m going to make disrespectful music.”

stephen urchick..............9

osita nwanevu.......................5

“I felt I could pet the fur on the latter couple’s deer-nosed snouts”

SprIng brEaK SafE HavEn

SISTEr SpIT

“The Safe Haven program focuses instead on character-building activities, with anti-bullying being the emphasis this year.”

maha ahmed...................13

bess cohen......................12

“The group started out as white lesbian punk. It was very urgent, very raw, very nineties.”

REVIEWS

Law and Privilege “Saviour?” at eta Creative Arts

BY OLIVIA STOVICEK

I

n “Saviour?” the lawyer Michael Jamal Williams III, played by Parrish Morgan, repeatedly pulls out a tape recorder. Regardless of whether anyone else is present, he records a note to self and an accompanying “note to black self.” The tactic is sometimes a source of comic relief, as Williams switches seamlessly between formal diction and blunt, expletive-laden language. Like so much of the play, however, it hints at a deeper truth. It’s a powerful reminder of the plurality of identity and the complex ways that the parts of a person’s life intertwine.

Identity figures prominently in Esther Armah’s two-man play, coming up time and again as Williams, an African-American lawyer, questions his white client, Billy Hall (Keith Cavanaugh). Hall is suing the antiracism nonprofit he worked for, alleging that he was passed over on the basis of his race for the position of CEO in favor of a African-American woman. But while Williams deliberately and carefully plays with the separation between different facets of his life, Hall, it quickly becomes clear, sees his life as a single coherent narrative, and sees himself, he says, as “one of the good guys.” He may acknowledge the irony of himself, an antiracism activist crying reverse discrimination, but he considers that fact irrelevant to his case. He declares, “The whole white privilege thing? It’s just not me,” almost in the same breath as he says he was sure he’d get the job. In Hall’s eyes, he’s locked in a fight for what’s right, a fight on which his entire career depends.

It’s not immediately apparent whether Hall’s suit has merit, but what is certain is that Williams has just as much on the line in this case as his client. Morgan brings out that fire nicely, giving Williams an understated intensity as he spars with Hall, by turns interrogating him and egging him on. Their conversation spreads beyond the immediate facts of Hall’s case to touch on questions of marriage, ethics, and justice itself. In the process, their bold assertions about what’s right, wrong, or true, and their skepticism about each other’s words, build distinctions between the men and their polished personas.

While this brings out nuance in the portrait of Williams, Hall veers off into 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

caricature. He tosses off comments that have us questioning how he could possibly have succeeded as an antiracism activist, referring to one woman as “fragile, like a lot of black women—like a lot of black people.” And as he condemns apparent hypocrisies with a self-righteousness that quickly becomes characteristic, this avowed liberal reveals himself as just another white male with a superiority complex, and one with few redeeming qualities at that. Cavanaugh’s portrayal, though possessed of a tense energy that helps drive the show, never quite seems to raise his character to the level of full human being. His Hall pouts, whines, and sneers, but does so somewhat mechanically, with conviction but without

Cavanaugh’s portrayal, though possessed of a tense energy that helps drive the show, never quite seems to raise Hall to the level of full human being. real feeling.

The descent of the supposedly enlightened Hall into the stereotype he insists he doesn’t fit is the core of Armah’s incisive, sardonic commentary on post-Obama race relations (at one point, Hall notes, “God, I thought Obama’s election was supposed to make this all go away”). Still, it also undercuts the play’s exploration of identity by reducing Hall to a villain. On the whole, however, “Saviour?” shuns easy answers. It shows that the administration of justice is not immune to entanglement with questions of identity and perception. eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. Chicago Ave. Through May 11. Friday-Saturday, 8pm; Sunday, 3pm. $30 general admission, $15 for students and seniors.

(773)752-3955. etacreativearts.org

APRIL 23, 2014

Cakes, Brains, and Comic Books “CAKE FRAME 2” at the Co-Prosperity Sphere

BY SARAH CLAYPOOLE

W

ithin minutes of the doors’ official opening, most of the crowd had assembled. They stood in bunches in the open area near the projector screen, moving to look through rows of artwork or to find a good seat. The show wouldn’t start until seven, but that was beside the point—“CAKE FRAME 2,” a

The show wouldn’t start until seven, but that was beside the point. collaboration between the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) and Brain Frame Comics Performance, was as much a place for Chicago comic artists to mingle as it was a space for them to display and auction off their work.

Hosted in the Co-Prosperity Sphere, the event combined both CAKE and Brain Frame’s usual offerings into a two-and-ahalf hour show. For CAKE, the evening represented their final fundraiser before the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, which begins on May 31. For Brain Frame, a group that is the brainchild of “CAKE FRAME 2’s” host Lyra Hill, this hybrid show is one of the last before Brain Frame ends its regular bi-monthly comic readings.

CAKE co-organizer Marnie Galloway spoke to the importance of the event, citing it as “critical to [CAKE’s] ability to continue growing to keep up with demand.”

The evening began with two Brain Frame performances, in which comic artists Kevin Budnick and Jen Rickert read aloud selections from their published material. Budnick, whose drawing style was as frank as his performance, presented an autobiographical tale of self-imposed isolation, doubt, and existential discomfort.

Rickert’s lively art and passionate reading investigated Miley Cyrus’s personal renaissance as a psychological acknowledgment of “otherness.”

After the performances, the show segued into the auction: upwards of eighty lots were presented by the end of the night. The auctioned items, though all comics-related, varied widely; some were special print editions of published work, others series of books, and others still included original artwork made specially for the auction.

Lyra Hill, dressed in a shimmering, corseted bodysuit, guided the evening through its numerous phases. In the moments of transition, she kept up a stream of banter with the largely familiar audience.

During breaks and pauses in the show, the audience conversed in their seats. A high school French teacher, a North Side gallery attendant, and a college student turned web-comic artist discussed their professions. In the main column of seating, two artists collaborated on a twelve-frame story while simultaneously bidding on pieces in the auction and observing its proceedings.

Towards the end of the night, one attendee extended an open invitation to a bi-monthly comics discussion frequented by several of the night’s artists and performers. This spirit of inclusion is central to the Chicago comic community. In the words of Galloway, the community is full of “good-spirited, open-hearted affection, mutual admiration and fandom between the artists.”

AIRWAVES

Loud and Clear The Clear the Airwaves Project fights negative influences in hip-hop

BY OSITA NWANEVU

T

here’s always a decently sized Saturday morning crowd at the McDonald’s at the corner of Stony Island and Marquette. Joggers, often in pairs, tend to step in for a bite before heading back down Stony. Parents come in with kids whom they owe treats to in tow. Older folks chat away in small, familiar groups about the past week, or month, or few years over coffee and newspapers.

Everyone’s typically a little groggy, and, on this particular late-January day—the twentieth—more than a little cold. A few patrons, in fact, seem to linger in the booths a good while after the end of their meals in order to delay the inevitable frigid walk home. Some of these customers bide their time by staring out the restaurant’s big front windows into what must be empty space, given that there’s nothing in particular to look at—just the steady flow of morning traffic, the bus stop across the street, and—at around a quarter to eleven, just a few steps ahead of the drive-through exit—the bobbing head of Martin Luther King Jr. This last sight draws double takes from one or two attentive patrons, but most can’t manage more than a take and a half and a few murmurs about it being MLK Day. The visage of Dr. King, perhaps mid-Dream, is being held aloft on a picket sign carried by a man in glasses and a Karakul cap. He shuffles around in the cold, bobs Dr. King a few more times, and inspects the bullhorn at his side. Soon he’s joined by another man and a woman toting picket signs of their own. There are no pictures on these ones—just words in all caps.

One is a bit too densely printed to be read upside down, though by now more than a few inside are trying. The other is clearer: “I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO RUN FROM A BLACK MAN” By eleven, the group has grown to five. Another man, in braids and a red rastacap, is now carrying the bullhorn and speaking into it. It’s difficult to make out

what’s being said from behind the window, but by now all the signs are right-side up, including one that reads: “MCDONALDS SUPPORTS WGCI & POWER 92.3 AUDIO ASSAULT ON OUR YOUTH!!!”

At this, one of the two cashiers working the front sighs wearily, clearly aware of what’s going on. The other is confused.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” the first replies.

“They’re trying to scare people.”

O

utside, the five have flyers ready for the scared and the merely curious alike. Their mission, as members of what the flyers call the “Clear the Airwaves Project,” is to “Clear The Airwaves from misogynistic, violent, disrespectful ‘musick’ from radio stations that target the YOUTH!” “Radio Stations that target Afrikan Youth in the Chicagoland area are force-feeding our People a poisonous audio diet laced with Misogyny, Murder, SelfHate, Stripping etc,” the flyers go on to say. “This is unacceptable and must end.”

Below, the flyers list the names and phone numbers of radio executives involved in the operations of Crawford Broadcasting’s Power 92.3 and Clear Channel’s WGCI—two of the most widely listened to contemporary urban stations in the Chicago area. They also include the numbers of executives at McDonald’s, a major advertiser on both stations.

As a small, middle-aged woman exits the McDonald’s, Kwabena Paul Pratt, the man with the rastacap, passes the bullhorn to the man in the Karakul, Dwight Taylor—whom just about everyone calls Kojo.

Taylor promptly begins shouting into the bullhorn.

“MCDONALDS! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES.” The woman, startled, begins walking quickly away, but not before catching the eye of Pratt, who calls out to her.

“Hey, sister! Come and see why we’re out here!”

Disarmed, she approaches Pratt reluctantly and takes a flyer.

“If you close your eyes, you can still read the lyrics on the back of that,” he chuckles. “But that’s how bad they are.

That’s the music they play on the radio for our children to hear.”

She turns the flyer over. There are censored excerpts from five hip-hop songs on the back—provided as “EXAMPLES OF THE TOXIC ‘MUSICK’ PLAYED ON THESE STATIONS AND SPONSORED BY MCDONALDS.” The most censored, and thus most asterisked selection, is, by far, an excerpt from YG’s “My N*gg*,” which is rendered on the flyer as follows: “Runnin’ off a n**ga sh*t, my n**a I f**ked a n*ga bi*ch with my N**ga, my n**ga If a N**a talkin’ sh*t then he ain’t my n*gga My n**ga, my n**ga (My n**ga, my n*gga) F*cked my first b*tch, passed her to my n*gg* Hit my first lick, passed with my ni**a F**ck them other ni**as cause I’m down for my nig*as I ride for my nigg*s, fuck them other n*ggas.” ”Oh, I know,” the woman finally replies as she looks the flyer over. “I hear it all day. All day, every day.”

Warmly but intently, Pratt stands watching her settle into the expression of cautious agreement he sees a dozen times a week. Thirty or so seconds of soul searching—helped along, or at least punctuated,

by Taylor’s cries into the bullhorn—routinely follow.

“It really is ridiculous,” she begins contemplatively.

“MCDONALDS! STOP ADVERTISING ON POWER 92 RADIO. AND WGCI,” shouts Taylor.

“They degrade women...”

“JUST LISTEN TO THE MUSIC BEING PLAYED.”

“Everything’s about harming other people...”

“HONK YOUR HORNS IN SUPPORT.” “...committing crimes...”

A horn blares loudly. “...and shooting up people. Total madness.”

Pratt nods. “I’ve got an AK on my nightstand,” he says, quoting a Lil Wayne song. “ ‘I’m spraying at these niggas like WD-40.’ Or ‘I’m gonna shoot up a guy in the car next to me before the light turns green.’ That’s unacceptable.”

The woman turns over the flyer again and shuffles a bit for warmth. It is below freezing.

“So this is why we’re out here,” Pratt continues. “We know that, when McDonald’s supports that type of music, they encourage more people to make that type of music. That’s what they hear on the radio.

If I hear disrespectful music, well, I’m going to make disrespectful music. So that’s what we’re saying. We’re saying ‘McDonald’s, stop disrespecting the community.’ ” The woman nods, says thanks, and goes to her car. It’s impossible to say whether or not she’ll make any calls or even remember the conversation the next day. Regardless, by this point members of the Clear the Airwaves Project, which is around a dozen people in total, have spent two hours every Saturday morning for the past five months—in the middle of the coldest Chicago winter in recent memory—sparking as many of these conversations as they can.

“I think this is some of the most we’ve ever had,” Taylor says, referring to the five who’ve come out to today’s demonstration.

“I think the other day we had about nine, but this is great.”

T

aylor and Pratt both hail from Gary, Indiana, where their involvement with local anti-violence activism—fronted by groups like Concerned

APRIL 23, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

Citizens Against Violence (CCAV), which Taylor founded—spurred the conversations that led to the creation of the Project.

Activists in CCAV argue, as Taylor writes in his blog, that the culture and imagery of violent hip-hop “are primarily responsible for the dysfunctional status of our young people.” They began picketing outside of Power 92’s headquarters in Hammond, Indiana in 2007. Soon, they started asking the station’s most significant sponsors to pull their advertising.

Even then, McDonald’s topped the list of targeted companies. When CCAV activists began picketing at a local franchise that year, a company executive set up a meeting with Rob Jackson, then the regional marketing director for McDonald’s in Greater Chicago. Jackson, in turn, put the group in contact with ad sales executives at Crawford Broadcasting, which owns Power 92. Taylor alleges that at a two-hour meeting at Crawford’s Chicago-area headquarters, promises were made to change the station’s programming. In a letter sent to Power 92 two years later, Taylot cited a running of the song “Wasted” by Gucci Mane as evidence that this hadn’t happened.

“I’m looking for a bitch to suck this Almond Joy / Said she gotta stop sucking ’cause her jaw’s sore / Got a bitch on the couch, a bitch on the floor.”

Of Crawford’s twenty-three stations across the country, exactly two—Greater Chicago’s Power 92 and Rockford, Illinois’s WYRB—play hip-hop. All the rest, as Taylor now regularly points out to passersby at the Project’s demonstrations, broadcast gospel music and Christian and conservative talk radio. In fact, Crawford’s founder, the evangelical minister Percy Crawford, became perhaps the first Christian televangelist, in 1949, with the debut of ABC’s evangelical variety show “Youth on the March.” Crawford, who also founded the notoriously conservative Christian liberal arts college The King’s College in 1939, was so respected by the evangelical movement that the Reverend Billy Graham spoke at his funeral. The company remains entirely family owned.

“If there is one Crawford Broadcasting employee who would allow their children to listen to this song,” Dwight wrote of “Wasted” in his 2009 letter to the company, “we will discontinue our plans to have this type of music eliminated and you will never hear from us again.”

Absent a response, CCAV contin-

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APRIL 23, 2014

ued picketing Power 92 on and off for the next few years. At some point in late 2012 or early 2013, Taylor, Pratt, and a small group of others began formulating what would become the Clear the Airwaves Project, a loose organization intended to focus solely on demonstrations. At that time they also decided to push for changes at WGCI, owned by radio giant Clear Channel Communications. Last spring, the Project began a new set of demonstrations at a Chicago-area location of the Menards hardware chain, another advertiser on both stations.

Menards pulled their advertising from Power 92 within weeks, while maintaining

website, the organization represents “the most successful group of African-American entrepreneurs in the U.S. today.” By choosing to stage their demonstrations at the Stony and Marquette location, the Project both invokes and challenges the Association’s clout and legacy. In a statement on the Project’s protests, the association wrote that “the McDonald’s Owner Operators of Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana have a long history of commitment to the communities in which we serve.” “We also support our marketing decisions,” they go on to say, “and in this case, we are appropriately communicating with our various adult customers through

“If I hear disrespectful

music, well, I’m going to make disrespectful music.

So that’s what we’re saying.

We’re saying ‘McDonald’s, stop disrespecting the community.’ ” their buys at Clear Channel. Emboldened by the partial victory, the Project’s activists again set their sights on McDonald’s, and chose to fix their demonstrations upon the franchise at Stony Island and Marquette for its symbolic significance—the location became the first black-owned and operated McDonald’s in 1968, when it was franchised to Herman Petty, the late, black businessman. Petty would go on to found the National Black McDonald’s Operators Association (NBMOA), an organization intended to assist and represent the interests of black McDonald’s owners throughout the country. Today, Petty’s achievement is commemorated with a plaque and a sign outside the location, as well as an artistic timeline of the Association’s history inside. According to the Association’s

the local channels.”

“They of all people should know better than to support what they’re supporting,” Taylor tells me in a conversational tone far more mild than his shouting into the bullhorn would suggest. “They have much power. That’s why we’re out here.”

In December, the Project’s demonstrations and the calls and emails incited by its flyers and active Facebook page led to a meeting with Clear Channel representatives downtown. Once again, Taylor found himself in a room for a two-hour meeting with radio executives, including Clear Channel’s head of programming for the Chicago area. But this time, he tried to make his case differently.

“We took them in the programming room and it turned out that they’d never

really listened to the music and the lyrics,” he tells me.

“I don’t think it was embarrassing.

That’s what’s sad. At the end, we felt like the meeting was just a big game to them.

Because when we took them down there and they’d never listened to the programming—I mean bit by bit, you can hear the foul language, the disrespect—they said they felt that they weren’t going to change it because ‘this is what the country wants.’ ” He quotes the executive in a tone that suggests the listener is supposed to find the statement—and the notion that a radio station could be bound or beholden to consumer preference—plainly nonsensical. And for the Project, many things are plain. The MLK Day demonstration came at the peak of a winter that saw articles and documentaries on the link between hiphop and violence in “Chiraq” approach a ubiquity akin to the omnipresence of McDonald’s locations.

Central to debates on the topic is the question of whether the violent and misogynistic music of people like Gucci Mane or local drill-music star and think-`piece generator Chief Keef actually leads to violence and misogyny. Many have argued instead that the violence and misogyny in the music of artists like Keef and Mane are authentic and homegrown reflections of grim realities caused by the economic and social dysfunction of troubled communities like Keef ’s section of Englewood or Gucci Mane’s section of Atlanta. Those who argue this essentially contend that real-life violence and misogyny in communities influences hip-hop far more than violent and misogynistic hip-hop influences communities. The Project strongly disagrees.

“Music is a huge influence,” Teri Delk, another regular at the Project’s demonstrations, tells me. “Throughout our history music has had a huge impact—going way back to Africa—on the way we communicate with each other. It’s part of how we gained freedom from slavery—the communication of routes we needed to take.

Music is huge in our culture. So you can’t dismiss it as, ‘Oh, well it’s just music.’ ” “I’ve come up in an era when I’ve seen the change in hip-hop,” she continues. “In the eighties we had the Afrocentric hiphop music. When I was a teenager and I heard KRS-One tell me about my roots in Africa, that made me want to learn my history and say, ‘Well, what is he talking about?’ But when violent rap came about, we started seeing more and more murders.

AIRWAVES The Bloods and the Crips in LA started sparking up. We’ve seen the influence of the switch from conscious music to gangsta rap reflected in our children.”

“I look at the artists as being pawns, just like our kids,” adds Bernard Creamer, another core Project member. “I don’t blame the artists. Look at Chief Keef as an example. Chief Keef is, what? A sixteen, seventeen-year-old boy? [Keef turned eighteen in August.] He’s relatively poor, grew up in Englewood, didn’t have much.

If somebody’s telling you, ‘I’ll give you millions of dollars to talk about the kind of stuff you’re talking about on YouTube, and make cheap music on your Macbook’—I mean, that’s what it is. He’s going to take that money. It’s quite clear. The labels know what they’re doing.”

This is the Project’s worldview—that predatory and probably racist labels and corporations push gang culture, drug culture, and misogyny on black youth for profit. If it weren’t for their support, they argue, songs like Spenzo’s “Wife Er,” whose hook Pratt recites multiple times every Saturday (“I can never wife her / Only one night her / Women full of lies / I just fuck ‘em then pass ‘em to my guys”) would only be listened to by a degenerate few, if written at all. For however organically generated from harsh, lived experiences this kind of hip-hop—which Pratt is fond of calling “slop-hop”—might be, responsibility for its popularity and wide influence, they contend, is borne by companies led by powerful people for whom the described lifestyles are completely foreign—people that, as Taylor wrote, almost certainly shield their own children from such influences.

And at its core, the Project really is about children. As easy as it might be to construct a defense of “slop-hop” on the grounds of artistic freedom, or the empowerment its lyrics can provide, or its value as simple entertainment, it is considerably more difficult to articulate such defenses to a woman who has spent two often-snowy, often-windy, and always cold hours every week for the past several months at a demonstration because she doesn’t understand why, as Delk tells me quietly, her daughter has to live under the influence of music that insists she, as a young black girl, is disposable.

It is difficult to tell Delk that her fear of what men who listen to such music might do to her daughter while she’s away at college is unjustified, or to tell

dwight taylor

Bernard Creamer (l) and Kwabena (r).

APRIL 23, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

AIRWAVES Taylor that his contempt for the music that soundtracked the lifestyle of those who accidentally killed thirteen-month-old Josiah Shaw in 2008—an event that CCAV memorializes every year with Shaw’s family—is misplaced.

And it is very difficult to tell Pratt that he might be wasting his time.

“I’m tired of coming out here,” he says to me with a weary shake of his head.

“We’ve got other stuff going on. But we

know our children are being affected by this ignorance.”

When I tell him on MLK day that I’ll be coming out to cover the protests for the next few weeks, he chuckles.

“Hopefully not,” he laughs. “Hopefully soon, they pull their ads and we won’t have to be out here no more.”

courtesy of culture freedom coalition

Dwight Taylor.

8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

APRIL 23, 2014

T

hat was three months ago. The Project, as of today, has yet to receive any new responses from McDonald’s, Clear Channel, Crawford Broadcasting, or Power 92 and WGCI themselves. Since the protest on January 20, the group has staged a demonstration almost every week, often doing battle with both the particularly nasty winter—on a couple of occasions in March, the group had to cut its demonstrations outside of the largely empty McDonald’s short, on account of bone-chilling temperatures— and skepticism.

“It ain’t going nowhere, man,” a sympathetic man tells Pratt, ruefully, the week after the MLK Day protest. “’Cause these kids ain’t listening, man! They’re not listening to us or you.”

“But what are we going to do?” Pratt shoots back. “We can’t just sit there. We’ve got to fight it.”

“You know, it’s just like someone told me the other day,” the man replies, shaking his head. “He was saying to me, ‘We need more leaders.’ And I was like, ‘Look man, we’ve had enough leaders. What we need are better followers.’ ” “Now it’s all in the youth’s hands,” he continues. “You can’t expect a fifty- or sixty-year-old man to continue the struggle.

And if young people like that music with all the sex and the killing...”

“But we can stop it though!” Pratt interrupts. “That’s why we’re out here, brother! Come out next Saturday—and tell your son to come out here with us next Saturday.”

Slowly, and thoughtfully, the man takes a flyer.

“Well, I’m off on Saturdays, so...I can definitely do it.

This is how it goes. On a good day, the group will squeeze half a handful of promises like this one from passersby—most of whom will never show up—and get a few honks of assent from passing traffic. The group is often buoyant, trading jokes about the absurdity of some of the lyrics they’ve heard recently and Taylor’s often-broken bullhorn. They act like a tight-knit group of friends, which one would suppose they’d be: they’ve spent their early Saturdays together for the better part of the past year. And everyone who passes—the drivers who glare at them coming out of the drive-through, those who obviously take flyers only to be polite, and the often impassive or wisecracking kids who walk by blasting some of the very music they’re fighting through their headphones—is a “brother” or a “sister.”

On more sparsely attended days during the winter, Pratt, Taylor, and the others would commonly tell passersby that the group would grow in size as the weather improved.

“Obviously, the more the merrier,” Bernard Creamer says optimistically on a particularly cold Saturday. “Hopefully it’ll warm up soon and we’ll have people come out.”

Temperatures this past Saturday reached a high of sixty-four degrees. It was a clear day. In his usual position out in front of the drive-through, Pratt stood alone.

“First a song about killing people.

Then a song about guns. Then a song about drugs. Then a song disrespecting our women. Back to back to back to back. And McDonald’s gives money to these poisonous radio stations. Shame on you McDonald’s!”

The words are spoken rather than shouted through the bullhorn. In between bursts of speech Pratt paces slowly around the perimeter, seeming spent.

“I mean...recall the Rush Limbaugh thing,” he says to me in frustration. “He disrespected Sandra Fluke. Pretty much immediately, thirteen companies pulled their commercials. Thirteen. And these stations disrespect our women on a 24/7 basis. And what are we doing?” He pauses.

“I’m tired, man,” he says to me finally.

As I go, he spots a group of kids, perhaps in middle school, on their way to a basketball court across the street.

“Hey brothers,” he calls out with a burst of energy. “Come see why I’m out here!”

Intrigued, they approach him. Magnetic as ever, he strikes up a conversation.

From a distance, what he says can’t be heard, but it’s easy to imagine his pitch: about their music, about respecting their brothers and sisters, about their futures.

They seem itching to go throughout, but several take flyers at the end before walking away.

For a while, Pratt watches them go.

Then he turns the bullhorn back on.

“MCDONALD’S...”

Editor’s Note: Clear Channel Communications, Crawford Broadcasting, Power 92, and WGCI did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Portraits of Desire

VISUAL ART

“Fixation” at Zhou B Art Center

BY STEPHEN URCHICK

I

t’s the Madonna meets the Joker.

Trapped behind the canvas’s glossy finish, a naked clown cups her breast with a gloved hand. The clown cradles a bulging womb with the other. This painting, installed at the Zhou B Art Center, belongs to “Fixation,” an exhibition that explores intense, and often kinky fascinations. Given the exhibition’s preoccupation with the psychological, curators Sergio Gomez and Didi Menendez quite strangely chose artworks that uniformly situated their subjects in a real world. The clown’s knife-slit grin, face-painted onto each cheek—collapsing into a pair of classically benign lips—helped furnish an easy formula for this consuming problem: Why so literal?

The exhibition’s persistent riddle lies not in its curious content but in that content’s weirdly rational and representational depiction. The twenty-four artists rendered their fantastical figures with life-like fidelity. A machine-woman staring into starry vacuum and two animal-headed humans walking their pet pit bull both believably belonged to our space and time. Every gear and gizmo down the bionic girl’s thigh was mathematically delineated and intricately decaled. I felt I could pet the fur on the latter couple’s deer-nosed snouts. Identifiably human forms dominated Gomez’s and Mendez’s walls. Neither a single abstracted mental landscape nor any impossible emotional gesture found its home there.

Terri Thomas executed her “Untitled” clown with academic fastidiousness. She concealed every brushstroke, smoothed every skin tone, and evenly diffused the painting’s light across a uniform burgundy background. The painting develops a motif of concealment that makes the clown the obsessive object. The gloves disrupt a tender tummy-touch and hide the source of motherly nourishment. The face paint blurs the clown’s feminine features—already challenged by the clown’s depilated skull and manly wrinkles—but nevertheless references an effeminate clown archetype. It grafts on false emotions that betray a deeper sadness just beyond a carefully resigned and benevolent smile.

Despite the figure’s absurdity, its hid-

den, weary pensiveness asserts dignity and commands respect. The visible attempt to conceal the body flags the painting’s emotional evasiveness. Thomas teases with the clown’s thinly veiled thoughtfulness. The barely legible affect is a visual breadcrumb that hints at the understated tragedy in the clown’s drawn expression and fake tears.

Miranda Graham’s “A Case of Living” straightforwardly asserts the same seeking sentiment through a prosthetic arm’s leather fastenings. Strung over the faceless subject’s bare back, Graham cites the established sexual urge to get past clasps and cinches to reach a concealed, essential fleshiness. Yet the figure’s nakedness undercuts this specific desire from the very start. The leather bands themselves take on organic qualities, confusing the body and its trappings. A blood-red zip of paint just below the figure’s right elbow traverses skin and strap alike. The zip unifies man and material with an incision of pain.

Conflating body and accouterment gets at the painting’s central question: the existence of the subject’s actual hand. Just as Thomas’s “Untitled” avoids definitively designating the clown’s gender or feelings, or offering any pictorial exposition at all, Graham’s “Case” suspends the painting’s action at the very moment of revelation.

Both generate atmospheres of dissatisfaction and incompletion. Too little of Graham’s hand is revealed to verify that the fingers have actually been lost. The grip on the prosthetic’s pincers frames the mystery for the beholder. It directs eyesight to that location, and then shunts it above and to the right, where the living fingers ought to appear. “Case’s” thematic fixation becomes the presence or absence of a hand. We reach for the truth of her amputation while she reaches for the physical representation of her loss. But Thomas leaves the crowd empty-handed. Her nuanced deployment of strap-fetish produces the hunt for this fundamental, human signifier.

Thomas’s and Graham’s program of deliberately omitting the captivating object itself is reiterated with particular clarity in Harry Sudman’s “Imogen” sand Ernesto Marenco’s “Obsessive Fixation.” Split

stephen urchick

across six metal panels, “Imogen’s” titular woman leans forward towards the viewer, preeningly stroking her neck and chest.

The beholder’s eye-level falls approximately on her breasts—or, rather, their suggestion.

Their image is erased by the panel’s fission into two, separate halves. The upper half ends with the shallow curve of her neckline, and the bottom half resumes with the black fabric of her dress. In “Obsessive,” a little girl’s red, patent-leather shoes are fused to the glossy bottom of an enameled baking dish. The girl herself is frightfully missing, the dish scarred and the shoes warped and slightly browned with heat.

“Fixation” represents the urge to physically realize a desire by producing works that attempt to give these inchoate appe-

tites credible shape and form. Yet by deliberately falling short of complete representation, the works approximate obsession’s process-oriented yearning. They urge viewers to the same, intense thought, fueled by the agony of near-fulfillment. Curators Gomez and Mendez suggest that fixation reduces vague wants into tangible totems, persistently imperfect and naggingly near.

Zhou B Art Center. 1029 W 35th Street.

Through May 11. Monday-Saturday, 10am-5pm. Free. (773)523-0200. zhoubartcenter.com

APRIL 23, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

MUSIC

WHPK Radio Veteran: charismatic DJ and PJ Willis The lover of dusty vinyl discusses his thirty-year career

BY ZACH GOLDHAMMER

P

J Willis has been in the radio business for more than three decades.

In addition to his weekly midnight show on 1570 AM WBGX, Willis is a member of WHPK’s Dusties Party crew, which hosts a three-hour soul celebration from 9pm to midnight on the last Thursday of every month. For the last four years, Willis and the crew have also been taking the party out of the studio and presenting it live for customers at Hyde Park Records at their instore Soul Reunion shows, where the DJs not only spin records at the store but also invite some of their favorite Chicago soul music legends to drop by and hang out with the crowd. At the start of this past week’s Record Store Day Soul Train-themed reunion show we caught up with Willis to discuss his career and the history of Hyde Park’s favorite soul show.

How did you first get into DJing and playing soul records?

Interesting story: I’ve always loved music. When I was about five years old— and my mother tells this story constantly—I couldn’t really read the text [on the records] real well because some words were a little too big for me to understand at that age, but I could recognize certain colors or shapes on the records and figure out the label, but I couldn’t really tell a Supremes record from a Four Tops, if they were both on Motown. Anyway, they started sitting me at the record player. I would literally sit there, every weekend, playing music for my parents when they got together and played cards and stuff like that. It just went from there. I started taking my lunch money from school to buy records and just kept on going.

10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

zach goldhammer

By the time I got going with radio, it was about 1980 and Tom Joyner was at WJPC. He and the crew there did this little Christmas rap thing. I was still in high school at the time, and I just called him up and rapped it right back to him, that quick. So then they were doing a live broadcast and he invited me down and put me live on the radio. When I got home everyone in the neighborhood

APRIL 23, 2014

was like, “Hey PJ, we heard you on the radio!” That’s when I got bit by the bug.

I’ve been doing radio ever since.

I started off doing voice-overs for WJPC. They were letting me come down and do commercials and stuff with them. When Tom [Joyner] was leaving WJPC he told me, “You have such a good knack for this, you should get into the radio business

and really learn the business. Anybody who can read and talk on the microphone can DJ, but if you actually learn the business behind it, you will be able to do it for a lot longer.” Now here we are, thirty-four years later, and I’m still doing this. A lot of my friends gave up. They had no choice, because they didn’t learn the business, all they did was talk.

You DJ at WHPK now, though, and that’s an all-volunteer station. How do you make it work in terms of the business when the station isn’t paying you directly?

Bookings, jobs that hire me to do stuff because they hear me on the radio. They say, “Oh, can you do parties?” and I say, “Yeah, here’s my card.” I do strictly dusties parties though, nothing but dusties: I don’t think there’s enough money that anybody can give me to get me to play new music. So yeah, I’m playing for mostly older audiences.

me going with this whole thing for a long time. I told him I’m thinking about us getting together, finding us a record store and inviting people out to meet all of us. So we went out and found a record store that would be interested. The first place we found was Mr. Peabody’s, on 118th and Western, so we started over there. Eventually they ended up closing their doors—they didn’t survive in the business. We needed another place to come to.

I walked into Hyde Park Records and I met Alexis [Bouteville, current owner of the store]. I said, “We want to talk Do you find younger people are to you about doing an event called ‘The getting into soul Soul Reunion.’ ” And records now that at first he was very vinyl collecting is nonchalant about it, becoming popular “I do strictly dusties but I said, “Just trust again? me, it’s a nice thing.” parties, nothing but And I know people Yeah, they’re starting promise him stuff all dusties. I don’t to. Now, because in a the time, but after we think there’s enough put together the first lot of stuff they’re listening to, especially he was like, money that anybody event hip-hop, they’re start“Oh my god, this is ing to hear the origican give me to get great!” So we’ve doin’ nal versions of those it here [at Hyde Park me to play new songs. So I’ll play Records] for about something for them three years. music.” and they’ll be like, “What’s that? Now I like it here because that ain’t Ludacris, is of the situation with that?” They’re starting to inquire. the location: it’s more bus-friendly, better light, and so on. Also, Alexis is the I brought my daughter with me to best. Most of the time people don’t like WHPK one day, and they heard me play to get involved. They just want you to do “Act Like You Know” by Fat Larry’s everything, but he really helps out with Band [WMOT, 1982]. And she said, everything, especially in terms of pro“Wait a minute, that ain’t Jaheim!” Of motion. He’s been very active in making course not! I do that sort of thing around this whole thing happen. them a lot, and they’re into the dusties too. That’s how a lot of the younger peo- And this year’s Soul Reunion is Soul ple that I know fell for it. I play a lot of Train themed, right? stuff where I know they know today’s version, but when they hear the original Yeah, it’s Mario [Smith] who’s also over sample that it came from, they just go, at WHPK and Gary brought up that “Wow!” idea. The reason is that the last time we did the Soul Reunion, which was over the How did you start doing the Soul Re- summer, I was spinnin’ and Gary said, union shows?

“Let’s get a Soul Train line going.” And so we started that and all of a sudden evWell, I started off talking to Gary [Ty- eryone ended up all out in the street, it son] and I said, “Why don’t we all do was beautiful. So we decided we wanted something together?” I talked to Ray to try to re-capture that and orchestrate [Harris] about it—Ray is like my side- to try and really make it happen. kick or “real dawg” or whatever it is they’re saying these days—and he kept APRIL 23, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

EDUCATION

A Citywide Sanctuary CPS and churches team up to provide students a place to spend spring break

BY BESS COHEN

“T

oday is a carefree kind of day,” Kimmerly Hayes said, sitting in her office at Way of Truth Baptist Church in Englewood. It was Tuesday morning, the second day of spring break, and only five children had come to Way of Truth for the Safe Haven program.

“The first couple days of the week, they’re probably chilling at home, but by the end of the week, it’s a crowd.” Safe Haven, a partnership between CPS’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives and one hundred churches citywide, is meant to give Chicago’s children a safe place to spend their outof-school time, during after-school hours, as well as spring and summer vacations.

A former student of CPS herself, Hayes has worked with children in various capacities for over twenty years, in and out of the CPS system. She is now the Program Director for Safe Haven at Way of Truth, where she facilitates a teaching team of four church members.

“We’re not actually allowed to incorporate religion into the program, but we’re not banned from it,” Hayes said. “If we’re playing musical chairs and all we have is Christian music, it’s okay, but we’re not allowed to just sit them down and talk about Jesus.” The Safe Haven program focuses instead on character-building activities, with anti-bullying being the emphasis this year.

From Hayes’s office adjacent to the church’s sanctuary, five children (three of them her own), aged five to twelve, and their two supervisors (one of them Hayes’s mother) could be heard. In the basement of Way of Truth, the kids gathered around a small blackboard that listed the different forms bullying could take—verbal, physical, cyber, and so on. A spunky five-yearold squirmed in her chair while explaining how bullying could take place via an instant-messaging app.

“I think, [bullying] goes on everywhere,” Hayes explained. “I’ve been a victim with my own kids this year, and it’s something that I’m working with right now.” Hayes explained that this is her chil12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

APRIL 23, 2014

dren’s first and last year in the CPS system, in part due to her disappointment with how the school is handling a situation in which her daughter was bullied.

At Way of Truth, the anti-bullying curriculum takes the form of group discussions and some role-play activities that use a small stage in the church’s basement.

These alternate with more open-ended creative and physical activities, as well as CPS-provided breakfast and lunch. “We’re not giving them what to do, because they already know, it’s just they never put it into action or they never sat and thought twice about ‘what should I do,” said Hayes.

“T

he program started in 2009 when we saw a rise of violence in our young people,” Reverend Renaldo Kyles, CPS’s Director of FaithBased Initiatives, said in a phone interview on the last day of the Safe Haven program.

“During the breaks, many of our families don’t have anywhere for children to go.”

Kyles designed the program himself and says that those who run it in the churches must go through a training and certification process. Each church partners with a nearby school, though all children from the area are welcome.

This year, an additional million dollars was added to the $800,000 annual budget for the program, with the goal of serving a greater number of students by expanding from sixty churches to one hundred.

Rust United Methodist Church in Englewood is one of the new additions to Safe Haven. Only one student—an enthusiastic fifteen year-old girl with an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Michael Jackson—came to Rust UMC for the first two days of the program. Reverend Cross, in charge of both the church and the Safe Haven program, explained that she had had difficulty recruiting families.

CPS publicized the program via fliers and their website, but Cross explained that her church’s location—down the street from two charter high schools and far from

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nearby elementary schools—complicated outreach. The program does not appeal to high school students, Hayes agrees. “The older kids…they think it’s a little baby program.” Reverend Kyles acknowledges this as well, calling it “a proactive violence prevention program.”

Cross, too, said that the cold weather on those first days of spring break and absence of transportation to the churches prevented children from coming. Still, Cross and her student moved forward with the curriculum—a program called “Character Counts”—that Cross had prepared.

“If this is a safe place for her, even if it’s one person, [I am going] to still provide for that one person.”

Cross hopes to improve her outreach so that the Safe Haven program can revitalize a once robust and now non-existent after-school program at Rust UMC. “We have a basketball court on the third floor…but because of other issues that

program had to stop. My dream is to have open gym for the kids. We [used to have] kids from all over the city who would come and play basketball.”

In past years, Reverend Kyles estimates that 1,500 to 1,800 students took advantage of Safe Haven during spring break, only a portion of the program’s capacity. Attendance rates for this year were not yet available at press time. Safe Haven after-school programming started up again when school reconvened on Monday, and more extensive programming will take place from June 30 to August 8 at all of the current sites. “It’s really simple but we try to do something structured, because a lot of our children need focus. They are all over the place, they need structure,” Hayes reflected. “They come here expecting something different and I think they’re pretty satisfied.”

SPOKEN WORD

Turn Down for Nothing Sister Spit takes 2014’s final bow at Logan

BY MAHA AHMED

T

here’s a warm glow in the eighth floor penthouse of the Logan Center for the Arts, despite the falling snow visible through the floor-toceiling windows. People pile in, vying for spaces in the front rows. Even more wait outside hoping to gain access to a space that has already hit its fi re code room capacity. Audience members have come from Hyde Park and all around Chicago and its suburbs to experience the performative work of a group of artists known as Sister Spit.

Sister Spit could be described as a feminist spoken word collective, but that wouldn’t do justice to everything they have accomplished since the group’s inception in the early nineties. Sister Spit has undergone several transformations since its founding in 1994.

“The group started out as white lesbian punk,” explains Sister Spit veteran Beth Lisick, Bay Area poet, actor, and arts organizer. “It was very urgent, very raw, very nineties.”

After Sister Spit disbanded in 2006, organizer and backbone Michelle Tea reinvented the collective to reflect the diversity of its expanding audience. The new generation includes emerging artists of different gender expressions, sexualities, and races. Before hitting their fi nal

destination at the South Side,they spent the year travelling to the east and wests coasts.

The group’s transformation also included a change in the spaces in which

specializes in transgender and queer studies, collaborated with Toronto-based transgender multimedia artist Chase Joynt to bring Sister Spit to Hyde Park as a part of “Tell Me The Truth,” a year-

“We want to explore the concept of ‘queer collaboration,’ which is the idea of queer people working together to parse identity in a performative way.” the group has performed over the years—from bars and underground venues to university campuses. Th is has impacted how receptive different audiences have been to their work as well, especially within the context of academia’s traditionally exclusive framework.

Kristen Schilt, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago who

long collaborative project.

“We want to explore the concept of ‘queer collaboration,’ ” explains Schilt, in the empty pre-show penthouse, “which is the idea of queer people working together to parse identity in a performative way.”

The evening’s emcee, Chinaka Hodge, Bay Area playwright, poet, spoken word artist, and rapper, greets the audience with a galvanizing “Turn down for what?” chant before welcoming Joynt, to the stage as the fi rst artist of the night.

He reads a short story relaying his experiences as a transgender man and draws uncontrollable laughter from the crowd.

Up next is Haitian-American poet,

playwright, and musician Lennelle Moïse. She artfully mixes vocal sounds and spoken word to create a powerful and moving performance about her experiences as a black American of Haitian heritage.

But we do not only hear spoken word—there are visual projections, short fi lms, excerpts from novels, and zines, all of which exude a distinctly DIY aesthetic often tied to the queer and underground communities Sister Spit fi rmly nestles itself in.

Virgie Tova, a scholar who specializes in the emerging field of fat studies, commands the respect and attention of the silent penthouse with a reading of her experiences as a fat child and fat adolescent, while technical director Jerry Lee Abram sheds all pleasantries with a story about his experience in a gay strip club and the Sex Workers’ Art Show.

During one of the transitions between artists, Hodge tells us that we are the most diverse audience they have encountered on the tour.

Hodge closes with a poem that she claims to have written seconds before her performance, conveying the sense of camaraderie the collective established over the course of their tour.

“We didn’t know each other before getting into that van, and now I trust each and every one of these people with my life,” says Hodge. It is this sense of togetherness and safety that permeates the evening and extends into the minutes-long standing ovation as the artists make their fi nal bow.

APRIL 23, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

ARTS CALENDAR VISUAL ARTS

9am-8pm; Friday-Saturday, 9am-5pm; Sunday, noon-5pm.

(773)324-5520. hydeparkart.org (Katryce Lassle)

Imaging/Imagining Bring the Ruckus: Red Grooms on Celluloid Those in search of a more avant-garde cinematic experience need look no further than the Co-Prosperity Sphere, which will present a small selection of experimental art films from the 1960s. The event, a collaboration with South Side Projections, shines a light on the film work of Red Grooms. Grooms, who is perhaps best known for his vibrant pop-art pieces that portray the rush of city life, is also one of the many names associated with the leftist counter-culture movement of 1960s experimental film. Expect kaleidoscopic visuals, mixed-media stop-motion, and a surreal cross-country road trip. Come to appreciate the work of an artist who made cities come alive. Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219-21 S. Morgan St. April 24, 7pm. $5 suggested donation. (312)5041954. coprosperity.org (Rohit Satishchandra)

Things Forgotten...Remembered Treasures hide all around us: in a shoebox beneath a childhood bed, in an attic’s dusty corner, in the pocket of a long-neglected coat. We often forget these mementos, leaving them to the company of mothballs and renegade socks. Joe Milosevich, however, in his exhibit “Things Forgotten...Remembered” at 33 Contemporary Gallery, unearths these tokens of bygone days by constructing elaborate sculptural assemblages that incorporate everything from plastic barreled monkeys to discarded cuckoo clocks. He marries the kitsch with the surreal, and in so doing creates art that is both powerfully nostalgic and visually enthralling. Come to reminisce, to remember, or at least to assuage your guilt about that lonely teddy bear you lost somewhere along the way. 33 Contemporary Gallery, 1029 W. 35th Street, first floor. Through May 10.

Monday-Saturday, 10am-5pm; also by appointment. Free.

(708)837-4534. 33collective.com (Emma Collins)

Fixation Combining traditional wall-hangs with prints and digital media, the new exhibition “Fixation” going up at the Zhou B Art Center hopes to hone in on those (titular) titillations in our lives. Curators Sergio Gomez and Didi Menendez have tracked down twenty-four artists and seventeen poets to contribute to their obsessive project.

“Fixation” intends to creep into each artist’s personal preoccupations. It seeks to tease out the ineradicable ideas and clingy concepts driving these artists to the canvas, pushing them to the paper. Resist the urge to suppress those elusive longings. Act on this blurb’s suggestion. Zhou Brothers Art Center, 1029 W. 35th St. Second floor gallery. Through May 11. Monday-Saturday, 10am-5pm. (773)523-0200. zhoubartcenter.com (Stephen Urchick)

The Art of Influence This fine art exhibition has been curated to feature works of art that—subtly, rather than blatantly—allude to criminal acts that often are accepted and go unpunished around the world, including “honor killing, child marriage, acid attacks, bride burning and more.”

Immortalized in artwork, these acts—and the surprising absence of consequences for those who commit them— speak volumes. “The Art of Influence: Breaking Criminal Tradition” promises to amplify the content and spark discourse about the perversion and pervasiveness of unpunished crimes. Beverly Art Center, 2407 W. 111th St. April 18-May 18. Monday-Friday, 9am-9pm; Saturday, 9am-5pm; Sunday, 1pm-4pm. (773)445-3838. beverlyartcenter.org (Katryce Lassle)

Model Pictures Artist Ross Sawyers built and subsequently photographed scale replicas of unfinished model homes, (in) complete with holes in the walls and plastic in the windows. The photographs presented in “Model Pictures,” his first major Chicago solo show, highlight current housing and economic crises by way of images of these unfinished and empty new houses. Haunting and uncanny, the model–model homes bridge the surreal and the (unfortunately) real. Unlike life-sized abandoned model homes, though, Sawyer’s models are swiftly destroyed after their insides are documented. Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. Through June 13. Monday-Thursday,

14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

APRIL 23, 2014

One of three parts of UofC’s “Imaging/Imagining” exhibition, the Smart Museum presents “Imaging/Imagining: The Body as Art.” Curated by UofC physicians, the exhibition explores anatomical representations as art. Selections from a wide range of places and times come together in an exploration of anatomical accuracy and artistic imagination. Parts two and three are the Regenstein Library’s Special Collections show, “Imaging/Imagining: The Body as Text,” and Crerar Library’s show, “Imaging/Imagining: The Body as Data.” Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. Through June 22.

Tuesday-Wednesday, 10am-5pm; Thursday, 10am-8pm; Friday-Sunday, 10am-5pm. (773)702-0200. smartmuseum.uchicago.edu (Katryce Lassle)

Round Trip Ticket Ugly Step Sister Art Gallery presents a two-part exhibition featuring works by Kieran McGonnell. McGonnell’s work has taken the art world by storm, gaining an underground following in Chicago, New York, Ireland, and the further reaches of the galaxy. Three years ago, the artist’s life was cut tragically short. Ugly Step Sister Art Gallery has curated a three-month-long retrospective of the late artist’s works: the current installment features his early paintings, while the next will showcase his later and more widely known works. “Round Trip Ticket” highlights McGonnell’s signature use of serious subjects, oil and watercolor, and vibrant use of color, in order to preserve his legacy. See review on page 19. Ugly Step Sister Art Gallery. 1750 S. Union Ave. Through July 6.

Saturday-Sunday, noon-6pm. Other hours by appointment.

Second installment opening reception Friday, May 9, 6pm10pm. (312)927-7546. uglystepsisterartgallery.com (Mark Hassenfratz)

f(H2T) from Here to There Art tends to dwell implicitly on the spaces between concepts. NON:op art collective examines that unspoken liminality in their new exhibit, “f(H2T) from Here to There.” Exploring themes such as the gap between worldly suffering and spiritual enlightenment and the spaces between cultural divides, the project will be staged at the Bridgeport Art Center, a former warehouse.

Choreographers, videographers, composers, and other artists will transform what used to be a holding area for objects in between uses to a space for exploring in-between thoughts. Audiences will be given a map and encouraged to rediscover. Come slip betwixt the waking world and world of dreams. Bridgeport Art Center, 1200 W. 35th Street. April 24 through 26. Thursday, 8pm; Friday and Saturday, 8pm and 10pm. $15 students and seniors, $20 general. (773)247-3000. bridgeportart.com (Hanna Petroski)

speculationscapes During May and June, Jekyll&Hyde in Hyde Park will host “speculationscapes,” a group show focused on critical inquiry about the world in which we live.

The exhibition will explore landscape, seascape, and cityscape as the media for intellectual scrutiny by bringing together the architectural expertise and creative vision of a talented group of artists. “speculationscapes” inquires about the role of high-density human impact, relationships between machines and their makers, and light events such as the existence of widespread laser beams in landscapes. Featured pieces will include dark spaces paired with food coloring and leafless flowering stems. “speculationscapes” promises to deliver a unique and speculative approach to the surroundings we inhabit. Jekyll&Hyde, 1227 E. 54th St. May 10 through June 7. Exhibition reception May 10, 5-7pm. Gallery open by appointment. (773)691-9541. jekyllhydepark.tumblr.com (Arda Sener)

STAGE & SCREEN Food and the Body Symposium

The Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at the UofC combines the academic with the artistic in their

symposium about food and the body. Aiming to open up a dialog about intersections, the symposium will feature two keynotes. Courtney Patterson of Northwestern University will present “This Is How We’ve Done It: Black Women and/in Plus Size Fashion,” while UofC’s Aiko Kojima will discuss “Responsibility or Right to Eat Well?: Food Education (Shokuiku) Campaign in Japan.”

The Center also promises presentations of zines and original paintings, as well as spoken word poetry, graphic stories, and a workshop with Apsara Dance Group on “Dancing the Feminine and the Masculine.”

Centers for Gender/Race Studies, 5733 S. University Ave. Friday, April 25. 8:30am-5:30pm. Free. (773)702-9936. gendersexuality.uchicago.edu (Meaghan Murphy)

M. Butterfly David Henry Hwang’s Tony Award-winning play, M. Butterfly hits the Court Theatre to close out the season.

An arresting reimagining of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly through a post-colonial lens, Hwang’s play chronicles the affair between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and the male Chinese opera singer Shi Pei Pu. Under the direction of Charles Newell at Court, M. Butterfly takes an aggressive look at sex, espionage, and imperialism.

Hwang is a masterful and adventurous playwright and he offers a deconstruction of his source material’s Orientalist angle that is both playfully imaginative and downright powerful. Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. May 8-June 8. See website for show times. $15-$35.

(773)702-7005. courttheatre.org (Shanice Casimiro and Meaghan Murphy)

Directed by Paul Baker and Corinna Christman, with fight choreography by UofC student Eric Shoemaker, this rendition of Shakespeare’s iconic story of star-cross’d lovers is not to be missed. For never was a story of more woe, than that of anyone who does not go. The Cloister Club Room at Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 E. 59th Street. April 26-27.Saturday, 7:30pm; Sunday, 3pm. $10. hydeparkcommunityplayers.org (Bess Cohen)

Let’s Get Working Studs Terkel, Chicago’s greatest listener, is getting a three-day festival at the UofC—just a few blocks away from its Law School where, he once said in an interview, he spent “the most bleak yet fascinating” years of his life. Terkel, who passed away in 2008 at age ninety-six, was born in New York but spent most of his life giving voice to the lives of ordinary Chicagoans. Instead of practicing law, he worked in radio, where he developed a candid style of interviewing that he would use in oral histories like Division Street, which chronicled 1960s Chicago, and Working, in which—as the book’s subtitle declares—“People talk about what they do all day and how they feel about what they do.” A celebration of Terkel’s life and legacy, the festival will include film screenings, panel discussions, musical performances, and art installations. Confirmed guests include NPR host Ira Glass and journalist Alex Kotlowitz. Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. May 9-11. (773)702-2787. studs. uchicago.edu (Harrison Smith)

MUSIC

Redmoon Building on its own tradition of Spectacle theater, Redmoon presents its 2014 show, “Bellboys, Bears and Baggage.” Taking the show indoors this time, Redmoon will transform its massive Pilsen warehouse into a dazzling theatrical world filled with image, dance, music, and one-of-a-kind “encounter scenes.” Conceived by Executive Art Director Jim Lasko and Blake Montgomery, the Spectacle lets audiences wander through the space throughout the night, caught up in Redmoon’s world of revelry and absurdity.,Based loosely off of elements in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, the experience is sparked by that famously enigmatic stage direction: “Exit, pursued by a bear.” Redmoon Theater, 2120 S. Jefferson St. May 18-June 8. Thursday, 7pm-9pm; Friday-Saturday, 7pm-11pm; Sunday, 6pm-8pm. Audiences enter every half hour. $15-$30. (312)850-8440. redmoon.org (Meaghan Murphy)

Hyde Park Community Players In fair Hyde Park, where we lay our scene, the Hyde Park Community Players, in collaboration with the UofC Classical Entertainment Society, will recount the tale of Romeo and Juliet. After an opening weekend at the Experimental Station, the Players will bring the play that we all read in ninth grade and the characters that we all associate with Leo and Claire to life at Ida Noyes Hall.

Simply Elton Forty-four years ago in 1970, Elton John crossed the pond for his first international tour in support of his second self-titled album, during which he played such venues as Los Angeles’s Troubadour Club and Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre. Even if you weren’t around for the singer’s exuberant and famously extravagant performances of the all-too-distant seventies, consider this opportunity: Elton John tribute and one-man cover band, Simply Elton, will be bringing classic Elton John back with the first of a pentad of “intimate solo performances” on April 27. Simply Elton is the musical project of classically trained jazz pianist and accompanist Brian Harris, who incidentally (or not so incidentally) looks and sounds a whole lot like the original. For this concert, he’ll be covering John’s 1970 album, which happens to include some of John’s and lyricist Bernie Taupin’s finer, though underrated, songs, and helped establish the singer’s penchant for bluesy, gospel-inspired piano ditties. Reggies, 2109 S. State St. Sunday, April 27, 7pm. Doors at 6pm. $5.

21+. (312)949-0120. reggieslive.com (Jamison Pfeifer)

WHPK Rock Charts WHPK 88.5 FM is a nonprofit community radio station at the University of Chicago. Once a week the station’s music directors collect a book of playlist logs from their Rock-format DJs, tally up the plays of albums added within the last few months, and rank them according to popularity that week.

Compiled by Rachel Schastok and Charlie Rock Artist / Album / Record Label 1. Frankie Cosmos / Zentropy / Double Double Whammy 2. Bitch Prefect / Bird Nerds / Bedroom Suck 3. Protomartyr / Under Color of Official Right / Hardly Art 4. Clearance / Greensleeve / Microluxe 5. Slurp’s Up / Pop Radical / self-released 6. The Lemons / Hello, We’re The Lemons! / Tripp 7. ONO / Diegesis / Moniker 8. Death / III [Reissue] / Drag City 9. Quilt / Held in Splendor / Mexican Summer 10. Voight-Kampff / Voight-Kampff / Deranged 11. Produce of Boid / Themes For Climbing Trees / self-released 12. Pile / Special Snowflakes / Exploding in Sound 13. Moon Honey / Hand-Painted Dream Photographs / self-released 14. Temporary Pharaohs / The Smoked Mirror / self-released 15. Plateau Below / Still Paradise / self-released

The Five Elements Project: Water

Dance Gavin Dance

In celebration of the Chinese Fine Arts Society’s thirtieth anniversary, the Logan Arts Center is hosting “Water,” the first segment of the Five Elements Project.

Curated by Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist and the Chinese Fine Arts Society’s artist-in-residence Qing Hou, the concert will showcase traditional and contemporary works invoking the element of aqueous natural phenomena. Featuring both traditionally Western instruments like piano, flute, and clarinet, as well as culturally revered Chinese instruments like the pipa, a metallic four-string zither, and the lyrical and fretless erhu, the concert will showcase works by composers Chen Yi, Lei Liang, Bright Sheng, and Liu Wenjin, as well as the world premiere of Huang Ruo’s “Phrases of the Stream.” Logan Center Performance Hall, 915 E. 60th St. Sunday, April 27, 3pm. arts.uchicago.edu. (773)7022787 (James Kogan)

Springing out of Sacramento in 2005, Dance Gavin Dance has gained a large following in Chicago and across the country. The band was formed out of the break-ups of several other bands such as Farewell Unknown and Ghost Runner on Third, and takes a multigenre approach to music. Although technically classified as post-hardcore, the band has managed to successfully incorporate elements of funk, screamo, soul and other genres into their experimental sound. Ragged screams mingle with upbeat bass riffs and snappy drumming in a wickedly fun amalgam. You can see them perform as well as ask who Gavin is, and why they want him to dance, at Reggies on May 9th during the meet-and-greet after the show. Hot dogs and pop will be served. Reggies, 2105 S. State St. May 9th, 2014, 2pm. Free. (312)9490120. reggieslive.com. (Mark Hassenfratz)

Ashanti

Mhligo

Early 2000s R&B hit-machine Ashanti is back for an intimate performance and meet and greet at the Shrine.

Born Ashanti Shequoiya Douglas in 1980, her early career consisted mainly of duets and small acting roles, including a collaboration with Mary J. Blige and bit roles in several Spike Lee films and the Disney T.V. movie Polly. After a tumultuous trip through several bad record contracts, Ashanti was finally picked up by Irv Gotti’s Murder Inc. Records in 2002. Here she released her platinum-selling self-titled debut, which included the smash hit “Foolish,” freshly minted for the new millennium. Her sophomore effort Chapter II also went platinum and hoisted single “Rock Wit Me (Aww Baby)” to number 2 on the Billboard charts. In 2005 Ashanti made her major acting debut in the Samuel L. Jackson led Coach Carter, and in 2006 starred in comedy John Tucker Must Die. Ashanti’s 5th studio album BraveHeart was released on February 18, 2014. The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Friday, May 16. Doors open 9pm. $30; $75 with meet and greet. 21+. http://www.theshrinechicago.com/ shows.php. (312)753-5700. (Jack Nuelle)

Shile Ndima is on a long journey. The young South African hip-hop activist, who goes by the stage name “Mhligo,” has been sent on a mission to connect with artists in America. The goal of the mission is to form new connections and learn techniques that will help develop his organization, Grow Khula Multimedia Productions, a multimedia group which mentors emerging artists from the Kwa-Zulu Natal region of South Africa.

Mhligo also hopes to spread his own music as well as the pan-Africanist philosophy of ubuntu to his transatlantic contacts. His travels are being paid for through a crowdsourced fundraising campaign organized by From The Roots, a global entrepreneurship group, which will also hosting its brand launch party at the Bridgeport Art Center upon Mhligo’s arrival. The “Beats From Across Borders” party will include performances by Mhligo and “the African Buttafly” Ugochi Nwaguwu, and will also feature art from Bridgeport’s Project Onward gallery.

Bridgeport Art Center, 1200 W. 35th St., Friday, April 26th, 6:30-10pm. (773) 247-3000 http://bridgeportart.com (Zach Goldhammer)

APRIL 23, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

APRIL 23, 2014