Featured Articles

Red Bull • 22nd May 2023

Red Bull Dance Your Style National Finals recap

This past Saturday night, people from around the world packed Chicago’s Morton Salt Shed to help decide who would take home the title of Red Bull Dance Your Style USA Champion. After months of qualifiers in eight cities across the country, 16 regional champions came together to go head-to-head in a single-elimination bracket for the win. This culminating event brought the nation’s best dancers to Chicago, offering local creators an opportunity to celebrate and uplift the Midwest and its dance co

Red Bull • 22nd May 2023

Red Bull Dance Your Style Battle Night recap

Blue and red lights twirled around Avondale Music Hall in Chicago as a buzzing crowd gathered on stage this past Friday night. It was the eve of the Red Bull Dance Your Style National Finals and the excitement was almost tangible. The room looked and felt like one big party. Everyone was dancing, hugging, singing, nodding their head or snapping their fingers. The crowd was gearing up to see a 2v2 all styles mixed battle. Each pairing would be a combination of two different street styles, allowin

Red Bull • 18th May 2023

Dance Your Style National Finals: Creator spotlight

This upcoming weekend, on Saturday May 20th, Chicago will be hosting the Red Bull Dance Your Style National Finals for the first time. This global all-styles street dance battle will test the freestyle and musicality skills of 16 regional champions and runner ups for a spot at the Red Bull Dance Your Style World Final in November. The battle will be held at the new Salt Shed venue and will feature a curated pop-up shop, The MRKT. To have Chicago be chosen as the backdrop of this year’s National

Chicago Reader • 25th April 2023

Tink comes home to thank the fans who’ve stood by her from the start

This Sunday at the Chicago Theatre, Tink began her sold-out show by dimming the lights, hushing the murmur of a crowd of thousands. Her voice filled the space as she thanked an ex-lover for his deceit and betrayal: “Thanks for showing me I could survive, I could thrive without you,” she sang. “Thanks for nothing.” A red hue illuminated the stage, and from a couple rows behind me, I heard a young lady exclaim, “I’m finna cry.”

Four dancers in red leotards strutted to their spots and struck poses

Pitchfork • 6th April 2022

Latto: 777

At 16, Latto won first place on a reality show called The Rap Game, but turned down the prize—an offer to sign with Jermaine Dupri’s So So Def—believing that she was worth more than the deal offered. After a slew of mixtapes, the Clayton County-raised rapper made her breakthrough with the lively 2019 single “Bitch From da Souf,” which became inescapable that summer and led her to sign with RCA for her studio debut, 2020’s Queen of da Souf. Nearly two years later, Latto, now 23, has continued to

Pitchfork • 17th December 2021

Listen to Queen Key’s “Got Me Fucced Up”: The Ones

Chicago’s Queen Key has never lacked confidence. And despite some social media drama and naysayers over the years, she’s never stopped talking her shit and perfecting her craft. On “Got Me Fucced Up,” Key delivers brash and boastful bars reminiscent of when she first dropped in 2015. She addresses a slew of people who clearly don’t know who she is and what she’s about, but she makes it plain and simple: “If anybody came to play, we came to send it up/We here to max a nigga out and that’s the min

Pitchfork • 22nd October 2021

Listen to Lebra Jolie’s “B.A.B”: The Ones

Texas certainly has no shortage of talented women rappers who know that they’re the shit, and among this group of rising stars is Houston native Lebra Jolie. “B.A.B,” short for bad ass bitch, appears on her Now What EP, which dropped this past summer after the title track’s video went viral on Twitter. “Bad ass bitch, do what the fuck I want. I’m a big boss bitch, you better watch your tone,” she warns in the hook. The braggadocious MC has made it clear on previous tracks like “Talk My Shit 2” a

Pitchfork • 17th September 2021

Listen to Jay Wood’s “She Got Me”: The Ones

A Chicago love story can be one of the most complicated to tell, but the city’s Jay Wood is no stranger to the task. On QUALITY TIME EP, a four track release he put out earlier this year, he crooned over effervescent beats about his time trying to find the one. On his latest track, “She Got Me,” Wood recalls a recent attempt to impress his love interest, fleshing out his narrative with popular lines from T-Pain and Kanye West. In the beginning, he brags about his spending and tells the DJ to pla

Chicago Magazine • 24th January 2021

Kia Smith’s Dance Through Time

Some young dancers dream of their careers first, then turn to pedagogy later on. Not Kia Smith. When she was a little girl, the 31-year-old South Side native dreamed of owning a dance studio, even before she decided to become a professional dancer. Now, she's the founding executive artistic director and resident choreographer of the South Chicago Dance Theatre, a Hyde Park company whose youth training company teaches styles like ballet, contemporary, jazz, and modern dance to young dancers and c

Chicago Reader • 20th November 2019

Turning life lessons into a Korporate Bidness

When you were in high school, did you ever sneak into a girl’s house after school? And did her dad happen to come home, after being fired from work, in the midst of the action? So you hid in the bathroom, only for him to come in there and poop while you’re hiding behind the shower curtain? Well, Korporate has.

“Aw, you wanted to know how I got up out the jam?” he asks. “I channelled my inner Spidey senses, fuck you talm ’bout.” This is a scene from #BlackChicagoBeLikePart49, and at this point K

Chicago Magazine • 19th December 2020

Pimprov Thrives Outside Your Comfort Zone

“I always look at comedy as a competition,” says Marz Timms. “It's us onstage competing with the things that are going on in your life. Our job is to make you, for the hour that we're onstage, forget about those troubles.”

If comedy is a competition, the North Lawndale native, 47, and his comedy group Pimprov are definitely winning. After all, what better to make you forget your worries than watching a couple pimps doing improv at the local comedy club?

While on the road to shows in Minnesota

Bustle • 20th August 2020

John Legend & Chrissy Teigen's Relationship Timeline Shows How The Internet's Fave Couple Came To Be

In their 13 years together, John Legend and Chrissy Teigen have both celebrated a number of individual accomplishments. This year alone, Legend became a coach on The Voice and earned the title of People's Sexiest Man Alive, while Teigen joined NBC's new competition series Bring the Funny as a judge and launched a cooking website based on her cookbooks. But the two are perhaps most loved as a singular unit. They have two very cute kids together. They're politically engaged. They troll each other

Chicago Reader • 18th June 2020

J. Cole’s insecurities aren’t Noname’s problem

News broke on Monday that Oluwatoyin Salau, a 19-year-old Black Lives Matter activist, was found dead in Tallahassee days after she’d tweeted about being sexually assaulted by a Black man. On Tuesday a video of a young Black woman being thrown into a Dumpster by a group of Black men went viral, and later the same day a video of a Black man hitting a Black woman in the face with a skateboard spread across tens of thousands of Twitter feeds. Just a few weeks ago, yet another viral video showed a g

Chicago Magazine • 10th March 2020

Meet Hank Lightfoot, the Mayor's Dog

Favorite spot for rubs

“Belly, booty, under his neck, and his head,” Vivian says. “Anywhere, he’s going to like it.”

Best trick

Sit and shake. (Vivian taught him.)

Quirky habit

“When he walks, he likes to collect leaves in his mouth and bring them back home,” Vivian says.

How his life has changed since Lightfoot became mayor

“We have a little more company when we take him for a walk,” Eshleman says. “The police officers in front of our house all love him.”

Relationship with the mayor

“W

Chicago Magazine • 13th February 2020

Magician Trent James Is the Purveyor of “Pure Lies”

Every Wednesday night until March 25, at Chicago Magic Lounge in Ravenswood, Trent James will lie to you for an hour. The 23-year-old comedy magician and Brookfield native is the latest to be featured in the Magic Lounge’s artist-in-residence series, and, in 2015, he became the youngest recipient of one of magic’s most prestigious honors, the Milbourne Christopher Award. Here, James discusses his humble beginnings, the perks of being lied to, and why magic is still relevant in 2020.

How long ha

Chicago Magazine • 26th November 2019

A New Exhibition Challenges Corporate Office Culture

The work of conceptual artist Jessica Vaughn, 36, challenges viewers to examine the power structures underpinning everyday materials and infrastructure. Case in point: The Brooklyn-based artist’s latest exhibition, Turnover Rate, critically examines the impact of office spaces on contemporary society, from cubicles to diversity training. The free exhibition opened this month at Patron Gallery in River West and will be open until January 20.

What does it mean to you to be a “conceptual artist”?

Chicago Magazine • 13th November 2019

Finally, a Spongebob Squarepants Pop-up

Twenty years ago, a talking seasponge in trousers hit Nickelodeon's airwaves, bringing unfettered joy to kids around the globe. And now, for five days, fans in Chicago can visit him at a gallery in Bucktown.

To celebrate two decades of Spongebob Squarepants, Nickelodeon is partnering with Chicago artist Louis De Guzman and reggaeton musician J Balvin on a pop-up art installation at 1714 North Damen Avenue. Among the Spongbob-themed goodies available to browse are t-shirts, skateboard decks, fur

Chicago Tribune • 13th July 2019

Review: De La Soul bring the party at Taste of Chicago

As David Jolicoeur of De La Soul looked out into the crowd at Grant Park’s Petrillo Music Shell, he asked what age group everyone was in. A fervent uproar erupted from the hip-hop heads in the 45+ age range, who cheered and danced in anticipation of a trip down memory lane.

Jolicoeur, who goes by the stagenames Trugoy or Dave, joked about reaching 50 years old, being tired and in the house all the time. This night would prove to be different, though, and he wanted everyone in the park getting h

Chicago Tribune • 1st July 2019

Review: Lyrical Lemonade Summer Smash turns local hip-hop blog into music fest delivering what’s hot and who’s up next

Chicago-based hip-hop blog Lyrical Lemonade has become a powerful force in the music industry, as founder Cole Bennett has been working since 2013 to report on, shoot videos for and promote the music of lesser-known artists. The site has helped launch the careers of folks like Juice WRLD, who started posting his emo rap on SoundCloud four years ago and is now Billboard’s Top New Artist for the year, with a No. 1 single “Lucid Dreams” that went 8x platinum and has over a billion streams.

SoundCl

Chicago Tribune • 19th June 2019

The Brown Skin Lady Show provides a glittering glimpse of the beauty of women doing it for themselves

The male-dominated mainstream music industry is in a bizarre place where streams and clicks seem to be valued more than actual music quality. But it’s a hot girl summer, and women musicians are coming to claim their territory and raise the bar while doing it. Jasmine Barber, also known as J Bambiii, is founder and curator of The Brown Skin Lady Show, dedicated to the empowerment and promotion of black and brown women artists in Chicago and beyond.

Saturday night, as a disco ball illuminated a r

Chicago Reader • 30th May 2019

Started from the Bottomyards, now we’re gentrified

In the graphic novel BTTM FDRS, Ezra Claytan Daniels and Ben Passmore capture the horrors of gentrification in a Chicago neighborhood through a Technicolor lens. The book follows Darla, a young Black artist and Chicago native, as she grapples with the colonization of the Bottomyards, the fictional south side neighborhood that she was born and raised in. She comes to the frightening realization that there has been something living in the walls of her apartment building, a monster that will take h

Bustle • 7th January 2019

Artist Alexa Meade Created The Iconic Water Scene In Ariana Grande's "God Is A Woman" Video & So Much More

It’s not all the time that popular, mainstream music and niche fine art come together as one, and that's why the release of Ariana Grande’s “God Is A Woman” video in July was so momentous for fans. From a sneaky Harry Potter reference to an homage to Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam, the video had tons of deeper messages behind its imagery. One of these messages came from one of the most beautiful scenes in the video, in which Grande was painted in soft pastel pinks, blues, and lilacs, surrou

Bustle • 17th December 2018

Singer Ali Caldwell Takes On The Bustle Booth

When celebrities hang out at Bustle, we want to give them the chance to leave their mark. Literally. So we hand them a pen, a piece of paper, a few questions, and ask them to get creative. The rest is up to them. This time, “Colors” singer Ali Caldwell is leaving her mark in the Bustle Booth.

If you keep up to date with The Voice or tuned into the second season of The Four, then you’re probably already a fan of Ali Caldwell. And between her vocal talent, her fly sense of style, and her admirabl

Bustle • 11th December 2018

Singer-Songwriter Sasha Sloan Wrote For Camila Cabello & Tinashe, But She's Finally Ready To Go Out On Her Own

Are you still obsessed with Camila Cabello’s 2017 single “OMG”? Has Tinashe’s “Faded Love” been on repeat for the past few months? Do you have to listen to John Legend’s song “A Good Night” before heading out Saturday evening? If you answered yes to any of these, then you owe a big thank you to singer/songwriter Sasha Sloan, who has co-written these hits and many more over the past few years. These days, though, she’s busy releasing projects of her own like her new EP Loser, and she tells me the