Interviews

Interviews | Music

New Voices, New Faces

An interview with Clyde Moreau, organizer of the inaugural Decibel Crawl Fest

by 4 days ago

Siena Fite

Artists from throughout Chicago will be participating in a new, multi-venue festival this weekend. Decibel Crawl Fest, organized by Beverly native Clyde Moreau, started with the goal of highlighting local artists of color and LGBTQ+- and women-identifying artists, and paying them fairly “in exchange for what they give to inspire us.” The new DIY festival has shows in venues across the city, including Bohemian Grove in McKinley Park. The Weekly spoke with Moreau in Hyde Park about their hopes for the festival and the challenges of pulling together a festival in seven venues with over thirty performers, including ONO and Sasha No Disco. This interview has been edited for length and clarity; listen to an SSW Radio segment that includes Moreau’s interview as well as interviews with Decibel Crawl Fest performers Audra Vidal and Eiigo Groove:

Health | Interviews

Caring for a Segregated City

An interview with longtime Chicago public health nurse Joan Lawson on the importance of caring, family, and education

by 4 days ago 3 Comments

Ellen Hao, based on a photograph by Paul Audia for Loyola Press

In the thirty-plus years that Joan Lawson, eighty, spent treating sick people in their homes throughout Chicago as a public health nurse, she gained unique insights into the human condition. It wasn’t until the Vatican selected her to be part of a collection of stories about elders from all over the world, however, that she realized her words could have an impact.

Interviews | Politics

Meet the Challengers: Byron Sigcho Lopez

The Weekly sits down with a candidate for alderman in the 25th Ward

by 4 days ago

Katie Hill

For the past few years, Byron Sigcho Lopez has been a ubiquitous fixture around Pilsen. As the director of the Pilsen Alliance for the past three years, he’s helped organize a wide range of community meetings, protests, and referendums, with a special emphasis on housing justice. Sigcho Lopez has now taken a leave of absence from the group to run for alderman in the 25th Ward, which stretches from a northeastern corner of McKinley Park, across all of Pilsen, north to parts of the West Loop and South Loop, and south to Chinatown.

Interviews | Music

Healthier Words for a Healthier Lifestyle

Melo Makes Music talks mental wellness, seasonal depression, and his budding career as a performance artist

by 2 weeks ago

Siena Fite

On his first full-length release Hold Your Tongue, Melo Makes Music confronts depression, mental wellness, loneliness, and heartbreak with a sense of self. The South Side rapper might be best known for last year’s “Sleepless,” his song featuring Taylor Bennett, but he’s been evolving as an artist since early songs like “Murphy’s Law” (featuring Ju & Tatiana Hazel) and “Drain U” (featuring Ravyn Lenae). Now, on “Hold your Tongue,” he confronts his inner demons with music—and comes out of the other end with a message of positivity.

Interviews | Radio | Visual Arts

Creative Control

Ciera Mckissick talks the importance of space, connecting creatives, and how Chicago has unexpectedly become her home

by 1 month ago

Rene Naltsas

When we last profiled Ciera Mckissick, she was putting on fashion shows as part of her residency at the Chicago Art Department and editing AMFM, her online culture magazine, while harboring ambitions of opening an artist collective space in Pilsen. In the two and three-quarter years since then, she made that dream a reality, opening an AMFM storefront gallery on 21st Street that quickly garnered city-wide acclaim. Shortly after this interview aired on SSW Radio in August, Mckissick announced in a Facebook post that disputes with AMFM’s neighbors and landlords have resulted in the gallery being booted out of its space. True to form, it celebrated its tenure with a closing party, and has continued to put on outside events, like the close of its three-part West Side food and music festival FEAST. It has also raised over $1,400 in a fundraiser to secure a new physical space for the collective. This interview has been edited for length and clarity; listen to the full version of this interview that aired on SSW Radio, the Weekly’s radio show and podcast.

Interviews | Politics

Meet the Challengers: David Mihalyfy

The Weekly sits down with a candidate for alderman in the 11th Ward

by 1 month ago 1 Comment

Courtesy David Mihalyfy

I met with David Mihalyfy on a warm summer night in Bridgeport. We were originally supposed to conduct our interview at First Base, a now-closed sports bar, but realized soon after arriving it would be too loud to conduct an interview there. We relocated to some chairs outside Scoops Ice Cream on 31st Street and continued over a strawberry Italian ice (for me) and a chocolate-covered frozen banana (for him).

Interviews | Music | Radio

Know His Roots

Matt Muse on his new project, Nappy Talk

by 2 months ago

Courtesy Matt Muse

When I meet Matt Muse on a bright August morning, the South Side-raised rapper is on top of his game. The night before our interview at WHPK 88.5 FM’s broadcast station in Hyde Park, he’d doubled as featured artist and host for Young Chicago Authors’ WordPlay, the city’s longest-running open mic. Earlier in the summer, he’d performed at Taste of Chicago and Fox 32’s Good Morning Chicago, and in the days to come, he’d head out to New York City for a sold-out performance with Sofar Sounds and to celebrate his twenty-sixth birthday.

Health | Interviews | Music

Within “Decay,” A Story of Growth

Akenya releases a single to raise awareness of Lyme Disease

by 2 months ago

Sam Fuehring

Akenya is a singer, pianist, and composer from Chicago. In honor of the end of Lyme Disease Awareness Month, this past May, Akenya released a single titled “Decay.” Her fans have waited over two years since the release of her last single, “Disappear.” “Decay” intimately describes her experiences with Lyme Disease, an illness spread by ticks that can cause fatigue and pain, among other symptoms; some 30,000 cases are reported to the Centers for Disease Control every year. A percentage of proceeds from the song go to the LymeLight Foundation, which provides grants for Lyme disease treatment. The Weekly sat down with Akenya to talk about her relationship to Lyme disease and her single. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview Issue 2018

The Interview Issue 2018

by 3 months ago

James Tsitiridis

We’ve come to see the Interview Issue as a place for a different kind of story. The necessities of the newscycle whittle down most interviews to their most barebones and essential parts, leaving out hours of storytelling, shared expertise, and personal histories.

Interview Issue 2018 | Photo Essay

We the Vanguard

by 3 months ago

WE THE VANGUARD (2016 -) is a continuing photographic archive of Black women/femmes shifting the contemporary culture of Chicago, primarily emerging and/or at the vanguard of arts, culture, + social justice. This project seeks to share context in regard to the creative and continuing labor of women at the vanguard of cultural innovation and expansion.