Airgo

Jenna Anast will change up your whole energy. Jenna is an actor, filmmaker, comedian, singer, and community builder. She's the Head of Community for Open TV, and is a member of the #LetUsBreathe Collective. We talk about growing up as an adopted Black kid, reconnecting with her birth mom, being a part of the amazing film Sorry to Bother You, and much more. Learn more: https://www.journeyswithjenna.com/ Recorded 11/12/19 in Chicago Music from this week's show: Space Bump Alpha - MagicMusic

Black Youth Project has joined forces with AirGo for a year-long #BYPSpotlight series, featuring our favorite Black academics and activists. This month’s #BYPSpotlight episode features Asha Ransby-Sporn, an organizer, movement worker, and National Organizing Co-Chair for Black Youth Project-100. She also was one of the central organizers who pushed Columbia University to divest from private prisons over the past few years. We talk community organizing basics, what are some ways to bring people into the work, how we can begin to rethink our relationship to land, designing her hypothetical commune, and her relationship with her mom Barbara Ransby (who was the first #BYPSpotlight guest). Show Notes: BYP-100 - https://byp100.org/ Columbia Prison Divestment -https://www.columbiaspectator.com/the-eye/2018/04/24/asha-rosa-ransby-sporn-on-how-to-make-columbia-divest-from-private-prisons/ She Safe, We Safe: https://www.shesafewesafe.org/ NOTE: Please subscribe, rate, and review AirGo on your podcast app! Help Amplif

Tiff Beatty invites you into the circle. Tiff is the founder of Art is Bonfire, a seasonal open mic and cypher around a fire pit at Promontory Point in Hyde Park, and is the Programming Director of Chicago Humanities Festival, an event series bringing authors, thinkers, artists, and celebrities together in conversation around a central theme. The convo bounces between Tiff’s childhood in Washington State, her path to Chicago, building sacred space around the fire, transforming the humanities, and more. Recorded 11/13/19 in Chicago Music from this week's show: ArtiChoke - Tab Anitek

Third Coast International Audio Festival is a nonprofit arts organization that celebrates the art and craft of narrative audio storytelling. Every year, radio-makers from around the world converge in Chicago for a conference that explores the medium, the radio industry, and the creative bounds yet to be explored. AirGo talked with a crew of Chicago producers about their experiences making radio in the city, relationship to the medium, and the stories they're trying to figure out how to tell. Recorded 9/26-9/28/2019 in Chicago

Frank Bergh is as embodied as it gets. He's the founder of Beyond the Grid, a company that builds renewable energy microgrids in countries across the global south. He's also one of the founders of Emmaus House, a Catholic Worker community in North Lawndale, that has been instrumental in the work of the #LetUsBreathe Collective, and is the founder of Chicago's chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice, a national network of groups and individuals working to undermine white supremacy and to work toward racial justice. We talk about how his relationship to God and religion show up, how he found himself living in Lawndale, some lessons from working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and much more. Recorded 10/29/19 in Chicago Music from this week's show: Summer Dreams - Ryan Little

Monica Cosby is an organizer, activist, and mother who was incarcerated for 20 years in the state of Illinois. She now works for the Westside Justice Center, is the lead organizer of Moms United Against Violence and Incarceration, and is a wonderful and valuable spirit in the Chicago movement community. She talks about growing up in Uptown, the lessons about liberation and abolition she learned while inside, the transition after coming home, and a very special moment that makes Damon cry. Recorded 10/23/19 in Chicago Music from this week's show: Well and Good - Podington Bear

Black Youth Project has joined forces with AirGo for a year-long #BYPSpotlight series, featuring our favorite Black academics and activists. This month’s #BYPSpotlight episode is with Janae Bonsu, an organizer and scholar whose work centers the intersection of structural and gender-based violence. She recently stepped away from her position as National Co-Director, National Public Policy Chair, and Chicago Chapter Co-Chair of BYP 100, a member-based organization of 18 to 35 year old Black activists whose mission is to achieve economic, social, political, and educational freedom and justice for all Black people through nonviolent direct action organizing, education, and advocacy. She talks about learning stillness and finding peace, imagining new interventions when gender violence needs to be addressed, her cheese game, and much more. Check out the whole #BYPSpotlight here: http://blackyouthproject.com/byp-x-airgo/ Music from this week's episode: Mirror, Mirror - Diamond Ortiz

Kiss dusts off the turntables and brings y'all a new addition to his Cottage Groove DJ Mix series, with all kinds of goodness for you to vibe to. Music in this mix: Still Rude - @lulubeyene Jon Cena - Sho Madjozi Amnesia - Bas feat. Ari Lennox & KIDDOMINANT Passionfruit - Drake Education - Freddie Gibbs x Madlib feat. Yasiin Bey M'Baku Shit - Benjamin Earl Turner XO Tour Lif3 - Brasstracks DHL - Frank Ocean

The studio gets a lil' crowded this week, as a squad of collaborators behind the Chicago Black Social Culture Map, an interactive digital map documenting Chicago's Black social culture from the Great Migration through the end of the 20th century from blues to house. This project has evolved from the dance floor, to the internet, and now to event spaces across the city for conversations about how Black people in Chicago have created vibrancy, innovation, and joy in rooms across the city. You can check out the map here: https://www.honeypotperformance.org/chgpblksocialculturemap Recorded 10/8/19 in Chicago Music from this week's show: House Music Anthem - Frankie Knuckles Your Love - Jamie Principle

On the third AirGo Live episode, Damon and Daniel get everyone talking about how we can communicate in conflict with love. Plus a performance and conversation with musician and composer Akenya, and organizer and Assata’s Daughters founder Page May. And a special small furry guest joins us as well! Recorded 9/26/19 in Chicago Music from this week's show: Apache - Incredible Bongo Band Tribe - Bas

When Elijah McKinnon says the word manifest, they mean what they say. The multi-hyphenate creator is the new Executive Director of OpenTV, a web-based production and distribution channel for Queer TV, and is the cofounder of Reunion Chicago, an incubator and events space for Queer people of color. They run People Who Care, a consultancy that works exclusively with nonprofits and grassroots initiatives, including: AIDS Foundation of Chicago, Northwestern University, The Andy Warhol Foundation, Grindr for Equality, Raúl Anguiano Art Museum, Center for Disease Control and many more. They’re also a hoot. Recorded 9/24/19 in Chicago Music from this week's show: I Really Hope - Roger Plexico

Black Youth Project has joined forces with AirGo for a year-long #BYPSpotlight series, featuring our favorite Black academics and activists. This month’s #BYPSpotlight episode is featuring Danielle Roper, a professor and scholar at the University of Chicago. She talks about performances of Blackness across Latin America, navigating academia as a Black woman, the grassroots LGBTQ+ work she has been involved with in Jamaica, and much more. Plus, the introduction of a brand new game! Like TranswaveJa on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/transwaveja/ Support queer organization Wechange: https://wechangeja.org/ NOTE: AirGo Live is tonight! RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/airgo-live-with-akenya-and-page-may-tickets-71750286037 Recorded 9/18/19 in Chicago Music from this week's show: Money - Jahzzar

Just a lil' reminder to RSVP for and come to our AirGo Live show this Thursday 9/26 at the Cards Against Humanity Theater (1917 n Elston Ave) with the brilliant organizer Page May and virtuosic musician and composer Akenya! RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/airgo-live-with-akenya-and-page-may-tickets-71750286037

Bill Ayers has had a ton of different chapters in the tome of his life, and they’ve all led him to be a damn good person. He is a life-long movement worker, education theorist, author, and former leader of radical group The Weather Underground. He talks about his understanding of our contemporary political moment, how we processed becoming an international symbol of terrorism during the 2008 presidential race, how he makes peace with the dialectics and contradictions we’re all swimming in, and much more. This is definitely one for the archive, and one to dig into. Recorded 9/13/19 in Chicago Music on this week's show: The Dogon Lights - Aneybara

Johari Noelle is wise beyond all of our years. The singer and songwriter was such a gracious and thoughtful guest on the show, talking through her music-making process, upbringing, how she stays present, the complex beauty of being a TWIN(!), and much more. You can listen to her newest project Things You Can’t Say Out Loud now, and catch her on September 25th at Virgin Hotel Chicago. Music from this week's show: Show Me - @joharinoellemusic

Binkey’s back! The Chicago host, MC, beatboxer, comic, and community stalwart spent the last four years living abroad in Thailand, before returning home a couple weeks ago. He tells some incredible stories about his travels, connecting with his birth parents, being a “good” person in airquotes, and much more. Plus, Daniel says the word Kemet, which is well worth the price of admission. Recorded 9/4/19 in Chicago Music from this week's show: Photo by RJ Eldridge

Vivien Sansour is in love. The open-hearted, brilliant artist, documentarian, and founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library brings an open heart and critical mind to the studio for a wonderful conversation about trust, making space to feel alive, climbing the terraces of Palestine, snowy owls, and why she's jealous of trees. Plus, a very nice compliment to end the show that made Damon and Daniel cry. This one is a must listen! Recorded 8/20/19 in Chicago Music from this week's show: One Last Try - Chicken Jones

Black Youth Project has joined forces with AirGo for a year-long #BYPSpotlight series, featuring our favorite Black academics and activists. First up is Barbara Ransby, whose footprint on the Chicago and global social movement landscape is inimitable. A Professor of History, Gender and Women's Studies, and African American Studies at UIC, Barbara has grounded both organizing and scholarship for liberation in the lineages and lessons of Black women. She wrote the highly acclaimed biography Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision, as well as two other books, and is the driving force behind the R3 Coalition, which has pushed forward some of the most meaningful coalition-building Chicago has seen in recent years. Recorded 7/14 in Chicago Music in this week's show: We Came Down - Superpoze

For our 200th episode(!), Damon and Daniel reflect on the show, and their growth as mediamakers, organizers, and humans. Plus, past guests share their questions for the guys. It's a celebration! Here's to many more episodes moving forward. Recorded 8/13/19 in Chicago Music from this week's show: Self - Noname

AirGo is back for our second episode in front of a live audience! This time, we're excited to launch our #BYPSpotlight, a collaboration with Black Youth Project, a website and resource hub examining the attitudes, resources, and culture of the young, urban black millennial. Over the next year, AirGo and BYP will be co-curating a set of episodes featuring young Black Chicagoans bettering their communities through research and direct engagement. On this live show, the audience talks about their dreams coming true with Damon and Kiss, and then we’re joined by guest cohost Tribble and the wonderful musician Tasha, who pops by in the midst of preparing for a stellar set at Pitchfork the following weekend. Thanks to Citlalin Gallery, BYP, Windmill Ginger Brew, and our great crew of Associate Producers for making the show possible! Recorded 7/17/19 at Citlalin Gallery in Chicago