Taylor Byas’s I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times Taylor Byas is just now releasing her debut full-length poetry collection, but she’s already making a case for herself as a literary descendant of fellow Chicagoan Gwendolyn Brooks. Like Brooks, the 27-year-old Byas turns the everyday aspects of life into the exuberantly extraordinary. Byas, who grew … Read more
Louis Tomlinson’s “Chicago” Songs titled “Chicago” are usually performed by Midwesterners, such as Michael Jackson or Sufjan Stevens. That makes Yorkshire-born Louis Tomlinson an outlier. Tomlinson’s rendition spotlights an anonymous ex-partner now living in the city, with a new child and new life, to whom he semidespondently croons, “If you’re lonely in Chicago, you can … Read more
Mia Lee In January, visual artist Mia Lee traveled to Ghana, accompanied by two fellow South Siders: Chance the Rapper and Vic Mensa. The rappers were putting on the inaugural Black Star Line Festival, a celebration of the global Black community. The trip was the culmination of Lee’s collaboration with Chance on “Yah Know,” his … Read more
Notre With its understated aesthetic and low-key sales approach, the West Loop boutique has been a go-to for Chicago guys and visiting music industry celebs (Adam Levine, Travis Scott) since 2019. Now it’s embarking on a new era by introducing womenswear. Plenty of it. “We had a lot of guys that would come in with … Read more
Tink’s Thanks 4 Nothing Tink is the prevailing mistress of Chicago R&B, a 28-year-old soprano whose Aaliyah-like head voice you could reasonably call angelic. Over the course of four albums and many online-only mixtapes, she has perfected a delicate balancing act: cherubic sweetness intermixed with saucy chutzpah. After she signed with megaproducer Timbaland’s Mosley Music … Read more
Miyagi Records The Japanese surname Miyagi translates to “shrine fortress,” and that’s how co-owners Nigel Ridgeway and Marco Jacobo see their new record shop, which began as an online-only store in 2019 but opened a brick-and-mortar location in April: a place to both honor and protect the music they love, some of it made not … Read more
As paper books become a niche product, niche retailers have become the best place to buy and sell them.
By tearing into (and down) their childhood entertainment, Elizabeth Gomez and Adrienne Gunn find patterns in joy and failure that continue in culture today.
The show explores the character of this city through its food and dining, and it does so with real insight.
