For more than a century, Chicago has played an outsize role in shaping music trends worldwide. Much of the credit is due (and often long overdue) to Chicago’s Black artists, who formed the city’s epicenters of jazz, blues, and gospel, laying the groundwork for rock ‘n’ roll. Black artists in Chicago also made the music that would become known as house, sparking a global dance movement. In a staunchly segregated city where neighborhood boundaries hem in people and possibilities, Black artists have repeatedly created music that crosses national borders to move bodies, change minds, and touch hearts—and in doing so they’ve established the foundations for the success of so many artists who followed them.
Despite the onslaught of COVID-19 and the social inequities it underscores, and informed by ongoing protests against systemic racism, Chicago’s Black, Brown, and Indigenous voices are composing a soundtrack for change and lighting a path of innovation. May we all do what music fans do best: listen.
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1987: Phuture releases “Acid Tracks,” widely considered the first acid house record—a sound that went on to define the UK rave movement.
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1994: Wilco forms in Chicago under the leadership of Jeff Tweedy. After two million album sales, a Grammy win, and seven Grammy nominations, Tweedy and his bandmates still make their musical home in a loft on the city’s northwest side.
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2009: The YouMedia Center opens at Harold Washington Library. At this creative and educational space for local teenagers, the late Mike Hawkins, known as Brother Mike, would mentor a generation of Black poets and hip-hop artists, including Noname, Chance the Rapper, Saba, Lucki, and Mick Jenkins.
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1965: Chicago pianist, composer, and arranger Ramsey Lewis wins his first Grammy for a version of the Billy Page song “The ‘In’ Crowd.” It reaches number five on the Billboard Hot 100 that same year.
