roderick "midas wells" jackson
i am a second generation Black chicagolander and phd candidate in the african american studies department at uc berkeley. my doctoral research explores race, class, and gender through an interrogation of the value of Black male labor within a post-industrial context in peri-urban cities. focusing on gary—the former steel capital of the united states in the wake of the great recession of 2008—my work investigates how Black working-class men build community within hyper-masculine spaces of socioeconomic marginalization. methodologically, i draw from visual ethnographic practices challenging the narrow representations of Blackness in the calumet region within contemporary media discourse. before berkeley, i graduated cum laude from the university of massachusetts, amherst with a bachelor's degree in anthropology.
i am the principal photographer and curator for Black chicagoland utilizing visual ethnography through a multi-modal approach to thicken our understanding of Black life across the chicago metropolitan area. i have worked as an event photographer for sfmoma, mount holyoke college, and uc berkeley. i am also a musician, producer, and composer who is part of the eclectic grammy certified production duo tensei with chris kramer. tensei's music influences, include: hip hop, house, soul, jazz, "library music," and electronic music resulting in the genre bending compositions that fuse our many disparate styles. while steeped in the tradition of classic sample based hip-hop production, we do not rely on records for samples. we play and compose most musical parts with real and digital instruments and are entirely self-taught. we have worked with j ivy, bilal, georgia anne muldrow, brandee younger, and makaya mccraven. our music has also been featured on the tv show south side on hbo max and the blacklist on nbc. to check out our music on spotify, click here. i also produced the chicago hip hop classic, "dennehy" by serengeti and work as a solo producer, writer, and composer with sony | kpm.
dr. april l. graham-jackson
i am a postdoctoral fellow in the department of sociology at the university of chicago where i am also a postdoctoral research affiliate with chicago studies, the committee on environment, geography, and urbanization (cegu), and the urban theory lab. i am also a research fellow with the american council of learned societies and a scholar-in-residence at the newberry library. i hold a phd in geography from the university of california, berkeley. i graduated summa cum laude and phi beta kappa from mount holyoke college as the first person with a bachelor’s degree in Black geographies. I am also a proud community college graduate. i hold an associate’s degree in general studies with honors from harold washington college - city colleges of chicago.
i am the geographer, geosonicologist, and curator behind Black chicagoland. my approach to this work is grounded in my broader research, which explores how Black people shape chicagoland through geography, music, sound and how they live in and move through their city-region. my developing monograph examines Black suburban life in the post-reconstruction era (1877-1915) through Black suburban placemaking and the spatial imaginaries of Black people who built suburban settlements across chicago southland—a suburban sub-region of chicago. i am also developing my undergraduate honors thesis into a book manuscript. in this work, i examine the placemaking practices of the Black house kids and how they used their social, cultural, and geographic power to claim space and place in chicago through the creation of house music, house culture, and what i termed, “house geographies.”
i have published in the professional geographer, music and science, and the journal of urban affairs. i am also the founder of the Black geographies graduate student conference and the creator and chair of the Black geosonicologies research group. before returning to academia, i worked as the executive editor of the popular hip hop blog kevinnottingham.com and as a freelance writer for the chicago defender, hip hop dx, soul train, and other media outlets. i have interviewed aretha franklin, common, outkast, chaka khan, and many other artists.
i am also rooting for everybody Black, especially Black women, Black lgbtqia+ folks, the Black house kids, Black chicagolanders, Black weirdos, and every Black person navigating anxiety and depression.