roderick "midas wells" jackson
i am a second generation Black chicagolander and phd student 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 for Black chicagoland is... 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 scholar in the department of sociology and fellow with the mansueto institute for urban innovation 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 hold a phd in geography from the university of california, berkeley. i also graduated summa cum laude and phi beta kappa from mount holyoke college as the first person with a bachelor’s degree in Black geographies.
my research and creative work explore how geographic development, racial capitalism, sub\urban migration, and music and sound shape Black identity in the chicago metropolitan area known colloquially as chicagoland. my work broadens the geographic, migrational, and generational scope of Black american life beyond “the urban.” i examine the placemaking practices and spatial imaginaries of Black people who developed Black sub\urban cities, villages, and neighborhoods in the south suburbs of chicago (chicago southland) in the post-reconstruction and post-civil rights eras. by documenting the geography of intraracial relations within Black american communities, my work highlights the ways Black people express feelings of belonging, strangeness, and a Black sense of place across urban-regional landscapes. i have published in the professional geographer, music and science, and the journal of urban affairs. i am the founder of the Black geographies graduate student conference and the creator and chair of the Black geosonicologies research group.
i am developing my undergraduate honors thesis: still sweatin'...mapping house and Black bodies: place-making in the Black house music and cultural community of chicago into a book manuscript. my thesis (re)mapped the geographies of the Black house music and cultural community of chicago. i examined their placemaking practices and how they wielded 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.” 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.