Standing outside 3611 W. Cermak Rd. Behind the vintage gray stone façade, you won’t notice artists preparing the stage for hip-hop presentations. Once inside, it’s like watching a family get ready for a party.
A few young men in chunky sneakers, ripped jeans, and dreadlocks walked around, testing their microphones, at small tables covered with purple plastic tablecloths scattered around the room. I have set up a blank canvas.
Tealight candles flickered in the center of each table as the melodious sound of a piano filled the room like a speakeasy. Theater Y is a Chicago-based international theater incubator that has been operating in Chicago since 2006, reimagining theater as a tool for liberation and community collaboration.
On Monday, Chicago hip-hop artists and youth mentors PHENOM energetically took the stage to curate “We Lawndale,” part of Theater Y’s weekly event series “Monday Night Buzz.” announced.
“A theater that has just created beautiful art and thoughts and feelings and experiences for people all over Chicago has decided to come to Lawndale,” PHENOM said. “Why? There are many reasons, but one of the reasons he said is that Lawndale is very rich in community space.”
Naturally, PHENOM has shared the stage with big name artists like Chance the Rapper and Kendrick Lamar, so he turned up the energy in the room. He is currently one of his four artist-in-residences curating “Monday Night Buzz.” According to Melissa Lorraine, artistic director of Theater Y, which opened a new building in Lawndale, the series will continue until the end of the year and “will try to mingle as close to the sidewalk as possible with North Her Lawndale’s community.” Created for last month. Every Monday night, one of four artists will host his event, a unique piece of art open to the public.
“There is a front space that has remained dark for 40 years. …This is the space’s first initiative, with exceptional local performers curating their particular Monday night [event]said Lorraine.
At his event, Teh’Ray Hale, who goes by the artist name PHENOM, invited graduates of his Emcee Skool program for an artistic experience and co-curation. On Monday, local hip-hop and visual artist Kin Kwon performed her own song while instructing the audience to create a collaborative work of art by alternately painting one of her pieces. -beauty. “
“You’re assembling things subconsciously. Your fusion is a wonderful thing, two different identities, two different creativity at the same time,” Kwon said while demonstrating how to create these pieces. I was.
Kwon is one of the first participants in Emcee Skool’s PHENOM, a six-month program for Chicago youth who aspire to become hosts or rappers. Five classes have graduated from the program since its inception in 2018.
“I am a mass-produced weapon,” PHENOM said in an interview, describing his career as an international hip-hop artist and educator in a unique way.
In 2017, PHENOM visited Iraq as hip hop ambassadors for the Hip Hop Detoxx program. PHENOM said the trip helped him realize how much his craft had enabled him, and he decided to “train, teach, and pass it on to the younger generation” in Chicago.
His work as a youth mentor dates back to 1995 when he joined the Public Allies youth violence prevention program led by Michelle Obama. In 2019, he received the first-ever “Brother Mike Award” to recognize mentors in Chicago’s out-of-school spaces, an initiative of the non-profit Chicago Learning Exchange and Chance the Rappers Social Works.
On Monday, hosts Skool alumni Khing Kwon and Mani Jurdan performed alongside local DJ and producer The Ambi/nce. Listening to their hip-hop beats and powerful rhythms, they welcomed a small but cheery audience while collaborating to draw his art pieces.
“I have trained these young artists to use their art as a peacebuilding tool,” PHENOM said in an interview. “That model cemented a relationship that allowed for proper dispersal of conflict.”
PHENOM says that the moderator school is rigorous, so young people learn to be disciplined in their careers as artists. But there is also an emphasis on building relationships that prevent young people from being exposed to or involved in violence. “This is not just a program, it’s a family.”
More Emcee Skool alumni will attend the Monday Night Buzz event curated by PHENOM on the second Monday of each month. Phenom said attendees will participate in craft-making activities to create things to take home and things to leave in Theater Y.
“When I was trained by Michelle Obama, they made sure there was a sustainability element to everything we did,” PHENOM said, adding that by the end of the year, event attendees He added that there is a collection of 10 collaborative art pieces created by., as many letters as his series name “We Lawndale.”
“We Lawndale made this, and it opens up the idea for people who aren’t from Lawndale to come and take ownership of that community and acknowledge that it’s real. I We spend Lawndale together, not north or south of Lawndale.”
