DJ John West is a Black queer multidisciplinary artist and educator and musical spirit guide from the South Side of Chicago. A second-generation son of the great migration, John is a first-generation northerner and grandson of two Mississippi sharecroppers. Capturing the essence of Chicago through spinning house, disco, juke/ghetto house, funk, and a variety of African diasporic styles, John takes you deep into his house. Primarily dealing in the disciplines of DJ-ing, photography, spoken word, and videography, John's work aims to use Black underground culture to heal oppressed people across the globe

Favorite Food: Pizza

Favorite Colors: Magenta/Olive Green/Teal

Sign: Sagittarius

Educator/Academic

I am a passionate young Black educator from Englewood, Chicago. I have been teaching Seniors the last three years and currently teach a 12th-grade humanities course called Black Thought. To date, I have taught middle school, high school, and college classes at UIC. A life-long Black studies student, I am committed to the principles of Sankofa and Ubuntu and makings ure Black youth sharpen their analysis of critical issues that have historically impacted African diasporic peoples. My pedagogy combines student-centered sialogue, project-based learning, culturally relevant pedagogy, and hip-hop philosophy to help students unlock the tools they already have. My research focuses on Black fugitiivty and Black Chicago space and all the ways that Black Chicagoans work to escape from the conditions of slavery and their many afterlives.

Poet

A shouting poet inspired by Black Arts Movement poets like Sonia Sanchez, Haki Madhubuti, and Jane Cortez, my work uses political protest and personal experience to challenge the systems that we consider to be normal in society. free us from ourselves. My work channels anger, love, Black pain, and uncertainty/pessimism to question and challenge the meaning of freedom for my people. My people are freedom fighters, be archers, be, be, be alchemists of liberation. Be in search of better days cause better days are coming. My poetry works to tease out the tension of the times and to poke and prod into the world as we know it.

Black Visual Artists

I have been doing photography since 2017 and videography since 2019. I offer a wide range of services from drone work to creative editing. As a Black visual artist, I am interested in pushing the limits of beauty and life by documenting the ways that black folk live in our world. I am interested in capturing Chicago’s stories through video and photography, so that new voices are able to enter Chicago’s history.