West-side rapper Zernardo Tate, aka ZMoney, broke out in 2013 on the strength of two mixtapes (Rich B4 Rap and Heroin Musik) and the effortlessly euphoric “Want My Money,” which Chance the Rapper used in a short promotional video for the release of Acid Rap that April. It’s hard to believe that was four years ago. Since then the spotlight has ricocheted around Chicago’s hip-hop scene, illuminating blossoming labels such as Closed Sessions, emerging media outlets such as Lyrical Lemonade, and what sometimes seems like dozens of rising artists—Noname, Mick Jenkins, Saba, Lucki, Cupcakke, and many more....

When the trailer for Brown Girls, a new Chicago-based webseries, was released this past November, more than 20,000 people watched it over the course of a month. Writers at sites like Autostraddle, Black Nerd Problems, and Vibe were calling it their new favorite webseries of 2017 before the first full episode was even completed. A short preview of the show shared on NowThis’s Facebook page in December currently has more than two million views....

I’m still dragging myself out of the fog that descended upon me after three days of running around the muddy fields of Douglas Park for Riot Fest, and since then I’ve found myself seeking out contemplative, quietly alluring music more often than I usually do. Grouper’s Ruins and HVOB’s self-titled helped prod me back to reality, but I’m still scanning my brain for hearthlike, mellow music. Yesterday I recalled the twilight melancholy of a song I’d found on music blog Midwest Action earlier this summer: “Liquor” by Wisconsin singer-producer Eric Charles Christenson, aka Two Castles....

This impressive double bill features gorgeously patient ambient sounds created by a group of musicians long faithful to influential Chicago indie label Kranky Records, where minimalism, new age, and gentle noise have combined in shifting timbres for nearly 25 years. Headlining the evening is High Plains, a duo featuring Vancouver’s Scott Morgan—who’s frequently recorded solo records for the label under the moniker Locsil—and Madison cellist Mark Bridges. The pair first met in 2014 when they were both in residence at the prestigious Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta....

Mos Def and Jack Black preparing to remake Driving Miss Daisy in Be Kind Rewind. Like most people, I’m a fan of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s recent music video for “Handy,” his spoof of Iggy Azalea’s pop hit “Fancy.” The video contains as many good sight gags and one-liners as any feature-length comedy I’ve seen all year, which is especially impressive given that it’s not even three minutes long. Eddie Pepitone, the bald, dyspeptic stand-up comic profiled in the recent doc The Bitter Buddha, deserves much credit for its success....

Over the last couple of years Daniel Romano, a fickle but talented singer-songwriter from Welland, Ontario, has seemed to detach from his early infatuation with country music, an ardor that led him to race from honky-tonk to psychedelic countrypolitan over a pair of albums. Romano’s melodic wooziness remains intact on his new Modern Pressure (New West), but with his move from the sound of Nashville to that of Los Angeles he’s created a detail-rich studio concoction marked by shifting, kaleidoscopic arrangements that cushion his sweet, slightly hyperactive, helium-sucking voice with impressive authority and style....

QI entered into a civil union with another woman in Vermont in 2000. My ex and I were together until 2003, when we decided to go our separate ways. It is now 2015, and my new partner (who happens to be male) and I are expecting a baby and talking about getting married. We live in Texas. I know that there are ways to dissolve my civil union in Vermont, but I can’t get ahold of my ex (ex-wife?...

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Tuesday, June 6, 2017. The taxi industry in Chicago is in crisis The taxi industry in Chicago is in serious trouble, according to a new report from the union that represents most local cabdrivers, AFSCME Local 2500. As of March, 42 percent of the city’s registered cabs were inactive, 579 drivers had received foreclosure notices, and 774 cab medallions had been surrendered as drivers and/or owners struggle to keep up with fees....

Oscar Arriola @oscararriola Billy Craven @billycraven Favorite street art spot: “I don’t give out information like that to anyone.”

Like Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) or Takashi Miike’s Audition (1999), the Brazilian feature Good Manners (which plays this week at the Gene Siskel Film Center) begins as one type of movie before transforming into something very different. Seeing the film without any foreknowledge of what will happen is to experience one of the greatest jolts in recent cinema, so if you want to get the most out of the movie’s narrative turns, I encourage you to avoid reading any reviews (including this one) before watching it....

If you’re at all like Gossip Wolf, the wrongheaded dummies in the Trump administration have you feeling nostalgic for a time before this new national nightmare—maybe the early 2010s, when witch house was still a thing. This wolf ripped on a few sorta midwestern practitioners of the form (remember Salem?) but actually has a soft spot for the much-maligned, short-lived genre. (It comes with the territory when you really like goth wear and chopped-and-screwed dance music!...

Probably the cleverest thing about this Annoyance show, which promises to deliver eight minimusicals, is its title. The second cleverest thing is its opening number, choreographed by Lily Staski and packed with tongue-in-cheek renditions of various Broadway dance clichés and references, in both lyrics and tune, to Bob Fosse and the song “All That Jazz,” from the musical Chicago. After that, it’s all downhill. The premise of the show is that we are watching the work of an as yet unknown writer of musicals, identified in the program as “Ruth Lloyd Webber (no relation),” but referred to the night I saw the show as “Bobby Lloyd Webber,” and played rather stiffly by an understudy, Ryan Livingston....

Seven Chances Each Friday, we recommend seven Old Movies to Watch Now, all of which come recommended by one of our critics and can currently be screened online. Read the review, watch the movie, feel accomplished. • A nous la liberte, Rene Clair’s classic drama.

Three years ago, Rebecca O’Neal was a fresh face on the Chicago comedy scene looking for a new open mike. What she came across instead was a bookstore: Logan Square’s Uncharted Books, the owner of which was interested in hosting a show. So she called up some of her funniest friends, and the monthly stand-up showcase Congrats on Your Success was born. “It’s just been really fun to experiment with stand-up shoehorned into weird spaces,” O’Neal says....

Alexai Galaviz-Budziszewski’s first book, a collection of stories, concerns itself with life in Pilsen, where he grew up. The stories are narrated by neighborhood guys—ranging from elementary school kids to young husbands and fathers—and they touch on violence, graffiti, gang boundaries, drugs, weddings, tenement fires, and the garlic-and-onion smell of the neighborhood on Sundays, when everybody’s mom makes frijoles. But many of the stories show how the people of Pilsen redefine their environment—and explore it in new ways....

“Dream,” the girl replied. “Good afternoon—fire,” Day said confidently to the dispatcher to indicate she needed an ambulance from the fire department. “Lie down—I know it hurts, but you’re gonna be OK, I promise you,” Day told her gently. “I’m here to help. We got you.” But the larger goal of Ujimaa Medics—or UMedics—is political. “Ujimaa” is Swahili for “collective work and responsibility,” and the group is dedicated to reducing health disparities for African-Americans through education and self-reliance....

QI’m a man who tends to ejaculate prematurely. Not all the time—but at least 50 percent of the time, I’m good for two to three minutes and then I really have to be careful. I’ve learned to manage it and work around it (like, stop if I’m too close and eat her out to give me some time to relax, etc), but it’s still a pain in the ass. I have a theory about this: I’m not circumcised....

Two for the Road This weekend, the Music Box kicks off its latest weekend matinee program, which focuses on musicals. The lineup features some gold standards (Meet Me in St. Louis, 42nd Street) as well as a few lesser-known titles—I’m particularly interested in Silk Stockings, Rouben Mamoulian’s remake of Ninotchka. Kicking things off, appropriately enough, is Stanley Donen’s Singin’ in the Rain, the oft-revived classic whose endless shelf life makes it one of the most rewatchable movies around....