What’s New

Have you eaten at Aba in the last year?

If you’ve taken a table at Lettuce Entertain You’s Israeli-ish Fulton Market concept, there’s a good chance the production and plating of your house-made stracciatella with sherry vinaigrette, truffle-baked orzo, or black garlic shrimp scampi was supervised by Nemanja Milunovic, one of the restaurant’s chefs de cuisine.

I bet they were spot-on perfect.

How do I know this? Milunovic is a consummate professional, a true chignón, and, prior to his current corporate gig, the chef behind the short-lived but brilliant Kiosk Balkan Street Food ghost kitchen.

Kiosk closed abruptly due to the sudden passing of Milunovic’s mom—just as his particular star was rising. When he returned from an extended mourning period in Serbia (with a pit stop in Istanbul), he had to find a steady gig—and he found it in the warm, stable embrace of the Lettuce empire. He’s been there all year, making sure every plate is perfect.

You know what you can’t eat at Aba? Milunovic’s extraordinary somun, the pillowy, tortoise-shell-shaped bread that distinguished each of Kiosk’s magnificent sandwiches, a kind of steroidal pita that formed the foundation of one of the undersung champions of the Great Chicken Sandwich Wars of 2021.

But you know where you can eat that crispy buttermilk-brined breast, topped with punchy cabbage salad, pickles, and the chili and goat cheese compound urnebes? At Ludlow Liquors in Avondale this January 23, when Milunovic takes over the kitchen for the 2023 season opener of Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up.

It’s fitting Milunovic is inaugurating our new home. It’s been nearly a year to the day since he opened the 2022 season at the Kedzie Inn, a triumphant event that’s haunted everyone who tasted his pizza burek, one of the best things I’d eaten last year.

No burek this time, but he’s bringing back a couple other unforgettable items from that enchanted night, such as the all-beef grilled cevapi, swaddled in somun with red pepper ajvar, and creamy kajmak cheese spread. He’s also serving up the iconic karadjordjeva schnitzel, a rolled pork tenderloin piped with molten mozzarella and provolone, then breaded and deep fried to a phallic crisp.

You’ll want to take these with a side of fries dusted with the Bosnian flavor enhancer vegeta, but you especially need his oyster-cremini, portobello-hon shimeji mushroom goulash, a tribute to the version his grandmother made after summer family foraging trips in the Serbian Kopaonik mountains.

You can cut the richness of all this with roasted hot and sweet pepper moravska salad, but please don’t fail to tip the scales back with a slice of the classic Serbian chocolate walnut reform torta.

Once again Milunovic has teamed up with his barkeep brother Marko, now behind the stick at Lazy Bird. He’s come up with a couple of aged plum brandy-based cocktails, one a riff on the classic Lion’s Tail, with chamomile-infused slivovitz and allspice and peach liqueur, the latter a sweet reminder of the fruit kompot the brothers drank as kids. The other is an egg-free sour with prune puree and chocolate bitters, a nod to the chocolate-enrobed fruit endemic after the plum season.

Order those at the bar, but preorder your food right now, right here. There will only be limited walk-in availability. Milunovic’s old Kiosk regulars keep asking him when he’s going to cook Balkan food again. They’ll be there for sure, so look alive. It all starts at 5 PM at Ludlow Liquors, 2959 N. California in Avondale.

Nemanja Milunovic in the Kiosk days Credit: Nick Murway for Chicago ReaderRead More

Have you eaten at Aba in the last year?

If you’ve taken a table at Lettuce Entertain You’s Israeli-ish Fulton Market concept, there’s a good chance the production and plating of your house-made stracciatella with sherry vinaigrette, truffle-baked orzo, or black garlic shrimp scampi was supervised by Nemanja Milunovic, one of the restaurant’s chefs de cuisine.

I bet they were spot-on perfect.

How do I know this? Milunovic is a consummate professional, a true chignón, and, prior to his current corporate gig, the chef behind the short-lived but brilliant Kiosk Balkan Street Food ghost kitchen.

Kiosk closed abruptly due to the sudden passing of Milunovic’s mom—just as his particular star was rising. When he returned from an extended mourning period in Serbia (with a pit stop in Istanbul), he had to find a steady gig—and he found it in the warm, stable embrace of the Lettuce empire. He’s been there all year, making sure every plate is perfect.

You know what you can’t eat at Aba? Milunovic’s extraordinary somun, the pillowy, tortoise-shell-shaped bread that distinguished each of Kiosk’s magnificent sandwiches, a kind of steroidal pita that formed the foundation of one of the undersung champions of the Great Chicken Sandwich Wars of 2021.

But you know where you can eat that crispy buttermilk-brined breast, topped with punchy cabbage salad, pickles, and the chili and goat cheese compound urnebes? At Ludlow Liquors in Avondale this January 23, when Milunovic takes over the kitchen for the 2023 season opener of Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up.

It’s fitting Milunovic is inaugurating our new home. It’s been nearly a year to the day since he opened the 2022 season at the Kedzie Inn, a triumphant event that’s haunted everyone who tasted his pizza burek, one of the best things I’d eaten last year.

No burek this time, but he’s bringing back a couple other unforgettable items from that enchanted night, such as the all-beef grilled cevapi, swaddled in somun with red pepper ajvar, and creamy kajmak cheese spread. He’s also serving up the iconic karadjordjeva schnitzel, a rolled pork tenderloin piped with molten mozzarella and provolone, then breaded and deep fried to a phallic crisp.

You’ll want to take these with a side of fries dusted with the Bosnian flavor enhancer vegeta, but you especially need his oyster-cremini, portobello-hon shimeji mushroom goulash, a tribute to the version his grandmother made after summer family foraging trips in the Serbian Kopaonik mountains.

You can cut the richness of all this with roasted hot and sweet pepper moravska salad, but please don’t fail to tip the scales back with a slice of the classic Serbian chocolate walnut reform torta.

Once again Milunovic has teamed up with his barkeep brother Marko, now behind the stick at Lazy Bird. He’s come up with a couple of aged plum brandy-based cocktails, one a riff on the classic Lion’s Tail, with chamomile-infused slivovitz and allspice and peach liqueur, the latter a sweet reminder of the fruit kompot the brothers drank as kids. The other is an egg-free sour with prune puree and chocolate bitters, a nod to the chocolate-enrobed fruit endemic after the plum season.

Order those at the bar, but preorder your food right now, right here. There will only be limited walk-in availability. Milunovic’s old Kiosk regulars keep asking him when he’s going to cook Balkan food again. They’ll be there for sure, so look alive. It all starts at 5 PM at Ludlow Liquors, 2959 N. California in Avondale.

Nemanja Milunovic in the Kiosk days Credit: Nick Murway for Chicago ReaderRead More

Frank Chapman, 82, has been a revolutionary organizer since the 1960s. He is currently the educational director and field secretary at the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) and a leader in the campaign for an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC). CPAC and the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA) were instrumental in the fight to establish democratically elected civilian oversight of the police, which was passed in a 2021 ordinance. 

In the late 1960s, the Black Panther Party sparked the first citywide attempt to establish community control of the Chicago police. It culminated in a 1973 conference that included speakers such as Dick Gregory, Fannie Lou Hamer, Renault Robinson, Bobby Seale, and Bobby Rush, as well as a ballot-measure effort to get elected, citizen-led police boards in every district. That effort was ultimately defeated by then-mayor Richard J. Daley’s Democratic machine.

In recent years, killings by Chicago police and the widespread protests and rebellions that took place in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police reinvigorated the local movement for community control of the police. The latest chapter in organizers’ efforts will come to fruition on February 28, when, for the first time ever, three people will be elected to serve on police district councils in each of the city’s 22 police districts.  

In 1961, Chapman was wrongfully convicted of murder and armed robbery and sentenced to 50 years in the Missouri State Penitentiary. While incarcerated, he began studying the law, reading revolutionary literature, and following the advances of the civil rights movement by reading Ebony and Jet. Chapman helped start a movement to desegregate the prison, where Black prisoners were subjected to “horrid and ridiculous” conditions. He reached out to politicians and activists and ultimately got in touch with Angela Davis, a key organizer in the Black Power movement and communist professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1976, Chapman was paroled and has been part of the struggle for liberation ever since. “I’ve stayed committed to this movement,” he says, “and I will continue to stay committed to it until I die.” 

The Reader recently spoke with Chapman about the movement to establish community control of the Chicago police. What follows are his words, which have been edited for clarity and length:

The struggle for community control of the police, or CCOP as it became known, started in Berkeley, California, around 1968, led by the Black Panther Party, some of the members of Students for a Democratic Society, and other progressive people in the community in the Bay Area. By the time it got to Chicago, Fred Hampton [the deputy chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party] was in the struggle and very, very conscious of what he was doing. He built the first Rainbow Coalition in this city by fighting around this issue of community control of the police. 

It became a real serious campaign shortly after Chairman Fred was murdered by the police in December 1969. The campaign was really formed from a broad base. It was a multiracial coalition consisting of the Black Panther Party, the Alliance to End Repression, the NAACP, the League of Black Women, the Chicago Peace Council, the Midwest Latino Conference, and the American Indian Movement. 

The goal of the CCOP was to build a people’s political machine of Black, Latino, Native American, and white working-class people to take control not just of the police but of their respective communities. The campaign united and cooperated, pooling resources to attack the local power structure at all its vulnerable points, and they considered police violence and terror to be one of the most vulnerable. 

They organized a voter registration drive precinct-by-precinct to get CCOP on the ballot. And we learned a number of things from that campaign, specifically that beating a powerful machine requires a tremendous amount of energy and resources and dedicated grassroots organizers. And while that [CCOP] movement had some of that, it did not have enough. In the wake of that defeat, CCOP shifted its tactics to trying to get progressive activists elected, such as Cha Cha Jiménez from the Puerto Rican Young Lords [who ran for 46th Ward alderman], or Black Panther leader Bobby Rush [who served in Congress until his retirement this month]. These candidates campaigned on a platform of greater community control by calling for such things as a community zoning board to combat gentrification, community escrow programs to combat slumlords, and other community service programs. They weren’t just talking about community control of the police. By and by, these movements were diluted in terms of their demands and so on, and over a 40-year period, they were all but forgotten about. 

[Winning] requires more than just having a broad concept about community control in general, and of all the different things CCOP fought for. It requires building a real, serious grassroots movement that’s rooted in the neighborhoods and communities, where you have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people believing in bringing this change about and willing to fight for it. That’s what our movement [Empowering Communities for Public Safety] accomplished. And we would not have accomplished this had the way not been paved for us by Fred Hampton and others. 

In March of 2021 Rekia Boyd, a 21-year-old Black woman, was murdered [by Dante Servin, an off-duty CPD detective]. The community was outraged about this. It happened right around the same time that Trayvon Martin was murdered [by George Zimmerman in Florida]. So there was anger in the air already. The Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and other organizers held a meeting, and we decided to launch a movement calling for an all-elected civilian police accountability council. When we started out with our first public meeting, we had about 150 people. We decided that there was a good indicator of what the people in the community want, because all those 150 people were, in fact, victims of some police crime or another. 

We began to go into the communities on the south side and on the west side. For seven years, we collected signatures from people, demanding community control of the police, demanding an all-elected Civilian Police Accountability Council, known as CPAC. And in those seven years, we did not just have folks sign; we talked to people. 

By the time the George Floyd rebellion broke out, we had already collected about 60,000 signatures here in the city of Chicago. We had some signatures in every ward, and we had over 1,000 signatures in 38 wards. So we were a mass movement when the George Floyd rebellion broke out. The first demonstration that we had in the wake of the George Floyd rebellion, we had over 4,000 cars in caravans and damn near 30,000 people on the ground. So that was a very massive movement that made the powers that be in the city say, “OK, we will talk to you, we will negotiate with you about doing something about this problem.”  

When she was running for the office, Mayor Lightfoot said that she was going to do something about this within 90 days after she was elected, and a year later still nothing was done. A year later. So, we formed a united front with the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability, and Empowering Communities for Public Safety is what we called ourselves. That also became the name of the ordinance that we got passed: Empowering Communities for Public Safety. 

That was a historic advance for our people, and it took us overcoming a lot of differences within our movement about what police accountability should look like. And so in the ECPS ordinance are some basic agreements that we had to have in order to go forward: we had to have a well-defined voice in saying who polices our communities, and that voice had to be democratically elected by the people. 

Frank Chapman

Frank Chapman, 82, has been a revolutionary organizer since the 1960s. He is currently the educational director and field secretary at the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) and a leader in the campaign for an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC). CPAC and the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA) were instrumental in the fight to establish democratically elected civilian oversight of the police, which was passed in a 2021 ordinance. 

In the late 1960s, the Black Panther Party sparked the first citywide attempt to establish community control of the Chicago police. It culminated in a 1973 conference that included speakers such as Dick Gregory, Fannie Lou Hamer, Renault Robinson, Bobby Seale, and Bobby Rush, as well as a ballot-measure effort to get elected, citizen-led police boards in every district. That effort was ultimately defeated by then-mayor Richard J. Daley’s Democratic machine.

In recent years, killings by Chicago police and the widespread protests and rebellions that took place in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police reinvigorated the local movement for community control of the police. The latest chapter in organizers’ efforts will come to fruition on February 28, when, for the first time ever, three people will be elected to serve on police district councils in each of the city’s 22 police districts.  

In 1961, Chapman was wrongfully convicted of murder and armed robbery and sentenced to 50 years in the Missouri State Penitentiary. While incarcerated, he began studying the law, reading revolutionary literature, and following the advances of the civil rights movement by reading Ebony and Jet. Chapman helped start a movement to desegregate the prison, where Black prisoners were subjected to “horrid and ridiculous” conditions. He reached out to politicians and activists and ultimately got in touch with Angela Davis, a key organizer in the Black Power movement and communist professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1976, Chapman was paroled and has been part of the struggle for liberation ever since. “I’ve stayed committed to this movement,” he says, “and I will continue to stay committed to it until I die.” 

The Reader recently spoke with Chapman about the movement to establish community control of the Chicago police. What follows are his words, which have been edited for clarity and length:

The struggle for community control of the police, or CCOP as it became known, started in Berkeley, California, around 1968, led by the Black Panther Party, some of the members of Students for a Democratic Society, and other progressive people in the community in the Bay Area. By the time it got to Chicago, Fred Hampton [the deputy chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party] was in the struggle and very, very conscious of what he was doing. He built the first Rainbow Coalition in this city by fighting around this issue of community control of the police. 

It became a real serious campaign shortly after Chairman Fred was murdered by the police in December 1969. The campaign was really formed from a broad base. It was a multiracial coalition consisting of the Black Panther Party, the Alliance to End Repression, the NAACP, the League of Black Women, the Chicago Peace Council, the Midwest Latino Conference, and the American Indian Movement. 

The goal of the CCOP was to build a people’s political machine of Black, Latino, Native American, and white working-class people to take control not just of the police but of their respective communities. The campaign united and cooperated, pooling resources to attack the local power structure at all its vulnerable points, and they considered police violence and terror to be one of the most vulnerable. 

They organized a voter registration drive precinct-by-precinct to get CCOP on the ballot. And we learned a number of things from that campaign, specifically that beating a powerful machine requires a tremendous amount of energy and resources and dedicated grassroots organizers. And while that [CCOP] movement had some of that, it did not have enough. In the wake of that defeat, CCOP shifted its tactics to trying to get progressive activists elected, such as Cha Cha Jiménez from the Puerto Rican Young Lords [who ran for 46th Ward alderman], or Black Panther leader Bobby Rush [who served in Congress until his retirement this month]. These candidates campaigned on a platform of greater community control by calling for such things as a community zoning board to combat gentrification, community escrow programs to combat slumlords, and other community service programs. They weren’t just talking about community control of the police. By and by, these movements were diluted in terms of their demands and so on, and over a 40-year period, they were all but forgotten about. 

[Winning] requires more than just having a broad concept about community control in general, and of all the different things CCOP fought for. It requires building a real, serious grassroots movement that’s rooted in the neighborhoods and communities, where you have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people believing in bringing this change about and willing to fight for it. That’s what our movement [Empowering Communities for Public Safety] accomplished. And we would not have accomplished this had the way not been paved for us by Fred Hampton and others. 

Have you eaten at Aba in the last year?

If you’ve taken a table at Lettuce Entertain You’s Israeli-ish Fulton Market concept, there’s a good chance the production and plating of your house-made stracciatella with sherry vinaigrette, truffle-baked orzo, or black garlic shrimp scampi was supervised by Nemanja Milunovic, one of the restaurant’s chefs de cuisine.

I bet they were spot-on perfect.

How do I know this? Milunovic is a consummate professional, a true chignón, and, prior to his current corporate gig, the chef behind the short-lived but brilliant Kiosk Balkan Street Food ghost kitchen.

Kiosk closed abruptly due to the sudden passing of Milunovic’s mom—just as his particular star was rising. When he returned from an extended mourning period in Serbia (with a pit stop in Istanbul), he had to find a steady gig—and he found it in the warm, stable embrace of the Lettuce empire. He’s been there all year, making sure every plate is perfect.

You know what you can’t eat at Aba? Milunovic’s extraordinary somun, the pillowy, tortoise-shell-shaped bread that distinguished each of Kiosk’s magnificent sandwiches, a kind of steroidal pita that formed the foundation of one of the undersung champions of the Great Chicken Sandwich Wars of 2021.

But you know where you can eat that crispy buttermilk-brined breast, topped with punchy cabbage salad, pickles, and the chili and goat cheese compound urnebes? At Ludlow Liquors in Avondale this January 23, when Milunovic takes over the kitchen for the 2023 season opener of Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up.

It’s fitting Milunovic is inaugurating our new home. It’s been nearly a year to the day since he opened the 2022 season at the Kedzie Inn, a triumphant event that’s haunted everyone who tasted his pizza burek, one of the best things I’d eaten last year.

No burek this time, but he’s bringing back a couple other unforgettable items from that enchanted night, such as the all-beef grilled cevapi, swaddled in somun with red pepper ajvar, and creamy kajmak cheese spread. He’s also serving up the iconic karadjordjeva schnitzel, a rolled pork tenderloin piped with molten mozzarella and provolone, then breaded and deep fried to a phallic crisp.

You’ll want to take these with a side of fries dusted with the Bosnian flavor enhancer vegeta, but you especially need his oyster-cremini, portobello-hon shimeji mushroom goulash, a tribute to the version his grandmother made after summer family foraging trips in the Serbian Kopaonik mountains.

You can cut the richness of all this with roasted hot and sweet pepper moravska salad, but please don’t fail to tip the scales back with a slice of the classic Serbian chocolate walnut reform torta.

Once again Milunovic has teamed up with his barkeep brother Marko, now behind the stick at Lazy Bird. He’s come up with a couple of aged plum brandy-based cocktails, one a riff on the classic Lion’s Tail, with chamomile-infused slivovitz and allspice and peach liqueur, the latter a sweet reminder of the fruit kompot the brothers drank as kids. The other is an egg-free sour with prune puree and chocolate bitters, a nod to the chocolate-enrobed fruit endemic after the plum season.

Order those at the bar, but preorder your food right now, right here. There will only be limited walk-in availability. Milunovic’s old Kiosk regulars keep asking him when he’s going to cook Balkan food again. They’ll be there for sure, so look alive. It all starts at 5 PM at Ludlow Liquors, 2959 N. California in Avondale.

Nemanja Milunovic in the Kiosk days Credit: Nick Murway for Chicago ReaderRead More

Have you eaten at Aba in the last year?

If you’ve taken a table at Lettuce Entertain You’s Israeli-ish Fulton Market concept, there’s a good chance the production and plating of your house-made stracciatella with sherry vinaigrette, truffle-baked orzo, or black garlic shrimp scampi was supervised by Nemanja Milunovic, one of the restaurant’s chefs de cuisine.

I bet they were spot-on perfect.

How do I know this? Milunovic is a consummate professional, a true chignón, and, prior to his current corporate gig, the chef behind the short-lived but brilliant Kiosk Balkan Street Food ghost kitchen.

Kiosk closed abruptly due to the sudden passing of Milunovic’s mom—just as his particular star was rising. When he returned from an extended mourning period in Serbia (with a pit stop in Istanbul), he had to find a steady gig—and he found it in the warm, stable embrace of the Lettuce empire. He’s been there all year, making sure every plate is perfect.

You know what you can’t eat at Aba? Milunovic’s extraordinary somun, the pillowy, tortoise-shell-shaped bread that distinguished each of Kiosk’s magnificent sandwiches, a kind of steroidal pita that formed the foundation of one of the undersung champions of the Great Chicken Sandwich Wars of 2021.

But you know where you can eat that crispy buttermilk-brined breast, topped with punchy cabbage salad, pickles, and the chili and goat cheese compound urnebes? At Ludlow Liquors in Avondale this January 23, when Milunovic takes over the kitchen for the 2023 season opener of Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up.

It’s fitting Milunovic is inaugurating our new home. It’s been nearly a year to the day since he opened the 2022 season at the Kedzie Inn, a triumphant event that’s haunted everyone who tasted his pizza burek, one of the best things I’d eaten last year.

No burek this time, but he’s bringing back a couple other unforgettable items from that enchanted night, such as the all-beef grilled cevapi, swaddled in somun with red pepper ajvar, and creamy kajmak cheese spread. He’s also serving up the iconic karadjordjeva schnitzel, a rolled pork tenderloin piped with molten mozzarella and provolone, then breaded and deep fried to a phallic crisp.

You’ll want to take these with a side of fries dusted with the Bosnian flavor enhancer vegeta, but you especially need his oyster-cremini, portobello-hon shimeji mushroom goulash, a tribute to the version his grandmother made after summer family foraging trips in the Serbian Kopaonik mountains.

You can cut the richness of all this with roasted hot and sweet pepper moravska salad, but please don’t fail to tip the scales back with a slice of the classic Serbian chocolate walnut reform torta.

Once again Milunovic has teamed up with his barkeep brother Marko, now behind the stick at Lazy Bird. He’s come up with a couple of aged plum brandy-based cocktails, one a riff on the classic Lion’s Tail, with chamomile-infused slivovitz and allspice and peach liqueur, the latter a sweet reminder of the fruit kompot the brothers drank as kids. The other is an egg-free sour with prune puree and chocolate bitters, a nod to the chocolate-enrobed fruit endemic after the plum season.

Order those at the bar, but preorder your food right now, right here. There will only be limited walk-in availability. Milunovic’s old Kiosk regulars keep asking him when he’s going to cook Balkan food again. They’ll be there for sure, so look alive. It all starts at 5 PM at Ludlow Liquors, 2959 N. California in Avondale.

Nemanja Milunovic in the Kiosk days Credit: Nick Murway for Chicago ReaderRead More

Never miss a copy! Paid print subscriptions are available for 12 issues, 26 issues, and for 52 issues from the Reader Store.

Chicago Reader print issue dates

The Chicago Reader is published in print every other week. Issues are dated Thursday. Distribution usually happens Wednesday morning through Thursday night of the issue date. Upcoming print issue dates through through June 2023 are:

1/26/2023
2/9/2023
2/23/2023
3/9/2023
3/23/2023
4/6/2023
4/20/2023
5/4/2023
5/18/2023
6/1/2023
6/15/2023
6/29/2023

See our information page for advertising opportunities and editorial calendars of upcoming issues.

Read More

Never miss a copy! Paid print subscriptions are available for 12 issues, 26 issues, and for 52 issues from the Reader Store.

Chicago Reader print issue dates

The Chicago Reader is published in print every other week. Issues are dated Thursday. Distribution usually happens Wednesday morning through Thursday night of the issue date. Upcoming print issue dates through through June 2023 are:

1/26/2023
2/9/2023
2/23/2023
3/9/2023
3/23/2023
4/6/2023
4/20/2023
5/4/2023
5/18/2023
6/1/2023
6/15/2023
6/29/2023

See our information page for advertising opportunities and editorial calendars of upcoming issues.

Read More

Jermaine Collins, aka Composuresquad Credit: Jermaine Collins

Chicago producer, DJ, and promoter Jermaine Collins, aka Composuresquad, has been part of the city’s dance scene for the past decade. He hooked up with local dance collective and record label Them Flavors in 2013, and the following year he joined the crew. In 2021 he issued his debut album, Auto D., through the Issa Party label. He also runs a livestreaming dance series called Club Initiative with Issa Party founder Christopher Santoso (aka Please). In December, Collins launched a monthly hour-long program for Beloved Radio, a brand-new hyperlocal Web-based station hosted on Mixcloud. His next Beloved show is Friday, January 27, at 1 PM.

As told to Leor Galil

My mom was married to an aspiring rapper when I was a kid. It was a short marriage, but from the ages of ten to 12—well, ten to 16—I was around a rapper and all his buddies, and he was making beats in the house and all that. I never really used any equipment, but it obviously left an impact, because it’s what I’m doing.

I never really had any interests besides music when I was a teen. I was a nerd about music, and I used to read a lot of Pitchfork in its heyday—during the 2000s. I didn’t really have any plans after high school, so I started producing beats and just working. That was when I was 18. My homie, Saint Icky, who’s like my brother, has also been simultaneously doing music since he was a teen—he was in hardcore bands in the south suburbs and transitioned to rapping. I think my stepdad influenced both of us, and it was what we were just gonna do.

I’ve known [Saint Icky] since I was ten years old. He was the first friend I made when I moved to the burbs. That’s really it, honestly—we’ve just been best friends. We lived a block away from each other when we were kids.

In maybe 2011, ’12, we were living in a place on Ashland, and they would throw house parties. And I tried to throw a party, like, once, and nobody came. I was like, “Whatever.” But then I met the Them Flavors people in 2013. We worked for, like, three years after that—till like 2017—and threw 120 shows or some shit. I was more into the business side, and I stopped producing for a while. Once I was unemployed and I already had a following locally, I started making music again and actually releasing it.

[Them Flavors and I] were all into the same burgeoning club scene that was happening around that time, with Night Slugs and footwork taking off—well, I mean, it was already well established, but just the early club and footwork days. They were bringing stuff that nobody else was bringing that I listened to. When I was younger, I would lose my shit and really dance at shows, to the point where it was like—I wouldn’t say it was a spectacle, but [Them Flavors] knew me just from going hard at their shows. They sent somebody, like, “Yo, you should work with us.” We mostly started hanging first. I think one of the first shows where I was a member, they were like, “Jump on these CDJs.” I was like, “What?” I mean, I’d DJed in public before that, but it was to nobody.

It’s just what I do with my life, honestly. I have a really good job that I enjoy as well. But I wouldn’t be satisfied working just a job, ever. As long as there’s a music community here to connect with, I’m probably going to be doing it. It’s just the main way I connect with people.

A playlist of Club Initiative mixes by Composuresquad, sometimes in collaboration with other artists

There’s a lot of weird stuff going on in the dance community. A lot of the incoming young people are really brash and kind of disrespectful, so there’s kind of skating a line between trying to reach out to the younger people and then pulling back. Also there’s weird stuff going on with corporate sponsorships. Honestly, I’ve mostly experienced a lot of it over the Internet the past couple years, just ’cause of COVID. 

But there’s so much going on, honestly, which is great, even though all this bad stuff is happening. There’s more shows than ever—it seems like back in the 2010s, when we had all the Wicker Park stuff happening all the time. There’s a lot of stuff going on at the Clipper and Podlasie, so that’s really great to see. But I think there could be more actual looking into what we’re doing and the purpose behind it, versus just straight hedonism. Because that’s really what I see a lot. 

I’m just really into doing good business, paying people fairly, and representing people who are underrepresented—that’s basically it. I just don’t wanna be a promoter that underpays people, so I’ll try to stay ahead of the curve with that, all the time.

Read More

Jermaine Collins, aka Composuresquad Credit: Jermaine Collins

Chicago producer, DJ, and promoter Jermaine Collins, aka Composuresquad, has been part of the city’s dance scene for the past decade. He hooked up with local dance collective and record label Them Flavors in 2013, and the following year he joined the crew. In 2021 he issued his debut album, Auto D., through the Issa Party label. He also runs a livestreaming dance series called Club Initiative with Issa Party founder Christopher Santoso (aka Please). In December, Collins launched a monthly hour-long program for Beloved Radio, a brand-new hyperlocal Web-based station hosted on Mixcloud. His next Beloved show is Friday, January 27, at 1 PM.

As told to Leor Galil

My mom was married to an aspiring rapper when I was a kid. It was a short marriage, but from the ages of ten to 12—well, ten to 16—I was around a rapper and all his buddies, and he was making beats in the house and all that. I never really used any equipment, but it obviously left an impact, because it’s what I’m doing.

I never really had any interests besides music when I was a teen. I was a nerd about music, and I used to read a lot of Pitchfork in its heyday—during the 2000s. I didn’t really have any plans after high school, so I started producing beats and just working. That was when I was 18. My homie, Saint Icky, who’s like my brother, has also been simultaneously doing music since he was a teen—he was in hardcore bands in the south suburbs and transitioned to rapping. I think my stepdad influenced both of us, and it was what we were just gonna do.

I’ve known [Saint Icky] since I was ten years old. He was the first friend I made when I moved to the burbs. That’s really it, honestly—we’ve just been best friends. We lived a block away from each other when we were kids.

In maybe 2011, ’12, we were living in a place on Ashland, and they would throw house parties. And I tried to throw a party, like, once, and nobody came. I was like, “Whatever.” But then I met the Them Flavors people in 2013. We worked for, like, three years after that—till like 2017—and threw 120 shows or some shit. I was more into the business side, and I stopped producing for a while. Once I was unemployed and I already had a following locally, I started making music again and actually releasing it.

[Them Flavors and I] were all into the same burgeoning club scene that was happening around that time, with Night Slugs and footwork taking off—well, I mean, it was already well established, but just the early club and footwork days. They were bringing stuff that nobody else was bringing that I listened to. When I was younger, I would lose my shit and really dance at shows, to the point where it was like—I wouldn’t say it was a spectacle, but [Them Flavors] knew me just from going hard at their shows. They sent somebody, like, “Yo, you should work with us.” We mostly started hanging first. I think one of the first shows where I was a member, they were like, “Jump on these CDJs.” I was like, “What?” I mean, I’d DJed in public before that, but it was to nobody.

It’s just what I do with my life, honestly. I have a really good job that I enjoy as well. But I wouldn’t be satisfied working just a job, ever. As long as there’s a music community here to connect with, I’m probably going to be doing it. It’s just the main way I connect with people.

A playlist of Club Initiative mixes by Composuresquad, sometimes in collaboration with other artists

There’s a lot of weird stuff going on in the dance community. A lot of the incoming young people are really brash and kind of disrespectful, so there’s kind of skating a line between trying to reach out to the younger people and then pulling back. Also there’s weird stuff going on with corporate sponsorships. Honestly, I’ve mostly experienced a lot of it over the Internet the past couple years, just ’cause of COVID. 

But there’s so much going on, honestly, which is great, even though all this bad stuff is happening. There’s more shows than ever—it seems like back in the 2010s, when we had all the Wicker Park stuff happening all the time. There’s a lot of stuff going on at the Clipper and Podlasie, so that’s really great to see. But I think there could be more actual looking into what we’re doing and the purpose behind it, versus just straight hedonism. Because that’s really what I see a lot. 

I’m just really into doing good business, paying people fairly, and representing people who are underrepresented—that’s basically it. I just don’t wanna be a promoter that underpays people, so I’ll try to stay ahead of the curve with that, all the time.

Read More