A Guide to the Chicago Acts Playing Pitchfork Music Festival 2018

Every summer at Pitchfork Music Festival, we like to round out the lineup with a taste of the thriving local scene. By our count, 13 performers this year hail from Chicago. They range from multi-platinum Grammy winners to DIY up-and-comers, from avant-garde experiments to melody-driven pleasures. Here’s a quick introduction to the hometown talent that will be on display when the fest hits Chicago’s Union Park on July 20, 21, and 22.

Chaka Khan

Set Time: Sunday at 7:25 p.m. on Red Stage

Bow down before the Queen of Funk. The Chicago native, who in 2013 had a Hyde Park area street named after her, is a 10-time Grammy winner responsible for such indelible hits as “Tell Me Something Good” (with her group Rufus) and “I’m Every Woman.” She was also an early adopter of hip-hop, collaborating with Melle Mel of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five on her smash 1984 rendition of Prince’s “I Feel for You.” With her sumptuous voice and electrifying presence, Khan’s influence has been felt throughout the last five decades of funk, disco, and beyond. She recently shared “Like Sugar,” the lead single from her first album in more than a decade.

Noname

Set Time: Sunday at 5:15 p.m. on Red Stage

Few musicians have sounded as rooted in Chicago as Noname does on her stunning debut LP, 2016’s Telefone. Whether reminiscing about childhood summers or ruminating on police brutality, the singer and rapper formerly known as Noname Gypsy is always a vivid observer of life in her city. Initially showcased through collaborations with Chance the Rapper, her gentle boom-bap both traces a local lineage back to predecessors like Common and makes space for other next-gen stars like Saba and Mick Jenkins. Thankfully, she has been hinting recently about a new album, possibly titled Room 25.

Smino

Set Time: Sunday at 4:15 p.m. on Green Stage

Part of Chicago’s Zero Fatigue collective (Monte Booker, Ravyn Lenae), St. Louis–born Smino also turned heads with his guest verses for two other local rappers, Noname and Saba. That said, his more recent single “New Coupe, Who Dis” insists that he doesn’t “need a cosign”—a conclusion listeners may have come to as well after listening to his debut LP. Titled blkswn, the 2017 release shone a spotlight on a versatile yet distinctive artist, equally at home with sing-song melodies and sharp turns of phrase.

Saba

Set Time: Friday at 4:15 p.m. on Green Stage

Since emerging as a Chance the Rapper collaborator, Saba has marked himself out as a gifted Chicago rapper in his own right. His latest release, this year’s CARE FOR ME, transforms raw grief into sublimely artful narrative. On the deeply introspective track “LIFE,” he insists, “Stop comparing people to me/No, I am not them.”

Circuit Des Yeux

Set Time: Saturday at 4 p.m. on Blue Stage, plus Thursday pre-show at the Empty Bottle

The last time Indiana-bred, Chicago-based singer-songwriter Haley Fohr took the stage at Pitchfork Music Fest, in 2016, she’d just released a countryfied album under the alter ego Jackie Lynn. Circuit Des Yeux returns to the fest this year on the strength of last fall’s Reaching for Indigo, the elemental, experimental folk project’s fifth and best album yet. Whatever name she’s going by, Fohr possesses one of the city’s most haunting voices, low and booming and apocalyptic.

Open Mike Eagle

Set Time: Friday at 4 p.m. on Blue Stage, plus Friday after-show at Lincoln Hall

Though the rapper born Michael Eagle II is based in Los Angeles these days, his upbringing in Chicago is viscerally felt on his outstanding fifth LP, 2017’s Brick Body Kids Still Daydream. The album finds warmth and transcendence in the stories of those displaced in the demolition of the Robert Taylor Homes, the infamously neglected public housing project on Chicago’s South Side. “I promise you I will never fit in your descriptions,” he raps on “Brick Body Complex,” speaking for the building, its residents, and ultimately himself: “I’m giant, don’t let nobody tell you nothing different.”

Ravyn Lenae

Set Time: Sunday at 3:20 p.m. on Red Stage

Ravyn Lenae was still a student at the Chicago High School for the Arts when she joined the Zero Fatigue collective, instantly marking herself as one to watch with her airy guest vocal on Monte Booker’s “Baby.” Finding her creative footing across a couple of early EPs, she has since toured with both SZA and fellow local standout Noname. Now 19 and graduated, Lenae released her strongest statement to date earlier this year with Crush, a brief collection of relaxed-fit funk featuring lo-fi guitar whiz Steve Lacy.

Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society

Set Time: Friday at 3:20 p.m. on Red Stage

Bassist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Joshua Abrams grew up in Philadelphia, where he played in an early incarnation of the Roots, but it’s in Chicago where he has become an underground music lynchpin. Since moving west in the mid-’90s, he’s worked with local improv mainstays, sat in alongside global indie-rock icons, scored for film, and helmed his own avant-garde groups. With Natural Information Society, he leads an adept ensemble through patiently unfolding explorations, most recently on 2017’s excellent Simultonality.

Kweku Collins

Set Time: Sunday, 2:30 p.m. on Green Stage, plus Saturday after-show at Schubas

Kweku Collins produces his music from his bedroom, but he still leaves himself plenty of room to roam, stylistically speaking. The 21-year-old rapper from the Chicago suburbs wowed with his Yeah Yeah Yeahs–quoting debut, 2016’s Nat Love, and he hasn’t slowed down since. Last year’s equally auspicious Grey EP further traces his geographical and musical sojourns: Collins may rhyme about an “International Business Trip,” but expect his Pitchfork set to feel like a homecoming.

Melkbelly

Set Time: Friday, 1:45 p.m. on Red Stage, plus Saturday after-show at Subterranean

In the span of five years, Melkbelly went from a Brian Eno cover band to tourmates with the Breeders. The quartet’s volatile strain of noise rock is as arty yet tuneful as those twin reference points would suggest. That’s all on vibrant display via Melkbelly’s 2017 debut, Nothing Valley, the inaugural release on Speedy Ortiz leader Sadie Dupuis’ Wax Nine Records.

Nnamdi Ogbonnaya

Set Time: Sunday, 1 p.m. on Green Stage, plus Saturday after-show at Subterranean

This freewheeling, omnivorous multi-instrumentalist has been dubbed “Chicago rap’s oddball” by NPR. To be fair, his breakthrough 2017 album is called Drool. He also has a voice that he charmingly admits has drawn comparisons to that of a Muppet, by his own family no less. But Drool also carries an intense sense of personal purpose: “I used to think that I was good for nothing/Never grow up to be nothing/I used to think that way,” he rhymes. Better think again.

Paul Cherry

Set Time: Saturday, 1 p.m. on Green Stage, plus Sunday after-show at Schubas

Four years after drawing attention for a semi-ironic ode to Olive Garden, this Chicago pop-rock prankster has dipped into gluttonous yacht rock with Flavour, his debut album released earlier this year. Like a Mac DeMarco of the Midwest, Paul Cherry delivers sweetly sung melodies as bountiful as a certain chain restaurant’s breadsticks.

The Curls

Set Time: Friday, 1 p.m. on Green Stage, plus Friday after-show at the Hideout

Not to be confused with Girls leader Christopher Owens’ similarly named outfit, the Curls are reminiscent of a more “anything goes” era of indie rock. The art-pop sprawl of the sextet’s latest album, 2017’s Super Unit, is as exuberant as a hot summer afternoon after another endless Midwestern winter.

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