@ayanacontreras

DJ Ayana Contreras at Three Top Lounge

Best way to see Black Chicago (and beyond) through a fresh lens - Chicago Reader

About Me

BOOK | Energy Never Dies | Ayana Contreras | University of Illinois Press

Merch

Big Ears Festival Podcast: 1 January 2026

A Love Supreme: Music and Spiritual Expression - Big Ears

NPR's Best Songs of 2025 : NPR

BOOK | Mothership Connected: The Women of Parliament-Funkadelic

NYE '26 w/ Kenneth Whalum & Ayana Contreras Tickets | @ Dorians, Chicago | DICE

Mothership Connected: Book Signing and Conversation | DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center

Amaro Freitas’ Sonic Homage to Nature and Ancestry

NPR All Things Considered: Miguel returns with 'CAOS'

10/24 All Songs Considered : NPR Music Podcast

Chance The Rapper Talks Growth and Legacy - THE DROP

Newport Jazz Fest 2025 - Lakecia Benjamin in Conversation with Ayana Contreras | KUVO Jazz

Boogie, Skating & Benson - DownBeat Magazine

Newport Jazz Fest 2025 - Christian McBride in conversation with Ayana Contreras | KUVO Jazz

Listening to spinning records, and Red Line Extension opinions, at 95th Street Station - Streetsblog Chicago

DownBeat Magazine Critics Capsules

Lucía: From Mexico with Jazz

AESOP 95th Street Station DJ Booth

CTA and Local DJs Are Coming Back to Provide Commuters with Music and Good Sounds at the 95th/Dan Ryan Terminal

Fred Wesley & the New J.B.’s bring the funk to Pritzker Pavilion - Chicago Reader

Tank and the Bangas Talk Tiny Desk Origins & Creating Without Limits | JAS June Experience

Sacred Grounds, Gospel Sounds

New York Times: Baltimore’s Brandon Woody Channels His Hometown on ‘For the Love of It All’

NPR New Music Friday: The best new albums out April 25

Tiny Desk Contest Top Shelf 2025: Episode 4 with Ayana Contreras

We Just Got To Do This: Adrian Younge talks uplifting legends with Jazz Is Dead - THE DROP

Roberta Flack on WJPC in Chicago discussing Japan's Love of Black Music (1978)

Mellow Dreamin': The Times of Drummer Isaac "Redd" Holt

Soulful Strut (my current radio show) | Saturday 2pm-4pm (Mountain Time) - KUVO

Energy Never Dies: Afro-Optimism and Creativity in Chicago (my book)

The War on Disco | American Experience | PBS (2023)

"Women Who Rock" Truth (TV Episode 2022) - IMDb

"Women Who Rock" Defiance (TV Episode 2022) - IMDb

Legacy: From Horns to House (2020) - IMDb

WGN Radio OTL #934: Chicago Style celebrates local fashion history

Vocalo Radio Gave Some Of Chicago’s Biggest Stars Their Start. It Will Go Off The Air Next Month

‘The War on Disco’: How high-energy music made some want to dance, and others want to demolish

A meditation on the flow of being - Chicago Reader

Jazz as a Salve For Our Times | KUVO Jazz

Jazz Talks 2025 — Winter Jazzfest

NPR Music 124 Best Songs of 2024

Save the Children - Cinema Chicago

5 Minutes That Will Make You Love the Vibraphone

Theaster Gates and Ayana Contreras: The Sound of Johnson Publishing Company

Chicago Style Film & Fashion Show

GuestBook Playlist (classic Parkway Ballroom-inspired sounds)

it wasn't love, by Ayana Contreras

Carlos Niño & Friends - More Energy Fields, Current — International Anthem | A Chicago-Born Recording Company That Produces And Promotes Progressive Media

NPR New Music Friday: Nov 03 : All Songs Considered

Blue Note Jazz Festival Napa 2023 Highlights Jazz's many "Angles"

Yussef Dayes’s ‘Black Classical Music’ Shows “The Relation Between All These Different Stars”

"Rare Jewel" Color Footage Of 1948 Bud Billiken Parade Rediscovered

Chance the Rapper relives the ‘Acid Rap’ era with emotional United Center blowout

Gary Simmons: Public Enemy at MCA Chicago

Meshell Ndegeocello: A Virgo's Dreams Past, Present & Future

Kassa Overall on The Shifting of The Cool

Emily King's New Album Is Out: That's A Special Occasion

Chance the Rapper’s ‘Acid Rap’ mixtape is turning 10 | WBEZ Chicago

Indie Soul Icon Teedra Moses Sits Down With Ayana Contreras

Eddie Kendricks’ ‘People’ Was No Accident

DJ Ayana Contreras Logo T-shirt - Etsy

My Written Work for Vocalo Radio 91.1FM

My Work for NPR Music

DownBeat Magazine Author Archive

Finding Phoenix: Lakecia Benjamin Enters Her Next Phase (DownBeat Cover Story Feb '23)

2023 Best New Artist Grammy Awardee Samara Joy In Conversation With Ayana Contreras

(New York Times) Terri Lyne Carrington's New Standards Feature

Five Minutes That Will Make You Love 21st-Century Jazz (NYT)

Here are 5 Chicago soul records you should know : World Cafe Words and Music Podcast

Chicago Is a Nexus of ’60s–’70s Black Music (guesting on Slate's Hit Parade Podcast)

Charles Stepney built lasting cathedrals inside Black music - Chicago Reader

Vocalo Radio 91.1FM interview - Keyon Harrold: Shaman Of Sound

My DownBeat Blue Note Jazz Fest Napa Recap

Charles Stepney: Out of the Shadows w/ Black Monument Ensemble at Millennium Park

Chance The Rapper At Vocalo: “You Can’t Thrive Without Community” – Vocalo Radio 91.1FM

The International Anthem Podcast

Reclaimed Soul (Vocalo/WBEZ Radio)

Other Written Work

Conversation: Kwame Brathwaite—Things Well Worth Waiting For | The Art Institute of Chicago

MCA - Music Talk: Nona Hendryx and Jamila Woods with Ayana Contreras

Ayana Contreras Q&A + Book Signing at The Silver Room [recording]

Stax Museum Celebrates Chi-Town Soul

WTTW / ‘Energy Never Dies’ Reflects on Chicago’s Black History, Culture

Chicago Tribune / What We’re Reading: With ‘Energy Never Dies,’ Ayana Contreras has written the cultural biography of Black Chicago

WBEZ / Ayana Contreras’ new book is a love letter to the creativity, optimism of Black Chicago

Ayana Contreras and the Fight to Keep Black Chicago Alive | Chicago Defender

Chicago magazine / Ayana Contreras Spotlights the Power of Black Excellence

Weaving together memoir, music and history, Ayana Contreras’s 'Energy Never Dies' is her altar of dreams • The TRiiBE

Unapologetic Boldness: Exploring Intergenerational Connections in Ayana Contreras’ Energy Never Dies | Newcity Lit

Book Excerpt / To Write a Revolution on the Sky: On the Radical Legacy of Curtis Mayfield

Book Excerpt / On Stony Island Avenue: Boulevard of Black Culture