Ayana Contreras at 25 O’Clock Brewing Co.

Ayana Contreras will be at 25 O’Clock Brewing Co. as part of Pygmalion, in partnership with the Urbana Arts + Culture Program. Please visit the Pygmalion website for information about purchasing tickets.

Ayana Contreras is a cultural historian, memory worker, radio DJ and archivist.  An avid collector with over 8000 vintage vinyl records, she hosts the Reclaimed Soul program on WBEZ and Vocalo Radio in Chicago. She is also a columnist for DownBeat magazine, and her writings have been published in Chicago Review, Oxford American and Bandcamp Daily among other publications. Her book on Post-Civil Rights Era cultural history, titled Energy Never Dies: Afro-Optimism and Creativity in Chicago, was published December 2021 through University of Illinois Press.