CHICAGO — For some of Chicago’s most popular musicians, Vocalo Radio was the station that gave them a chance.
Now, Chicagoans are mourning its loss following shakeups this week at Chicago Public Media that cut 14 jobs across the station, WBEZ’s podcasting unit and the Sun-Times’ business team.
Vocalo Radio on 91.1 FM will air for the last time by May 1, switching to a web and livestream music station. It will have limited programming and a newsletter after its last terrestrial broadcast, according to a statement from the station. Some Vocalo content will air on WBEZ’s arts and culture segments.
“We are still committed to uplifting our Chicago music and arts community as we can,” the statement reads. “Thank you for all of the love and stories.”
Some have questioned why the music station, geared toward younger Black and Brown audiences, is facing the first cuts after WBEZ spent $6.4 million updating its studios and Chicago Public Media’s outgoing CEO Matt Moog accepted a raise to over $633,000 annually.
WBEZ SAG-AFTRA union leaders said in a statement they are urging the company to reconsider the layoffs.
“These losses are devastating to our listeners and members,” according to the union. “Ultimately, our goal is to save the jobs of our very talented colleagues who have much to contribute.”
Tributes to Vocalo have poured in on social media, and a GoFundMe to support laid-off employees raised over $10,000 in its first day.
Vocalo often gave Chicago artists their first play on the radio. The station is credited as part of a fading network of local arts media that elevated Chance The Rapper, Vic Mensa, Smino, Jamila Woods, Ravyn Lenae, Saba, Ric Wilson and a burgeoning mix of independent rap, soul and R&B artists to citywide and national recognition.
Rapper Noname was an intern at Vocalo Radio while she was working on her breakout mixtape “Telefone,” said Ayana Contreras, former content director, host of Vocalo show Reclaimed Soul and a founding station member.
The station had branched out of WBEZ in 2006 as Secret Radio Project — before it had the name Vocalo — with a goal to make public radio reach a younger, more diverse city audience, Contreras said.
“Vocalo was naturally embedded in the music and arts culture of Chicago. It wasn’t fake, it wasn’t for clout, it wasn’t the same hit songs in rotation; we just wanted to support you because we vibed with you,” Contreras said. “We helped artists build lives for themselves in Chicago. My generation, creatives had to leave to make it. This generation, they had an infrastructure.”
Khaliyah X, a Chicago R&B artist, had her music played for the first time on Vocalo Radio last summer.
“The interview was airing and I pulled over my car. You dream about that,” Khaliyah said. “Chicago has so much talent, but we don’t get the same exposure as other cities with more of a music industry. Vocalo was that place that made musicians proud to be here.”
Rich Jones went from “chugging egg drop soup and writing raps” to sitting in a public radio studio at Vocalo for his first interview as an artist.
“It’s a learning moment to come in, figure out what you want to talk about, what your message is and how to present it. Without that experience, who knows if I’d still be doing this,” Jones said. “It’s a level of awe to be invited there. When you’re not touring, still clawing into the music community, it means a lot that someone cares to help.”
Robin Amer, a former host and producer at Vocalo Radio, was part of an early staff of about a dozen that included a comedian, life coach, house music DJ, sound artist, filmmaker and others who “largely did not come from a public radio background and were more racially diverse than it.”
The breakaway project ruffled feathers of some at WBEZ, which had long banked on an audience that is “predominantly white and concentrated along Chicago’s north shore,” Amer said.
“We were given a lot of leeway to make something new. There was this real sense of experimentation,” Amer said. “Every day, you had to feed the beast, come up with material to fill all that space. What we made was imperfect, but it was for young people, people of color, progressive ideas and our communities. That was a big deal. It was freeing.”
Vocalo became an incubator for programs like The Barbershop Show, which started with Amer and a team bringing microphones to Carter’s Barber Shop in North Lawndale, allowing regulars to talk freely about city politics, the election of Obama in 2008 and what it meant to be from different parts of Chicago, she said.
The station was an early proponent of “citizen journalism” and produced stories that centered voices from steelworkers to a tuba player who joined a big band as a last connection to his father, Contreras said.
“We highlighted these cool subcultures all around the city,” Contreras said. “We felt strongly that we were reflecting back the place we loved. We built relationships and championed artists. It’s a loss for Chicago culture.”
The understaffed station turned into mostly music, and then only music, out of necessity, Contreras said. Vocalo had long been “under resourced” compared to its WBEZ counterparts, could not host its own fundraising drives in recent years and seemed to fall by the wayside of company executives, Contreras said. With the writing on the wall, she left Chicago Public Media in November.
Jones said there’s still no clear replacement for what Vocalo meant to Chicago’s underground music scene.
“It’s a cornerstone for spotlighting the city’s emerging talent,” Jones said. “It’s one of those things where I don’t think people are going to fully appreciate what it was until it’s gone.”
With Chicago Public Media reporting a $8.7 million profit in the past year, Amer said she’d like the nonprofit to come out with a clearer plan for how it’ll now serve the diverse audiences Vocalo had long spoken to.
“As a public radio institution and a nonprofit, they need to say how they’re going to reach the entire public,” Amer said. “If it’s not Vocalo, then what’s next?”
For now, Contreras is left with tributes flooding in from artists, journalists and listeners across the city.
“It reads as our impact statement,” Contreras said.
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