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Jenn Rourke
You can hear Jenn Rourke on the air at CHIRP as DJ Ninja from 6-9a Thursdays and 6-8p Fridays. Jenn has been a DJ for 17 years at various community and college stations across Illinois. She also serves as a CHIRPRadio production director and on the station's programming committee. Jenn has also worked on the First Time show in various capacities for 8 years, currently as producer of the First Time podcast. By day, she works at ABC7 Chicago, and in previous lives worked at WGN Radio, Second City, and as a gymnastics instructor.
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FURY
FURY was born in Chicago Illinois. As a child she attended her grandfather’s church where she gained a very strong moral foundation as well as an appreciation of soulful music. Growing up she expressed her feelings through art and grew very fond of poetry and spoken word. Her biggest inspirations growing up were Queen Latifah, Lauryn Hill, Eve, Left Eye and Talib Kweli. At the age of 13 she began to embrace the notion of becoming a rapper. Due to the loss of many loved ones she used writing to deal with the pain and loneliness we all deal with growing up. In high school she performed in several talent shows and began to gain more confidence as a rapper. At the age of 22 she became a mother and gained an even stronger drive to be a positive female role model. The music FURY writes is very intense and heart felt. She is very aware of the decline in positive messages in hip hop especially from female artists. She is inspired by music from all walks of life as long as it attempts to connect people and helps others to deal with life. She hopes to continue the legacy of the great female emcees who paved the way for her and motivate the emcees of the future.
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Stuti Sharma
Stuti Sharma is an immigrant artist, stand up comic, clumsy poet, and educator based in Chicago. She's a poet in residence with the Chicago Poetry Center. She loves puns and runs a donut review instagram (do_or_doughnut) and you can catch her around the city doing shows.
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Ricardo Gamboa
Ricardo Gamboa is an artist, activist, and academic creating radical art, cultural, and media work in Chicago and New York City. In Chicago, Gamboa is a member of Free Street Theater. In New York City, they are an alumni of the EmergeNYC program at Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics and the New York Neo-Futurists.
They are finishing their doctorate degree at New York University’s renowned American studies program and received their MA in arts politics (2013) from the Tisch School of the Arts. Gamboa has won several awards including an Arts Matters Fellowship, Joyce Award, and an International Connections Award from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Their current projects include the underground news show The Hoodoisie, the community-based theater piece Meet Juan(ito) Doe, and BRUJOS, the ground-breaking web series about four gay Latino grad who are also witches. Gamboa has worked with over 5,000 young people in the Americas using everything from photography to theater and mural painting to web media to advance young people’s dreams and visions for social change.
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Jacqui Shine
Jacqui Shine is a writer and historian whose work has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Boston Review, Slate, and The Atlantic. She's read, taught, and performed at The Marrow, the Therapy Sessions with Seth Vanek, the Chautauqua Institution, the Dikeou Reading Series, and Bad Advice from Bad Women. After six years in Chicago, she's experimenting with not taking the weather personally.
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Erin Strick
Erin spends her days training and consulting, and her evenings baking and snuggling with her pets and husband. She hasn't been on the stage in a while, but enjoys a regular crooning of Rat Pack songs to unsuspecting bystanders. It's exciting for Erin to be performing again, but is curious what may be next for her...probably snuggling.