GoodWaves Festival Brings Free Hip-Hop Panels and Performances to Chicago

Chicago hip-hop artists and national performers join a weekend focused on access and community

CHICAGO — The new GoodWaves music festival and conference will open Friday in Chicago with two days of free hip-hop discussions, writing sessions and networking events before culminating in an all-day concert Sunday at The Salt Shed. Rapper Killer Mike will headline the festival lineup, which also includes Snow Tha Product, Rapsody and Chicago artists Recoechi and Pinqy Ring.

The multiday program begins at Venue Six10, where Killer Mike and Vic Mensa are scheduled to take part in talks. Brother Ali and Phenom are also expected to lead writing sessions. Although organizers have listed the free events as sold out, a waitlist remains available online for prospective attendees.

GoodWaves was organized by Los Angeles rapper MURS 3:16 through Groundwaves, an organization that works to mobilize hip-hop communities and create opportunities for artists. MURS said eliminating admission costs was a deliberate effort to make the gathering more accessible to people who might otherwise feel shut out of the culture or the music business.

“I want everyone to feel welcome,” MURS said. “No one should feel like hip-hop is alien or not safe.”

The conference and festival arrive as Chicago artists and organizers seek more industry infrastructure in a city that has produced influential performers including Common, Twista, Lupe Fiasco, Chance the Rapper and Kanye West. MURS said Chicago deserves broader recognition as a major hip-hop center, alongside New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta, but has fewer traditional label offices and launchpads than those markets.

Building connections beyond the stage

Groundwaves has previously worked in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Tulsa, Oklahoma. In Tulsa, the organization helped establish TMC Records, described as the first record label operated by students in classes at McLain High School for Science and Technology. MURS said the Chicago programming grew after local artist and culture organization Good Chaos approached him last year about efforts to support young emcees.

Since then, MURS has traveled to Chicago each month for open-mic events at Co-Prosperity in Bridgeport, mentorship sessions at Parkway Social in Grand Boulevard and all-ages Generations parties at the National Public Housing Museum on the Near West Side. Those events have brought together participants ranging from infants to older adults for family-friendly rap sessions, according to MURS.

For MURS, GoodWaves is designed to expand that network. He said formative relationships in his own career began at music conferences, including California’s Gavin Seminar, where he met El-P, later his collaborator and label connection at Definitive Jux. The aim now, he said, is to create space for similarly consequential conversations among Chicago artists, producers and mentors.

Recoechi, a Chicago rapper raised near Stony Island who is booked for Sunday’s festival, said cooperation is central to the city’s next musical chapter. His new album, ACT II: Body of God, includes appearances by Vic Mensa, J. Ivy and Saba, as well as artists he mentors. Recoechi also works with community-focused programs including Healthy Hood Chicago.

“Collaboration is the thing that’s going to bring us together,” Recoechi said. “We gotta build our community.”

The nonprofit collective Floating Museum is also scheduled to bring three monuments to GoodWaves, adding a public-art component to the event. Killer Mike, who said he was an organizer before becoming a rapper, is joining the program in part to support MURS and the festival’s community-building mission. The GoodWaves panels begin Friday, with the Salt Shed festival set to close the weekend Sunday; organizers are directing interested attendees to the online waitlist.