Ayana Contreras

Ayana Contreras is a cultural historian, memory worker, radio DJ and archivist. An avid collector with over 10000 vintage vinyl records, for over a decade, she hosted the Reclaimed Soul program on Vocalo Radio (and later, on WBEZ) in Chicago. She currently hosts Soulful Strut on KUVO Jazz in Denver, Colorado, where she serves as VP of Radio at Rocky Mountain Public Media. A 2014/15 University of Chicago Arts + Public Life Artist-In-Residence, she is also a columnist for DownBeat magazine and her writings have been published in The New York Times, Chicago Review, Oxford American and Bandcamp Daily among other publications.She is the Creative Director of An Extended Song of Our People: AESOP, a DJ Booth at a Chicago Transit Authority station, created by artist Theaster Gates in Chicago. A contributor to the NPR Music New Music Friday Podcast, in 2025, she served as a judge for the NPR Music Tiny Desk Contest. 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. RSVP DOES NOT GUARANTEE ENTRY