Who Got Big Lips?

Duro Wicks, Lori Branch, Juba Kalamka, and Ronald Clark.

Hip-hop celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and the occasion is prompting a lot of reflection on the culture’s legacy.

In 1991, rapper and promoter Duro Wicks, one of the godfathers of Chicago’s hip hop scene, began hosting a weekly hip-hop open mike at Lizard Lounge in Wicker Park. The $1 all-ages show attracted hip-hoppers from all over the city. Big Lip Productions, his promotion company, threw similar parties at the Rainbo Club, Estelle’s, the Czar Bar, and HotHouse.

Snippet from an interview with Wicks in Midway: The Story of Chicago Hip-Hop. Midway is a feature-length documentary film that tells the story of the evolution, struggles and triumphs of hip-hop culture and its community of artists and personalities in Chicago.

By the end of 1991, after the show at the Lizard Lounge ended, Wicks launched another hip-hop series at Club Lower Links. At the same time he was organizing parties, Wicks was performing all over the city with his group He Who Walks Three Ways (named for the riddle of the Sphinx). They opened for national acts like Arrested Development, A Tribe Called Quest, and Pharcyde.

He Who Walks Three Ways came together in late 1991. Wicks liked the idea of being in a group of MCs backed by a female DJ, and he wanted that DJ to be Lori Branch. Before Branch worked the turntables in He Who Walks Three Ways she’d famously become the first woman DJ in house-music history.

Wicks finally had the collaborators he needed, all in the same place at the same time. The classic lineup came together quickly: Ronald Clark took the name Continuity, Juba Kalamka called himself Grandee Cootabee, Lori Branch became DJ Rapture, and Wicks went by Shame Love Tempo. He Who Walks Three Ways made their live debut at the Rainbo Club on January 26, 1992.

Wicks is the central subject of Catalyst: Duro Wicks’ History of Chicago Hip Hop, a forthcoming documentary by New York-based director Dave Steck. See www.imdb.com/title/tt9728998.

Read Leor Galil’s full article, “A Queer Hip-Hop History Lesson,” at chicagoreader.com/music/a-queer-hip-hop-history-lesson-with-he-who-walks-three-ways.

Juba Kalamka

Juba Kalamka is busy as an activist and musician. His latest project is a queer Bay Area nu-metal supergroup called Commando, where his bandmates include former Tribe 8 lead singer Lynnee Breedlove.

Kalamka is most recognized for his work with queer disability arts troupe Sins Invalid, as co-founder and producer of Deep Dickollective (D/DC) the development of the micro-label sugartruck recordings and the queer nü metal “supergroup” project COMMANDO.

His personal work centers on intersectional dialogues on race, identity, gender, disability, sexuality and class in popular media. Visit jubakalamka.bandcamp.com.