Millennium Park Summer Music Series Presents: GZA (w/The Phunky Nomads) & Yaya Bey

GZA (w/ The Phunky Nomads)

GZA/The Genius is a founding member of the seminal hip hop group the Wu-Tang Clan. GZA boasted some high-profile appearances on the group's debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), including one of only two solo tracks, "Clan in da Front."

GZA's 1995 solo effort, Liquid Swords, produced entirely by RZA, met with critical and commercial acclaim, and is largely considered one of the best albums to come out of the Wu-Tang camp. In 1998, the album was selected as one of The Source Magazine's 100 Best Rap Albums of all time. Steve Huey of Allmusic called him "one of the best lyricists of the 1990s," while the editors of About.com ranked him #17 on their list of the Top 50 MCs of Our Time (1987–2007), making him the highest-ranking Wu-Tang Clan member on the list.

GZA’s subsequent solo projects were all received to great critical acclaim: Beneath the Surface (1999); Legend of the Liquid Sword (2002); Grandmasters (2005) with DJ Muggs (the producer for hip-hop group Cypress Hill) which saw GZA using chess as a metaphor for the rap game; and finally, Pro Tools (2008) featured production from past collaborators RZA, Mathematics, and True Master.

Yaya Bey

New York-bred R&B vocalist Yaya Bey conjures a comprehensive self-portrait on her new studio album, Ten Fold. Where her previous works were earnest and mindful, Yaya’s new LP is definitive, harkening back to aspects of her past while examining the future of the world that surrounds her with a stream-of-conscious intentionality. Over rapturous production from Corey Fonville of jazz group Butcher Brown, Karriem Riggins, Jay Daniel, Exaktly and Boston Chery, Yaya delivers a free-spoken masterpiece that speaks to the intricacies of persevering through a year punctuated by grief and loss, life-altering milestones and everything in between.

Official Organizer: Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events