Ayana Contreras

Ayana Contreras is RMPM’s Vice President of Radio and interim Program Director of KUVO JAZZ. As a professional DJ, Ayana has shared the stage with a wide variety of artists, from Roy Ayers to Nile Edwards & Chic to Gang of Four. Ayana 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. 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.