Creative Campaign Highlights Chatham Neighborhood

Isiah Veney, also known as ThoughtPoet, and Chicago artist Chance the Rapper. Photo courtesy of Unsocial Aesthetics.
Isiah Veney, also known as ThoughtPoet, and Chicago artist Chance the Rapper. Photo courtesy of Unsocial Aesthetics.

Creative Campaign Highlights Chatham Neighborhood

By Tia Carol Jones

On 87th Street above the viaduct before you reach The Rink, a Billboard reads “Lil Chico From Tuley Park, The Road to Burnside.” The billboard is part of a creative campaign that is the brainchild of Isiah Veney, who also goes by the moniker ThoughtPoet. The photo essay and editorial series is meant to highlight his life, growing up in the Chatham neighborhood.

Chico was the nickname given to him by his mother and father as he was growing up. ThoughtPoet was a name he came up with while he was in high school and it stayed with him as he worked with creative outlets including the Young Chicago Authors and the  True Star Magazine. Those places also helped him develop as a multihyphenate creative.

In 2023, Veney debuted the gallery installment of the series. Now, the billboard installment of the series has been launched. This installment features the photos of organizers and artists who Veney has made contact with as he has moved through the creative and organizer spaces. Hitz, Nitas love Train, Eastside TBJ, Ju-Blick, Solarfive, Roostar Green, Zacahriyah TBM, DJ Skoli and Monty Psychs are featured in the series.

“The whole concept of the series is really just to uplift my love for the Chatham community, my love for the South and East sides of the city,” he said.

Veney said his family also lived across from Tuley Park, which was his grandmother’s vision. She envisioned her family living in a place that was not only rich in culture but also was going to be the foundation of how the children in the family grew up. He called Lil Chico from Tuley Park his love letter to Chatham and a way to uplift other artists who come from the community, too. He said through working on the series, he realized that a lot of people really cherished being from Chatham.

Veney said growing up in Chatham and growing up across the street from Tuley Park, he was exposed to a lot of great things. He said just in 2025, he was able to connect with so many amazing artists who were also from Chatham and he felt the pride they had when it came to being from the community. He said having others share that pride in the community motivated him to learn more about its history. He acknowledged that the artists featured in the series are people who represent how beautiful and inspirational Chatham is.

Veney said that through his conversations and work on the series, he found out that he attended school with a lot of the artists featured in the series. He said knowing that they also became creatives made him feel more connected to them. He said that going to Burnside Scholastic Academy was a transitional time for him being an artist at a young age and being exposed to a lot of cultural opportunities. He also attended John H. Pirie Fine Arts and Academic Center.

“These individuals that are a part of this billboard and a part of this editorial shoot, they share the same creative perspectives as I did, as far as how they came up, who they’ve been around and what they are using the community for right now,” he said.

Veney is the creative director and founder of Unsocial Aesthetics. He founded the creative agency and production house in 2019. It was a rebrand from the Lyrical Lab, which was powered through True Star magazine. The website featured and highlighted artists like Chance the Rapper, Femdot, Noname and Saba. Veney and his business partner decided to rebrand Lyrical Lab content and focused on telling the history of the Chicago music scene. He wanted to use it to connect the dots to highlight the fact that things that have global reach in music, art and culture originated in Chicago.

Being an organizer, Veney used Unsocial Aesthetics to tell the story of the Chicago music scene, while also creating content and helping artists with their development. He said the agency has worked with some of the best artists who come from Chicago to bring them to spaces like the Silverroom and the Field Museum. Veney is using his platform to carry the legacy of Black Chicago forward by ensuring he is documenting the stories about Chicago and its music scene. He said that Chicago deserves to receive its full props and flowers for its arts and cultural history.

For more information about Unsocial Aesthetics, visit www.unsocialaes.com.

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