Chicago musician and activist Ric Wilson racked up his airline miles in 2024, setting out on domestic and international tours with acts like psychedelic soul band Black Pumas, Canadian electro-funk pair Chromeo and local duo DRAMA.
His busy year culminated with a New Year’s Eve disco dance party at Lincoln Hall on the North Side.
The twentysomething artist lives in Blue Island but spends about three a year in London, his love of that city rooted in the time he lived there in 2021, before the pubs started to open up again after being shut down because of COVID-19.
“I saw a city and a country that was dead come back to life,” he said. “That was just my first footstep into the rest of the world. I think that’s probably why I like London. It kind of took me under its wing the first half of this decade.”
Since his return to Chicago later that year, Wilson has been working with artists all over the map, including Kiéla Adira, CHAI, Yellow Days, Cupidon and Mayer Hawthorne. His eclectic, disco-funk sound is best exemplified on 2023’s “Clusterfunk,” a collaboration with A-Trak and Chromeo that Vocalo and WBEZ highlighted as one of the best local albums of the year. In 2024, he put out five singles, including “America Runs on Disco” ahead of an upcoming EP of the same name.
Inspired by “the cool culture” of South London and the “over-the-top” fashion of East London, Wilson said he doesn’t have a particular style but takes inspiration from people he’s encountered across his entire life, whether channeling style elements of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat or inheriting heirlooms from close friends.
In an interview, Wilson talked about his secrets for a tour wardrobe, honing his style and his time spent in London.
Outfit to love
If you’ve seen Wilson in concert, it’s no secret he bounces around the stage with an infectious energy — which can be a challenge to dress for. After taking his pants to the tailor with inconvenient rips one too many times, he now buys show clothes that are “dance-ready.”
Wilson played three sets in Paris in 2024. He loved the look from show No. 2, though it wasn’t the easiest to perform in: “I wore these big green pants that my friend gifted me in London. And this construction jacket, I believe from Korea, it’s red. The pants were really hard to dance in because they were super-wide — but it was OK. They were a gift, so that’s why they were hard to dance in. I didn’t buy them dance-ready.”
Recent wardrobe addition
Wilson wears a lot of vintage clothing. But one of his favorite pieces, a brown corduroy blazer, wasn’t picked up from a store. It belonged to the grandfather of singer-songwriter Yellow Days, with whom Wilson was staying when he borrowed it from the artist’s closet. He said it initially reminded him of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his favorite Christmas movie — “Jingle All the Way.”
“I grabbed this just randomly out of one of his wardrobes, and then it really fit great,” Wilson said. “[Yellow Days] said, ‘You should just keep it.’ I don’t know where this is from, but this used to be a jazz musician’s jacket from London in the ‘50s or ‘40s. He was rocking it everywhere.”
Sources for new pieces
Though this is his home base, Wilson doesn’t source many of his pieces in Chicago. He’s spent a lot of his London time at vintage shops and Saturday markets on the East End’s famous Brick Lane.
“I’ve spent a decent amount of Saturdays in London, so I usually would get clothes from there,” he said. “I try to buy clothes from different places that I travel, versus just shopping at home.”
On the ‘wants’ list
A patched-up recycled denim jacket caught Wilson’s eye at a Brick Lane vintage store, and he hopes it’s still waiting for him when he’s back in town: “I never grabbed it because it’s always there.”
Styling advice
While America was locked down due to COVID-19 in 2020, Wilson spent a solid two to three weeks in Los Angeles working on “Clusterfunk” with Canadian producer A-Trak and electronic duo Chromeo.
Though the three artists were some of the only people he was seeing at the time, Wilson said Dave 1 and P-Thugg of Chromeo always dressed up just to make music in their own studio.
“They were bringing it every day,” he said. “Dave 1 says that, if someone can’t be you for Halloween, then you need to get more unique as an artist.”