Minneapolis Sound (music genre)

The Minneapolis Sound is a music genre popularized by Prince and his many side bands, including Morris Day and The Time, the Family, Vanity 6, and Apollonia 6, as well as Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (working most notably with Janet Jackson) and the Jets. The Minneapolis Sound defined the sonic landscape of the 1980s and 1990s with its heavy punk- and rock-guitar solos, hard-driving, funky bass lines, and synth-forward, new-wave pop sensibilities. In the twenty-first century, it continues to influence artists like Janelle Monáe, Lizzo, Bruno Mars, and Brittany Howard.

The unique blending of musical styles that became the Minneapolis Sound has its foundations in the geography, demography, and culture of its namesake city. Racial housing covenants concentrated African Americans into the Northside and Southside neighborhoods, where the artists associated with it grew up; the white rock music dominating the radio airwaves influenced their sound aesthetic; and the strong Minneapolis school-music programs taught by Jimmy Hamilton educating them in the business of music and music theory. But perhaps the most crucial ingredient in the development of the Minneapolis Sound was the community center The Way. Created after the civil unrest in the Near North neighborhood in 1966 and 1967, The Way was the cornerstone of local arts and music. Musically inclined kids from the Northside such as Prince, Terry Lewis, Morris Day, and André Cymone hung out with local musicians like Pierre Lewis and Sonny Thompson. They absorbed the rhythm and blues, soul, and funk grooves of the house band the Family, while playing on instruments The Way provided. They then took their skills to the street, playing in Battles of the Bands throughout the city.

While these young artists were honing their musical skills, another key ingredient of the genre’s unique sounds developed. In the 1970s, the LinnDrum machine and Polymoog synthesizers revolutionized the sonic landscape of popular music. Even folk singer Cat Stevens experimented with these instruments on his pioneering pop-synth album Izitso (1977), partially recorded at Minneapolis’s premier recording studio, Sound 80. At the same time, a young, local musical prodigy named Prince Rogers Nelson was also recording in the studio, “got hip to Polymoogs,” and became a master of the drum machine. Prince, and then, later, James “Jimmy Jam” Harris III and Terry Lewis, infused these emerging technologies into their funk, rock, soul, punk, and new wave sensibilities to create a layered, complex synthesis of music never heard before.

The 1980s were the heyday of the Minneapolis Sound. Prince’s popularity grew with each album he released that decade—Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981), and 1999 (1982)—and his striking looks, fashion, and dancing spurred MTV to play his videos in heavy rotation. He was such a prolific artist that he wrote more songs that his record label allowed him to release, so he created numerous side projects with artists like Morris Day and the Time (which included Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis), Jill Jones, and Sheila E. With no Number One hits and only one Top Ten album (1999), Prince pitched the idea of a major motion picture to accompany his fifth album to his label, Warner Bros. The movie and album Purple Rain were released in 1984 and were instant hits, making Prince an international superstar and putting Minneapolis on the musical map. During the last half of the 1980s and throughout the rest of his life, Prince continued to explore new musical styles, and to evolve the Minneapolis Sound.

After being fired by Prince in 1983, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis started Flyte Tyme Productions and opened a recording studio in South Minneapolis. The songwriting and producing duo had success with the Human League and S.O.S., but it was their work with Janet Jackson in the mid-1980s that catapulted them and their version of the Minneapolis Sound into worldwide fame. Infusing their New Jack Swing with Jackson’s neo-soul innovations, the trio went on to create numerous hit albums throughout the early 2000s. Jam and Lewis are among the most successful songwriting and producing duos of all time.

Another popular Minneapolis Sound band was The Jets—eight Tongan American siblings who had attended Robbinsdale Cooper High School together. Having started out as a family band in 1977, they released the hit “Crush On You” in 1986 and performed on three subsequent world tours.