*This essay series charts the development of, late 20th century, sonic migration. With the chief focus on regional musical topography as an analogous window into the fabric of the African American experience.*

The MPLS Sound is often described by the sparsity of its pieces, or the distinction of those present. Synthesis, in this case, may be the most vital tenet of them all. Within its distinct sound you hear: synthesizers instead of horns, machines replacing or accompanying drummers, guitar pedals as stand-ins for efx rigs; fusing a distinct electronic link from the Dayton/Bay Area band era into the world of modern music we know now.

THE FAMILY

The origin of the Minneapolis sound is a bit hazy. Somewhere in-between the glory days of Bob Dylan’s Twin City Home-Grown Americana and the proto-disco breakout of Lipps Inc “Funkytown”, black teenagers huddled in basements and community centers engaged in jams, battle-of-the-bands and self dedicated funk schools. An entire culture of young schoolmates were fostering groups like The Family, Champagne, Grand Central, Enterprise, Flyte Tyme, Cohesion, Mind & Matter and many others. People like Prince, Terry Lewis, Morris Day, Cynthia Johnson, Sonny Thompson, Andre Cymone, Sylvia & Lisa Anderson, James “Jimmy Jam” Harris and others in and amongst these groups were either family/friends/neighbors/schoolmates/you name it. This deeply disciplined “band culture” extended out from the heart of the black community and into the development of Prince’s network of music, as he may have been in fact the first to breakthrough with his record deals circa 1976-1978. The through line from Prince’s home universe, the endless rehearsals, jams with the original lineup of The Time (Alexander O’Neal, Jellybean Johnson, Monte Moir, Jesse Johnson, Jam & Lewis), is indeed the etymology of the MPLS sound’s dissemination into popular music as we know it.

THE SYSTEM

In the 1970s, Grand Central (Prince, his cousin Chazz Smith, Andre Cymone and his sister Linda, Terry Jackson and William Doughty) were one of the few local bands to battle without a horn section. Linda, the dedicated organist and soon to be synth player, would mimic horn lines to beef up an arrangement. Fast forward a decade where the surviving members of these bands would continue this exact same sonic staple within their own productions, and for others. By now, Roger Linn and Tom Oberheim started hawking some of the greatest music machines known to man; one advertising angle OBX developed was “the system”.

It was a PR push that consolidated their main pieces of gear into a digestible sales pitch. Developments in MIDI technology allowed producers and live-performers alike to tether their products (drum machines, synthesizers, efx boxes) in a sync-clocked network. And indeed this was so influential it was the inspiration for Dave Frank & Mic Murphy’s project The System. The original model of the LM-1 Drum machine provided each sound its own external output. From here, Prince and his bevy of engineer journeymen (Peggy McCreary, Susan Rogers, Coke Johnson etc) created effects chains running each drum sound through to its own pedal. Particularly in the earlier days (1980-1989) of Prince’s career, this was a mainstay of the production process. Prince’s allegiance to Roland Boss Pedals, Oberheim (Yamaha at times) throughout his life was equally due to his conception of a unique sound as it was to his “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, or “we sound like this, they sound like that” mentality. For Prince, this groove theory and sound was regarded as a “value system” as Susan Rogers & Jesse Johnson would later coin it.

Around 1985 there was a massive deck reshuffling of Paisley Park, Prince’s newfound palace. Studios were changing, members of various bands were either exchanged or released. Along with this change of scenery, the question of “where does the gear go?” followed. Prince had a storied history of searching for the perfect board. After Purple Rain, he switched from his standard API console to a newly installed SSL console. The former board landed in the hands of Jesse Johnson, who with the assistance of Susan Rogers would continue to branch out the system of MPLS sound as it were: hi-hats are always panned to the left, tambourines to the right, the proper EQ of the Linn Kick Drum, introduction of the snare etc.

Trying to answer the question of “how does one dance to this?”, and how to sequence that groove became the hot pursuit. A question that would continue to fly into the pantheon of production as America moved out of Disco and into more electronic based forms of funk.This kind of “club preview” technique would show up in the new millennium with The Neptunes, who would visit “the club before the studio”, to see how people were dancing/what they were feeling or not. This was standard practice in MPLS too decades earlier. In many cases, the proliferation of so many Prince bootlegs in public possession is purely due to this process of trying demos out in the club or leaving tapes in the backseat of taxi cabs (sometimes on purpose). This fluidity is what kept this sound on the pulse of the zeitgeist of so many trends that came to follow.

THE SOUND

Janet Jackson’s solo era marks a precise turning point in the development of the MPLS sound. Janet’s 1984 Dream Street, features two noteworthy production standouts by Jesse Johnson, who at the time was still in The Time. How he managed to produce these songs without facing the fate of Jam & Lewis (who were later fired for working with the SOS Band and missing a show date) is beyond most musicologists. However, Johnson was able to plant the seeds of this crossover of the MPLS sound from the basement boys from the North Side of Minnesota, and into the arms of the masses.

For instance, legend has it that “What Have You Done For Me Lately?” from Janet Jackson’s groundbreaking, Grammy Award Winning 1986 Control (produced by Jam & Lewis), may in fact have been born in a jam and/or session for The Time. Inklings of the groove can in fact be found in bootlegs, some Jesse Johnson songs, small sections of live moments throughout the early 80’s before the conception of the song. However, by this point in time, even mainstream white bread artists were riffing on the ideas coming out of Minneapolis. Whether it was Van Halen copying “Dirty Mind” on “Jump” or Stevie Nicks hiring Prince to mimic “Little Red Corvette” on “Stand Back”, the influence abounded. It was easy to hear the influence of the drum programming from distally proximal bands like Ready For The World. Between 1983-1988, the modern radio was flooded with the varieties that the MPLS sound had to offer, and the width of its groove theory.

Jody Watley, Cherrelle, Alexander O’Neal, The Jets, SOS Band, Sheena Easton, Sheila E and others all carried out careers marked with singles that at times showed the evolution of the sound on pop radio. As the collection of producers who would carry out its bidding grew from the once small camp to a now billowing cloud, its footprint would dance far from the city limits of Minneapolis and its surrounding midwestern proximity. The DIY, basement sounds of Prince’s Dirty Mind or the debut album from The Time, would now be encompassed by a maturer, glossier and radio dominant sound, rewarded in countless awards for Jackson, Watley and others alike.

The ripple effect of production hands for the highly sought out, in demand MPLS style was likened to a mythological/geographical godsend (i.e. Dayton, Bay Area). The family tree of capable practitioners started to push the sound further into the late 80s & 90s with songs like “She Drives Me Crazy”, the breakout hit for UK group Fine Young Cannibals, produced and engineered by David Z, brother of Revolution drummer, Bobby Z. David Z was at once a side engineer in the Paisley Park camp and a budding producer in his own right. Developing work for side projects like Mazarati, whose early version of “Kiss” would later be shelved and repurposed for Prince’s own project that same year. Within both songs, you hear the gated pop snare and its rippling echo side-chain. Remnants of these sounds would be heard a decade later on the 1995 soundtrack for A Goofy Movie, where Rivkin would write/produce both “I2I” and “Stand Out” for the Prince-adjacent Powerline character, voiced by Paisley Park patron, Tevin Campbell, and demoed by St. Paul Peterson, formerly of The Family (1985).

THE MESSAGE

As soon as Go-Go Music and New Jack Swing emerged to help ingratiate modern funk into the landscape of Hip Hop as the new frontier, the seeds of the MPLS sound had long been dispersed. Its head would continue to rear in the drum interpolations of “Nasty Girl” in Kelis’ Star Trak produced “Milkshake” or the Morris Day indebted 24K Magic era from Bruno Mars. A very underground and transitional sound in the fabric of music, which was emboldened by some pretty monolithic players. Its imprint is so wide, that at times we may forget the birthstone of those who pushed modern music to what we enjoy now. As true to the tide they may be or pastiche as the homages may seem, the tenets of the sound remain the same: less is more, and what you got just might be a lot.

PHOTOS:

1976 Lineup of Grand Central

Andre Cymone & Prince

Oberheim System Ads

Susan Rogers 1987

Jesse Johnson & Janet Jackson 1988

Jam & Lewis & Janet Jackson 1990s

Lovesexy Tour Photo Prince & Crew 1988