What is The Minneapolis Sound? You definitely know it when you hear it: drum machines, intense synth sounds, heavy rock guitar solos and funky bass lines with a dash of jazz sprinkled on top. Many point to Prince’s third studio album, Dirty Mind (1980), as the first time all elements of The Minneapolis Sound collided, causing a seismic shift in the sonic landscape of popular music and cementing Prince as the king of the genre. Prince went on to build, refocus, and redefine the sound throughout his nearly 40 year career, but The Minneapolis Sound was not his creation alone.

We’ll take you there – to the sites where earlier generations of musicians such as James “Cornbread” Harris and Pepe Willie laid down the foundations of The Minneapolis Sound. We’ll take you to the streets of the city’s Northside and Southside neighbourhoods, where the passions and talents of many fresh young musicians bound by their love of rock, funk, jazz, New Wave, and rhythm and blues sparked the sound. We take in the places where Prince’s contemporaries lived, recorded, and performed: Sonny Thompson, Morris Day, Andre Cymone, James “Jimmy Jam” Harris III, Terry Lewis, Garry “Jellybean” Johnson, Sue Ann Carwell, Cynthia Johnson, and many more. Then let us show you how The Minneapolis Sound continues to spread its roots, reaching today’s hit makers like Lizzo, Beyonce, Janelle Monae, Brittany Howard, Bruno Mars, and many more.

Let’s explore the city of Minneapolis through The Minneapolis Sound…

No artists detailed here or mentioned in this tour, including the Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson are affiliated, associated, or connected with SoundAround nor have any of these parties endorsed or sponsored SoundAround and this The Minneapolis Sound tour. Further, no artist, nor the Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson, has not licensed any of its intellectual property to the owners of SoundAround and its The Minneapolis Sound tour.