L.A. Buckner sat down with Carbon Sound’s host Sanni where they talked about his upcoming album ‘Norfside,’ a project paying homage to the musical and cultural influence yielded by North Minneapolis, the presence of Minnesota music across all genres today, and a whole lot more.

Sanni Brown

I'm so excited and so honored to be in the studio today with Arthur "L.A." Buckner. He is a performing musician, teaching artist, producer, co-host of the two-time Webby Award winning PBS music education YouTube series Soundfield, and more. Ladies and gentlemen of the Carbon Sound world, please give a warm welcome to Arthur "L.A." Buckner.

L.A. Buckner 

I've been waiting to get down with Carbon Sound for a long time.

Sanni Brown 

Oh, man. Well, we've been waiting too -- it's here.

L.A. Buckner 

Y'all mess with all the same people I mess with. I'm like, when my turn coming up? (Laughs) So yeah, I'm glad we doing this.

Sanni Brown 

I love this because we're starting our interview series. And it's so dope because I know about you guys, just because I've been watching you as a fan, but I love when I have all this information to share with everybody and it's all in one space. So who is Arthur "L.A.” Buckner?

L.A. Buckner 

I'm probably one of the most Northside people you ever gonna meet. I am learning to have so much pride in where I come from. I come from a really rich, historic culture, you know, musically, community education wise. I'm just proud to be from the Northside. I'm a musician from North Minneapolis. My next album coming out, it's called Norfside. Spelt with an 'F.' Norfside.

Sanni Brown 

I'm gonna jump right in. You say this next album is called Norfside. You're saying that as you're getting older, you're getting more pride in where you come from. Has that always been that way?

L.A. Buckner 

I'm just realizing. I'm realizing like so many things that we think is cool, or so many aspects of music -- it all relates back to Minneapolis. You know? Not all of it, but like so many parallels -- the Minneapolis Sound you know, it's such a huge inspiration to so many people around the world. And like this came from my neighborhood. Everybody and they Mama loves some Prince and Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, they got 43 Billboard No. 1's, just got inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. They went to my high school.

Sanni Brown 

Mint Condition.

L.A. Buckner 

Oh Stoke - Stoke is a whole 'nother chapter of my book.

Sanni Brown 

I'm glad you're saying all this because I feel like I'm at a point where -- I'm from Chicago. Chicago has its own music scene.

L.A. Buckner 

Chicago created some of the best musicians of all time.

Sanni Brown 

Yes, yes. But I want to show some love to Minneapolis right quick. And the Twin Cities. Because again, I grew up doing drill team, I grew up dancing. I grew up doing performances. I grew up with that. But when I came here, there was something different here. When I first came here, I remember going to Inner City Youth League. And I remember learning about the drill team, and just really navigating myself all these years in the Minnesota music scene. There's so much musical history here. Mint Condition, Immortal, Inner City Youth League, drill teams. And I think that's why I be so excited to be in the room with y'all (laughs). Because you guys are not only -- you were kids when these things were happening. When Prince was first being played on the radio -- like you guys, this is your culture. And now you guys are continuing to add to the culture, even naming your album Norfside. That's just, that's insane to me as someone who's a transplant from Chicago. I like how you just lightly, gingerly said he's just --

L.A. Buckner 

That's real. I remember I was -- this was right after Prince had passed, and I was cutting grass. And I was listening to a podcast done by Andrea Swensson, with the Prince podcast. And they played some unreleased vault tracks on the pod and he was talking about being Black in Minnesota. And it sounded so churchy; it sounded so funky. I'm like, they wouldn't even let this come out, no wonder it was in the vault. So it's like -- I feel like if he was on that, and he had pride about where you came from, like that's my responsibility. I come from the same neighborhood. I grew up on the same block as -- you know, so it's like, I have the responsibility too. To beat the Northside on my chest. And everybody from Detroit or Los Angeles or Chicago, they represent where they from. And Minneapolis, it's such a -- it's so low key. But them ones, they really know. I was talking to Terrace Martin, and he -- one of the biggest producers -- he one of the coldest. Well I got a chance to interview him, right. People look at Minneapolis as like a flyover kind of city. You know, because we not on the coast, you know, a bunch of farmland around us. But he said, he was like, ain't no fly over. No, he said you got to come through here. He was like, them ones, the ones who really about that music and really know what they doing, you got to come through Minnesota. He grew up here for some years, back and forth. His pops lived here. Curly Martin was one of the coldest jazz drummers around town back in the day. Terrace Martin was talking about Cub chicken and Cub donuts. And he's like, I done shoveled snow.

Sanni Brown 

But this is what I mean -- all of these heavy hitting musicians. And I said, you guys were kids here. And then you grew up and you make music and y'all just do it gingerly. It's one thing to show pride in your community, it's something else to put it in your music. Why do you feel like it's important to show pride in your music, about where you come from?

L.A. Buckner 

I mean, that's just the explanation of why it sound the way it sounds. You know, I can't rap -- I wish I could rap. I sing, but I don't have no lyrics though. I'm alright, right. So my music sounds the way I be feeling. My music sounds the way it feels to be a big Black man in this white state of Minnesota.

Sanni Brown 

Wow. Is that the drums?

L.A. Buckner 

All the sonics of it -- a lot of times, I be having to take a breath (takes breath) after hearing one of my songs like, dang. Because it's so intense. But I'm like, I released my album in 2020. This was shortly after George Floyd. 

Sanni Brown 

And the name of the album is Big Homie, we talking about -- that's dope. And it went, by the way, hit the number one jazz position on iTunes within 24 hours of its release.

L.A. Buckner 

That's wild.

Sanni Brown 

That's extremely wild. That's insanely wild.

L.A. Buckner 

But that's like, that's Minneapolis support. That's Minnesota, like --

Sanni Brown 

Do you think it's that pride, that you put in the music and people being able to relate to that?

L.A. Buckner 

I could say that, but I really don't know what it -- it's the grace of God, really. And people really supporting, you know, buying, purchasing the album. Not just streaming it, but like purchasing it. And I think it's a lot of influence -- and maybe the PBS thing did a little something, you know, but that's what my music sounds like. It sounds like -- it's my experience, it's my true experience. And you know, I love my city. The state of Minnesota is like, it's very peculiar being a Black person here. One of my homies just told me, he was like, I never got treated this Black until I moved to Minnesota. I was like, what does that mean? And he just looked at me, I was just like, I know exactly what you mean.

Sanni Brown 

I've had family members say that.

L.A. Buckner 

It's just different. It's a different thing here. So it's like -- even our crowd be kind of dry. People can attribute it to different reasons. My reason is the crowd be dry, in like especially Black audiences, because we have to be so restrained here. Just to, for survival. Just to play it cool. We can't get buck wild loud and dance and sing loud like how they do in Chicago. Even in church, we don't get as buck wild as we can get in church. Back in the enslavement days, that's the only free release time that we ever had, that's what it come from. And when I go to enjoy a show, I enjoy every show like I'm at church, so Imma talk back -- I'm reacting. But they need that energy, performers need that energy. But we just be so quiet.

Sanni Brown 

Why'd you call it Big Homie? Your 2020 project.

L.A. Buckner 

It's my term of endearment that I've been using for so long. Everybody can be the big homie. But I realized my calling in life is mentorship. The vehicle is just the drums, it's music. Anybody can be a big homie, it's anybody who's showing you how to go. Totally.

Sanni Brown 

Did you always teach? So you feel like Big Homie is representative of your calling to mentorship.

L.A. Buckner 

Yeah, when I was -- even a kid I always wanted to be either a drummer or a teacher.

Sanni Brown 

I taught for 25 years. What do you love about teaching? I love teaching. I love sharing with them.

L.A. Buckner 

I love sharing. I just love sharing and I love receiving, you know, the knowledge too. I love stealing from the student.

Sanni Brown 

(Laughs) Hey the kids got all the stuff. I feel like because they're not like you said restricted. They're not as affected by society's standards. There's no agenda.

L.A. Buckner 

The truth come out.

Sanni Brown 

The truth come out. They don't care -- 'why you look like that?'

L.A. Buckner 

You know, I had great mentors growing up. So I understand how the job is supposed to work. And I like stuff that they was telling me back in the day when I was 13. I'm realizing right now it's just like, oh, yo, I gotta hit them up. Yo, what you said really happened. You know what I'm saying? So it's this, you know, it's like foresight. It's analogies.

Sanni Brown 

I want to dig more into your mentorship but I'll save that for later. Let's get into Norfside with a F. Right. Okay. What inspired this album? What's the difference between Big Homie and Norfside? Because I don't know, I feel like they go together.

L.A. Buckner 

Norfside is bigger and badder, low key, than the last record. I've gotten better. My writing has gotten better, the production has gotten better. And then my engineer, has gotten even better, right. I have a song called Norfside and I was walking home from my old job -- I was teaching at my old high school, right? At North High School. And I was walking home and the snow was melting and the weather was getting good. It was just a good day; I was writing, this melody just came to me. I start recording on my phone. The melody is really beautiful but then the B section, the next section over, it get like real funky. It get real -- and that's exactly how the Northside be, it's one of the most beautiful places in the world. One of the greatest communities ever. Right? Everything is beautiful. Right? But then, it's some pockets where it really, it get like that.

Sanni Brown 

So this is about your love for Northside, this is about your life on the Northside -- what is it? Everything I just said?

L.A. Buckner 

All of it. Yeah it's about just my -- I want to, you know, pay homage to the ones that came before me. You know, young drummer just asked me the other day, he was like, ok so who influenced you on the drums? Like who? He's like, just don't sound like nobody I know. And I just had to think about it for a minute. And I was like, honestly, it's Stokely. Stoke from Mint Condition.

Sanni Brown 

Explain to me. How?

L.A. Buckner 

He's a drummer. He's a percussionist. Right.

Sanni Brown 

Okay I don't know him as that.

L.A. Buckner 

Yeah, he's a drummer. Like he's like a jazz drummer. He played funk, everything. He was playing on the first Mint Condition records, like playing drums. Yeah and Chris Dave -- they went to Howard University and saw this Chris Dave drummer drumming and was like, oh no you coming with us. Moved him to Minneapolis. Now like, I call him Chris Dave, the Michael Jordan of Black drummers, right. If he, if Chris Dave is Michael Jordan, then Stoke gotta be Wilt Chamberlain, right -- Bill Russell (laughs). He gotta be the super big home. And he's an amazing producer. So like I listened to that stuff in my formative years. When I'm 13, 14 all the way up. So it's like, that's a huge influence and like, just to see how respected he is amongst musicians, amongst my favorite musicians in the world. All the cats running the gigs now all the MD's on award shows, they crazy Mint Condition fans.

Sanni Brown

How can we follow you? Because we like you. We love you. We want to know where we can find you, because you clearly busy.

L.A. Buckner

I got a new website, it's labuckner.com. You can see all the dates, that's gonna be there with BiG HOMiE. You can find all the music via the website. You can find the music wherever you stream. You can find the music. I'm mixing this, the Norfside album right now. It's being mixed. I got a session on Wednesday. Everybody who's a part of the record they feel that strange feeling like, nah something 'bout to pop. Some 'bout to happen, you know, festivals, tour, whatever it is, like, it's gonna smack.

Sanni Brown 

labuckner.com. Any events? Are you playing anything we need to know about?

L.A. Buckner 

I'm playing at Crooners on March 1.

Sanni Brown 

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for pulling up.

L.A. Buckner 

Thank you Sanni, I appreciate you.

Sanni Brown 

And again, we can find you at labuckner.com, and you're going to be at Crooners on March 1. Alright this has been The Message, Carbon Sound Music for Life.

L.A. Buckner 

Carbon Sound. Love y'all.