Minneapolis legend Sophia Eris earned her status through her work as an organizer, artist, and world-touring DJ. She has a deep knowledge and reverence for Hip-Hop, R&B, and Minnesota Music across genre. Sophia stopped by the studio to share that joy with us, making a mixed filled with female artists, classics, creative edits, and more.

Stay tuned for new mixes on Carbon Sound every other Wednesday. If you’re a DJ and want to be considered for the series, email a mix of yours to jgreen@mpr.org.

A stadium-ready set from Minneapolis legend Sophia Eris.


Sophia Eris (3/20/24)

Julian Green

Each week, we add new music, older tracks, which are known as “Gold adds”, and tracks that might not fit our general format, but still deserve a place in rotation because they serve our mission of showing the depth, breadth, and influence of Black musical expression - These are known as “Variety adds.”

. If you make music and want it considered for rotation, 

 If you want to give feedback directly, reach out to me at jgreen@mpr.org.

Tune in to hear our host Sanni B. live on The Message from 10 AM to 1 PM Monday through Thursday!

Keep all these tracks in one place with the 

 Spotify playlist. This playlist is updated weekly with all the new adds. When that playlist is cycled with new tracks, the tracks live forever on the 

 playlist. That playlist contains all of the music that we've added since the week of July 11, 2022 in chronological order of when it was added. All of the tracks available on Spotify, at least.

Julian Green built and manages the music library for Carbon Sound and oversees content creation.  


All of the tracks added to rotation on Carbon Sound the week of March 18, 2024.


Image for New on Carbon Sound Spotify playlist

Natalia Toledo

New on Carbon Sound

Old on Carbon Sound

New Music on Carbon Sound - Week of March 18, 2024

All of the tracks added to rotation on Carbon Sound the week of March 11, 2024.


New Music on Carbon Sound - Week of March 11, 2024

Yoni Light is a multifaceted artist and educator, co-founder of New Black City and Vogue Down Mpls, and more. In her interview with Carbon Sound, she talks about how New Black City, her Femme Hip-hop dance crew, creates space and opens doors for women of color to express themselves.


Yoni Light stopped by to talk to Carbon Sound’s host Sanni about using dance as a connection point for interaction and social change, recent projects like her one-woman show “In Search of Her,” creating space for the ballroom community through Vogue Down Mpls, and a whole lot more.

The Message - Yoni Light Pt. 1

Pt. 2

Goodies Dance Visual

New Black City: Rent Freeze Protest

After Party x New Black City

Ciara - 1, 2 Step (Official Video) ft. Missy Elliott

The life of Alvin Ailey

Yonika 007 OTA NYC GP Beginners Performance

John Kueppers

Interview: Yoni Light on The Message

Yasmeenah's love for music shines through her on her mix for Carbon Sound, mixing deep house, amapiano, and more. UNBOTHERED, Yasmeenah's event series, has featured local and national DJs that pay homage to the Black roots of electronic music. For her mix, she did the same, expanding our knowledge of these genres and making us move simultaneously.

Yasmeenah (3/6/24)

Every 1st of the month, we’re creating an all-encompassing roundup of tracks, projects, and music videos that were released by Minnesota artists from that previous month. 

If we missed something Minnesota made that dropped in February, DM us on 

Keep all these tracks in one place with “Carbon Sound’s 1st of the Month - February” Spotify playlist. Expect an updated 1st of the Month Playlist on……every 1st of the Month.  Mark your calendars accordingly.

Blvck Madonna - Ain’t No Fun When The Rabbit Got The Gun

Ain’t No Fun When The Rabbit Got The Gun

Carbon Sound's 1st of the Month - February Playlist

Carbon Sound's First of the Month - February Playlist

FREEASSSTYLE - EssJay TheAfrocentricRatchet x Ace Pitty

Tailor Briann - Feel A Way Ft. Prince Riley & YONjayR (Official Video)

Lewiee Blaze & Lakesuede - SayLess (Official Music Video) Shot by @MattWalesMedia

Naurriioo - 4EvaDirty In The Hillz (Official Music Video)

J Plaza x C DOT Castro "ESPALON" - Drown The Mic Performance

That Boy C4 -THIS YEAR OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO

Maya Marchelle - No Magic (Official Lyric Video)

PM TEE - Not Ready (Official Music Video) Directed By @s8nluck2

WaterSong by SoulFlower - Tiny Desk Submission

Obi Original and the Black Atlantics "Pure Water" | 2024 NPR Tiny Desk Contest Submission

Lewiee Blaze & Tango - Be Free “Live From The Studio” (Tiny Desk Submission)

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Author

Maria Gonzalez-Grimes

Cat Grimm

Nikhil Kumaran

Highlighting Minnesota made tracks, projects, and music videos released over the month of February 2024.


Graphic for Carbon Sound's 1st of the Month Playlist

devons road

Unlock The Chamber

HoneySuckle4Luv

Ain't No Fun When The Rabbit Got The Gun

Second Opinion

Neek

Carbon Sound's 1st of the Month

Sumer - Relapse (Visualizer)

ZORA - hush [official music video]

JUST JIMI - Beam Me Up (Mic Performance)

Swamp-Blu Bone tiny desk submission 2024

Huhroon Tiny Desk Submission 2024

Minnesota Music Releases to check out from February 2024

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.

The Message - L.A. Buckner Interview

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.

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

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

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.

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?

How To Make a Living as a Drummer with Arthur 'LA' 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.

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?

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.

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

Where is the Funk? How Prince Created the Minneapolis Sound

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.

Chicago created some of the best musicians of all time.

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. 

, 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 --

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 

. 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 

, 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. 

 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.

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?

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.

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. 

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

First Avenue- Best New Bands "Fireflies" 4K (L.A. Buckner & BiG HOMiE)

(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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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. 

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 is a musician, drummer, teaching artist, producer, and more from North Minneapolis. In his interview with Carbon Sound, he talks about his responsibility to represent where he’s from in the same way musicians from other major cities do.


a man in all red in posing for a polaroid photo

A woman and man pointing at each other in front of a Carbon Sound Poster 1

Where is the Funk? How Prince Created the Minneapolis Sound (feat. Jellybean Johnson of The Time)

Curly Martin

Big Homie

Arthur "LA" Buckner - John P Kee, Medley

Mint Condition Live! Chris Daddy Dave killin'

Interview: L.A. Buckner on The Message

New York City DJ and producer Dazegxd stopped by Carbon Sound's studio during his visit to the Twin Cities for Carbon Sound's HEART BEATS rave at 7th St Entry. Flawlessly mixing jungle, Jersey club, and samples from his jailbroken PS Vita, Dazegxd proves his status as one of the most exciting young DJs touring the country in his mix.

Take a listen to New York City DJ and producer Dazegxd’s mix for Carbon Sound


Dazegxd (2/21/24)

 on Oct. 27, 2023. This marked his first album in nearly 4 years and his first fully instrumental album since 

 — all with no collaborations or features. Carbon Sound caught up with DJ Shadow ahead of his 

 tour stop at First Avenue in Minneapolis on Tuesday Jan. 30.

DJ Shadow stopped by Carbon Sound ahead of his 'Action Adventure' tour stop in Minneapolis on Tuesday Jan. 30.

DJ Shadow Interview

Hello, I am John from Carbon Sound. And I have the distinct honor and privilege of sitting down here with DJ Shadow. DJ Shadow has released 

 that came out in October of 2023. He's here now just about two weeks into his 

It's good to be back, it's been a minute. It's been like, over seven years, I think, since I was last here.

There are some things that I just kind of want to hop in right when it comes to 

. And there may be some buzzwords that I use that have kind of been used a lot for this album. So just like a forewarning there, but one that does stick out to me is nostalgia. And this idea that a lot of the conception of this album came from you buying those '80s mixtapes and then there's also this resurgence of comic books that kind of like crept into the album in different and really cool ways. But you've been on record also kind of saying that nostalgia can be seductive and corrupting in some ways. So I'm just curious, like, what is your perspective on nostalgia in music making, and what place it holds?

It has to be honest. In other words, if you rewind about five years, in 2019, I put out a double album. It's my first double album. One disc was all instrumental compositions, the other disc had all vocals, you know, but not like the instrumentals were instrumental versions of the vocal tracks, it was two distinctly different sets of music. And I had felt like I had been building up to that. And then unfortunately, like three months later, COVID hit, and I had to stop -- I was only able to do I think, seven shows overseas. And I was -- I had, like 100 shows ready to, you know, be booked and everything. So I think like everybody, I just was sitting at home trying to figure out what was happening. My daughters were, you know, in their sophomore and junior years of high school, and we're just as a family unit trying to navigate this, all this information and all this new territory that we were all in. And I just didn't feel like making music for a long time. I just didn't. And I'm a big believer that if you sit down to create, and you're not in a good headspace, to manifest something positive, then what you make is going to be something that I can't trust. You know what I mean? Something that I can't rely on to really speak for me and my true intentions. So, I just didn't want to make music for a long time. And I was feeling a certain way, obviously, about how it went down with that big album. 

DJ Shadow's 2019 Album 'Our Pathetic Age'

And it really wasn't until like a year and a half into that whole thing, when I basically was tipped off to this big collection on eBay of tapes that this guy had recorded off the radio in the Baltimore area, in '84 '85 '86, that kind of area. And I was really curious to hear what these mixes sounded like from Baltimore. Literally, it was just a thing where I kind of put some bid thinking I probably won't win. And then I ended up winning for the minimum bid. And the tapes all came and I was kind of interacting a little bit with the seller, and he was like, 'I hope you enjoy these, I, you know, put a lot of hours and time into this. And I love listening to them, but it's time for them to find another home.' And I really didn't think much of it, and I put a tape in and was just immediately transported to this really, really fun time. The group of individuals that made the mix, ended up forming a group called Numarx. And I know I'm getting long winded now, but Numarx ended up writing a song called 

 which was covered by a European group, and ended up being the 

 And some of the guys from Numarx in the industry. One of them was running Def Jam for a while. So rewind back to 1984, and they're just super enthusiastic teenagers basically. And they put so much energy into these mixes, it just was infectious. And I was listening to them and just, it's almost like an alternative universe where all these records I hadn't heard in a super long time, were being cut up and scratched in a way that I just couldn't have imagined. They did a lot of little bedroom edits, kind of Latin Rascals style, which was really really interesting as well, because nobody on the west coast was doing that, those type of mixes at that time. So bottom line is I found a way back into a pure love of music via these tapes and via this energy. And also what was cool, was like almost all mix shows in the mid '80s, it was really difficult to get away with playing like an hour of straight rap music. You always had to kind of segue into other types of R&B. So I ended up kind of rediscovering a lot of R&B records I hadn't heard really since then. And some of which I had never heard. So, I mean, it directly ended up influencing one song on my album called 'You Played Me.' 

 on the record, and I, I was never really happy with the title. Just in my mind, I just imagined otherworldly beings, you know, fighting on some plane, not airplane, but like, you know, another plane of existence. And you know, whether it's 10,000 years ago, or 10,000 years from now, I wasn't sure. But that that's what I had in my head. And once that started to take shape, I went okay, well, then I want it to sound almost like they're casting spells against each other. And you start putting that into the sound design of the production and stuff. So yeah, I mean, coming up with a title or coming up with, okay, this is what this song is trying to say. For me, that's the only way I can ever finish anything.

 because there's this comparison you've made to DJing and making music sometimes and making seamless transitions to special effects in movies. Have you always seen that parallel? Or when did that become evident to you?

I mean, I'm a kid of those movies. You know what I mean? I was five when Star Wars came out. Like, a lot of things that we now see every day were created for these films, or during the process of making these films. And then also, there was a TV special in 1980 called SFX that Mark Hamill hosted, and it literally showed you how they made the sounds in the movie. And I think we are all conditioned now to just think, oh, it's a synthesizer, or it's a keyboard or whatever computer. But literally, they in one shot in the special, it had these guys out with a field recorder, and they were striking garage door springs with a wrench. And that's how they got those laser sounds that we all know. So it wasn't any kind of computer trickery or anything. It was just pure imagination, like, oh, that's how you do that. And it was influential for me because I started thinking, well, there was kind of a DIY component to it. And it didn't suddenly seem so difficult to imagine that someone like me could actually, you know, make these sounds. So it was -- as a young kid, it stood out. And when I listen to sound design in contemporary electronic music, whether it's like dubstep or trap or whatever, when I hear something that's really good, just like in the old days, when I'd hear a really inventive scratch pattern or something, it brings me back to that excitement I felt as a kid when I was looking at and hearing something brand new. So that's what I like as well about music, is I like the emotional component and the spiritual component. But I also sometimes like to flex, just really going in on complicated programming or complicated sound design to try to put something on a record that literally has never been heard before.

Right, and there's so much excitement that comes with that. And kind of harping on what you had said about excitement as a kid, I think something that -- work you've done that reflects that is also DJ Hero. Just knowing that you had a hand in ideation of DJ Hero, what aspects of DJ culture were important for you to include in that game? And was there anything you feel like you had to fight for in the making of that game to include?

Hmm. By the time they reached out to me, they had Grandmaster Flash on board. And obviously, that would have been my first suggestion is like, well, you got to have somebody like Flash, like, representing the game. You got to get the founding fathers on board. And then I think from there, it was things like okay, well, I remember having a conversation at Activision where -- or, yeah, I guess it was at Activision -- where I was like, okay, well, what sounds are we going to be scratching? I was like, you better go start trying to license some of these classic scratch sounds. So I mean, it was really just my job initially, to just kind of be a sounding board and like, 'have you thought about this? Have you thought about that?' And then later, it came in to more gameplay things like, what am I allowed to do in the mixes that I turned in? How are they going to be reflected in terms of gameplay? Could I be scratching two different -- can I stack scratches, like in the mix? I wanted it to sound good, just as a four-minute piece of music. I didn't want it to just sound like chaos. But basically what I did is I turned in the mashup, as if a player did nothing, and then the mash up as if the player got 100% and executed all the moves. So then from that they could kind of send the audio accordingly, you know in stems based on the gameplay.

Well, DJ Shadow, the pleasure is all ours. I'm very grateful for you being here today. I'm very grateful for you playing on this amazing 

Tour. I wish you the best and thank you again for being here today.

DJ Sahdow's 2023 Album 'Action Adventure'

Carbon Sound caught up with DJ Shadow ahead of his Action Adventure tour stop at First Avenue in Minneapolis on Tuesday, Jan. 30.


Stories

Sophia Eris (3/20/24)

New Music on Carbon Sound - Week of March 18, 2024

New Music on Carbon Sound - Week of March 11, 2024

Get the Carbon Sound app

Interview: Yoni Light on The Message

Yasmeenah (3/6/24)

Minnesota Music Releases to check out from February 2024

Interview: L.A. Buckner on The Message

Connect with Carbon Sound

Dazegxd (2/21/24)

DJ Shadow Interview

New Music on Carbon Sound - Week of Feb. 12, 2024

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