The Way and Musical Communities in North Minneapolis (Popular Music Study Group)

Andrea Swennson is a host and writer at Minnesota Public Radio's The Current, where she helms "The Local Show," a weekly show dedicated to exploring the Minnesota music scene, and the "O.K. Show podcast," which investigates the intersection between music and wellness. She has covered Minnesota music actively since 2005. Prior to joining MPR she was the music editor of City Pages, where she founded the AAN AltWeekly Award-winning "Gimme Noise" music blog, and edited and contributed to online music sites Reveille Magazine and HowWasTheShow.com. She recently created a four-part podcast called "Prince: the Story of 1999" and is the author of the book Got to Be Something Here: The Rise of the Minneapolis Sound (Minnesota, 2017). In the talk, she will discuss R&B in Minneapolis before Prince, incorporating oral history and archival research about several important spaces, the most important of which was a community center called "The Way."