The Minneapolis Music Census is a community-led initiative that was created to learn more about the needs of the city's musical ecosystem. The results of the survey are in — and joining The Current’s Morning Show to talk about it is Ben Johnson, the director of Minneapolis' Arts and Cultural Affairs Department.

Johnson points out that music is integral to Minneapolis, and the survey seeks to identify the needs of musicians, venue operators, producers and others involved in the music community, while also looking for areas for potential investment and even policy changes. Use the audio player to listen to Johnson’s interview with Jill Riley, and find a full transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Jill Riley: You're listening to The Current. I'm Jill Riley. Joining us this morning is Ben Johnson, the director of Minneapolis' Arts and Cultural Affairs Department. Ben, welcome to The Current's Morning Show.

Ben Johnson: Hello, and thank you for having me.

Jill Riley: Of course. Well, let's talk about the Minneapolis Music Census. I mean, the first question is: What is it?

Ben Johnson: Minneapolis Music Census was our first foray in truly trying to understand the creative and economic impact of our own music scene. Music is everywhere in Minneapolis, and I know it's an identity for our city. It's foundational for our city, and people love our music scene, but that scene has never really had us really look at and understand what its opportunities are, where it needs help and support. And so when our department decided to move forward with that, it was because our department is brand-new to the city. A lot of people think that the Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs has been around for a long time, and actually—

Jill Riley: That's what I assumed!

Ben Johnson: It's only two years old, which is really exciting. And so on one hand, I tell people that it was really great that during COVID, the city decided to express some arts leadership and form a brand-new department. But on the other hand, it's Minneapolis, and we should have had a department for 50 years, but here we are.

Jill Riley: Maybe that's why I assume that's why I assumed it had been around for a long time, just because of the arts and cultural scene of Minneapolis. OK, so the Minneapolis Music Census, we were really interested in learning more about it. And I mean, you kind of hit on this a little bit; really, why measure the musical ecosystem of a city? I mean, any city, but especially Minneapolis?

Ben Johnson: When we started this process, we recognized that Minneapolis is one of the great music cities, that we're a really well-known indie scene. And I was thinking about that; like we're an indie scene because we have to be, because there really isn't a support system around really thinking about how to incubate, amplify and promote venues, musicians, conditions for venues or for festivals. How do you deal with emerging or established artists? And really thinking about our unique identity as a city, and what kind of artists would develop in Minnesota and how they could have thriving careers, not just gig careers, and really trying to understand those issues.

And the reason we started the conversation in the first place was because when the program was started and I moved here, we had a meeting with MNIVA, Minnesota Independent Venue Alliance, and they said that there was this big national census, about 15 music cities were all going to participate, and they were being invited, and we hadn't been invited. So I called them and got us invited so that Minneapolis could be in conversation with 15 other cities at the same time, so they could look and see how we compare next to, or do things in a similar way to other cities, and what we can learn from them, and just really analyze what we do and what we don't have. And some cities, like Seattle, are doing profound things to support their music cities, an Austin, Texas too, and what could we learn from them? We decided to do the whole census, and the first step was like, "Who do we invite to be our cohort?"

And so we invited the big players, the major corporate entertainment music spaces like Live Nation and bookers, as well as the smallest independent, indie radio stations and as many different diverse musical groups as we could get, as well as the Minnesota Orchestra, Hennepin Arts, as well as the membership of the MNIVA group, which is all the independent venue associations. And my interest was above and beyond just MNIVA, the venues, which was really about a really more complex portrait of the depth of our scene. We worked collaboratively over a year with all these partners just to get the word out, to fill out a survey. And I think there's some hesitancy amongst a lot of people, because they're like, "A survey coming from the city? Who is this department?" But our intentions are really good. We were really trying to understand how a city does or does not help, promote and amplify its own a music scene, and the music scene being something that we knew was a really important part of understanding the fabric of what it means and our quality of life, what it means to be in Minneapolis, and also to really support the vibrancy of our city as we imagine it and as we remember it. And then as the waves of displacement, or the waves of whatever happened to a city, we want to make sure that the music scene is propped up. And what we realized during COVID is that there was no safety net. So what are the things that we're doing and really understanding the pipelines for musicians, the support systems, and also, if it's great, what do we do to even make it better?

Jill Riley: I'm talking with Ben Johnson, the director of Minneapolis Arts and Cultural Affairs Department. We're talking about the Minneapolis Music Census. So Ben, I'm curious about some of the findings about the composition of the music scene in Minneapolis. I mean, we think, “OK, there are the musicians, there are the venues, but there's a lot that makes up this industry.”

Ben Johnson: There's a lot of different aspects of people who either want to have studios, want to do R&D, want to produce festivals, want to have something on a small level, want to do something on large level, really want to be a composer, really want to be a songwriter. And for us, when the results came in, and all of those results are available online, you can see how it's skewed more towards what we'd think: That the results look like the population that took the survey skewed more white, more affluent and middle aged, and we sort of knew that some of that would surface, and we used this report as just an opportunity to sort of then think, "Well, that doesn't look like the scene that we know in Minneapolis." It's such a global, international, diverse city. And so after the report happened, we held a public event with the music community, and we actually had Don Pitts — who was the designer of the survey, who's based in Austin, Texas, who also managed the 15-city cohort — to come in and actually interpret live what he saw as interesting about our report as compared to other cities.

And then also, we did a panel of local artists to also look and interrogate the report and say, "Is this us? Is this not us? Is this what we think it is?" And so that's the opportunity now, I think, is to take this report and say, "Oh, there might be a whole — there's a whole roster of other scenes that we should commission more research and study on so we really know how to support the full portrait of our city."

Jill Riley: Well, when the results of the Minneapolis Music Census were being presented, there were those moments of, "Well, this is interesting," or "This is unique to this city that we don't see in other cities." What were some of those things specifically?

Ben Johnson: I think one of the things that surfaced was that the report versus the conversation during the panel was that they didn't feel like there was a lot of support for pay for artists, and in the report, it said there was actually people making a lot of money. And so that could be that there are union classical music musicians taking the report, or the administrators were doing the survey, or it's hard to know, because the survey was anonymous. 

Jill Riley: Oh, I was just gonna ask that. OK.

Ben Johnson: So we just wanted to, like, get people's feedback. So that was an interesting aspect, and I'd agree with that. Like, I don't think that we were able to really delve into, like, very important communities within the Native community. I don't think that enough of the issues that are facing women, club workers and our musicians are facing in terms of safety. Certainly, you know, we know we have a large Latino music world that happens surrounding us in Minneapolis, and I don't think — even though we did go into Spanish-speaking radio stations and put out the survey in Spanish as well. I mean, it's just hard to get the word out in the way that we were trying to, but we did try.

Jill Riley: Yeah.

Ben Johnson: And I could just go down the list of all the other sort of, like, I would call niche groups, I guess, for lack of a better word. But like, groups that we know are here; like, there's a choral scene. Did we reach them? Like, that's an important thing. Did we reach everybody in the punk community? We know that's an important scene. And you know, the massive LGBT community and trans community of musicians, and we did reach out to them? And so those are smaller groups. And so I do think that, you know, in some way, the report does tell some truths, but on the other hand, we have to, like question some of it. But I think that the information is really the first time a conversation happened across the city. This group has, as far as we know, in terms of who we talked with, had never actually met together before, and so that was an exciting thing to think about, is that we could think about working all together on a bigger issue.

Jill Riley: Well, because then you're identifying the opportunities there. And I wonder, what are some of the opportunities that really were identified through the conversations?

Ben Johnson: Some of them certainly would be perhaps a gig fund for artists so that they are getting paid appropriately. You know, really supporting programs that incentivize the presentation of Minneapolis-based artists or Minnesota-based artists versus only touring artists from L.A. or New York. Festivals that really celebrate and amplify the rich diversity of our city in really meaningful ways. Really looking at what the venues need, because the venues only have so much capacity, and, examining the trends of  younger attendees and concertgoers.

For me, one of the big issues was the ability to perform better and become better performers and musicians. So this isn't just about bands performing at clubs. This is like musicians, composers, singer-songwriters, people working on music. Like, we should be a hive of that. We're the creative engine of the whole state. So, like, what is the new, radical, meaningful utopia of music-making that should happen here? For instance, if you go to downtown Minneapolis, like, why don't we have music in every single bar and restaurant like they have in New Orleans or in San Juan, Puerto Rico? Where did we lose our way on that? Like that should be just part of our expectation and our ethos. And I know we're a four-season city, but where is our big Minneapolis music festival that celebrates all of our — and commissions and produces and does collaborations in a much bigger way? We have some smallerversions of that, but I want us to be a big, bold, creative city, and music at the forefront, and it's the thing that we know that people love the most. I mean, the number of tickets being sold at the Armory, at the stadiums, at First Avenue and all of our clubs, you know, is really insane to see everything being sold out. We have no tracking of any of that, the number of nights being sold, the tickets — I mean, collectively — the number of tickets being sold, the amount of money being spent, the opportunities for artists. And so that's the opportunity; like, we can't say what our creative impact is and justify going after policy and our programs until we really know that. That also takes a collaborative effort for everyone to jump on board and do that kind of work. But I think that's good to know; like we know, how many hotel rooms we sell in a city, so it'd be a great thing for us all to work collaboratively on that.

Minnesota has always been seen at the forefront, especially with our percent tax for the arts in Minnesota, and we know that we are just such an important cultural institution, and that's how we're seen nationally, internationally as well, that we should really think about, you know, three to five policies that really help us transform our city, and then really important programs that help us right now where we're going to go. But in a long-term sustainability model, not just a quick fix. 

Jill Riley: I'm talking with Ben Johnson, the director of Minneapolis' Arts and Cultural Affairs Department. And Ben has been telling us this morning about the Minneapolis Music Census, kind of the motivation behind it, the survey has been done, the conversations have started. For anyone who really wants to dig into some of those results, where's the best place to find this survey and the results?

Ben Johnson: The best place to find the survey and the results are on the Minneapolis Arts and Cultural web page. There is a dashboard where you can look at all the current data. And we are now having conversations about a number of other events that will happen this spring. We think they're going to be called Minneapolis Music Sessions, where we look at what do the early emerging artists need, or the youth scene need? What do production people need? What do festivals need? What do venues need? And where is the current level of funding? And what are just some cool, amazing, fabulous programs and opportunities to highlight, create, incubate, celebrate our work in our city? I often think of artists as the frontline workers for what is happening in our city: Where artists go, audiences follow. And they're the best ones to sort of address and bring visibility to the issues, but they also nurture our community in ways and bring people together. So I'm just trying to imagine a city and a region that's just heaving with music and all arts. But, you know, music is specific, and we also look at dance, theater, film, visual art, literary art, craft, design, architecture, everything in our city. But this is such an important part of our identity. And I'm also trying to get us to think about, you know, I love Prince; like, Prince music is folk music to Minnesotans, right? But like, do you know who the conductor is of the Minnesota Orchestra? Do you know three new leading jazz musicians? Who are five bands or singer-songwriters that are on the tip of your tongue? I want everyone to have that language too, not just, you know, always just like, who's the quarterback for our team?

Jill Riley: Yeah. And I would, I would never want to try to speak for Prince, you know, rest in peace, but I kind of feel like he would want people to know that too.

Ben Johnson: Totally! And I say this all the time: We want an Arts and Cultural Affairs Department as if Prince was running it. We want to have like, the funk, the style, the energy, the ferociousness and the creativity back in our city, and musicians and clubs are the spaces that really do that. And, you know, and festivals and wherever it can be. We want to really invest in a way to celebrate our city, give pride to our city, and really transform our city in the way that we think that should be.

Jill Riley: All right. Well, the Minneapolis Music Census, that data is out there. You can go to mplsartsandculture.org. Ben Johnson is the director of Minneapolis' Arts and Cultural Affairs Department. Thank you for coming in and just telling us about this, the motivation, the conversations that have started, and where the hope is to go in the future. Really appreciate it. Would you like to perhaps choose a Minneapolis artist that you'd like us to feature this morning?

Ben Johnson: Two artists I'm gonna pick for you and amongst a sea of them, and only just because they came to top of mind. One is SYM1, Simone Wilson is an artist who is doing a lot of incredible work, really driving a sort of a Minnesota version of a new pop scene, as well as Zaq Baker, who is, I think, one of our best pop-rock singer-songwriters now that is just emerging right now in Minneapolis.

Jill Riley: All right. Ben, thanks for coming by.

Ben Johnson: Thank you.

Jill Riley: You're listening to The Current.

Credits

Guest – Ben Johnson of Minneapolis Arts & Cultural Affairs
Host – Jill Riley
Producer – Nilufer Arsala
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor

External Links/Resources

Minneapolis Music Census – full report and results

Minneapolis Music Census – printer-friendly PDF

Minneapolis Arts & Cultural Affairs – official site