Recap & photos: Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis celebrate the Minneapolis Sound at the Grandstand

August 31, 2026

From left: Terry Lewis, Ruben Studdard, Shanice Wilson, and Jimmy Jam. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis Homecoming: A Celebration of the Minneapolis Sound took place on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026, at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.Bump Opera for MPR

The Minnesota State Fair is a celebration of all things local, but for a few hours on Saturday night, the focus narrowed to Minneapolis. Billed as Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis Homecoming: A Celebration of the Minneapolis Sound, Saturday’s Grandstand show was exactly that. The hometown victory lap from two guys who have racked up more Billboard No. 1 hits than any other songwriting and production team in chart history, and honed the iconic sound that Prince, Morris Day, the Time, and more unleashed in the ’80s and ’90s.

The evening did not begin smoothly. After a brief introduction championing the Minneapolis Sound from All About the Culture’s Alexis Rogers, she announced Jam and Lewis to, well, nothing. Several awkward moments of absolute silence followed before the opening DJ wandered back out to spin part of Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” and buy some time. Take two of the intro finally did the trick. Jam and Lewis emerged, Lewis with a bass slung over his shoulder and Jam strapped into a keytar, and the awkwardness evaporated the instant they dropped into the S.O.S Band’s “Just Be Good To Me.”

From there the show became an absolute nonstop whirlwind, lurching from one Minneapolis-made classic to the next. The evening’s two core vocalists, Shanice Wilson and American Idol season two champion Ruben Studdard, did much of the heavy lifting for the first half of the night. Both were in tremendous form early on during S.O.S. Band’s “Tell Me If You Still Care,” Cherrelle’s “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On” and “Saturday Love,” and Alexander O’Neal’s “Fake.” Just over 6,000 people were in attendance, and many of the folks came decked out in their finest Prince, Time, and Jam and Lewis duds, proof that the Minneapolis Sound is still alive and vital.

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis perform on an outdoor stage. — Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis Homecoming: A Celebration of the Minneapolis Sound took place on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026, at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.
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The first half of the night was mostly organized around Jam and Lewis’s biggest hits, specifically the mountain of No. 1 songs they’ve written and produced over the past four decades. To make it easy on the non-diehards, a Billboard chart flashed on the massive stage screen before nearly every song, listing Jam and Lewis’s names alongside the artist. More often than not, that artist was Janet Jackson.

Before Studdard and Wilson tore into “What Have You Done for Me Lately,” Jam addressed the crowd for the first time. “Terry and I like to make music, but we don’t make hits,” he said. “You guys are the ones who make them the hits.” He also cut to the heart of why they were doing this show in the first place: “We always love an excuse to come back home, and this was the perfect reason for us.”

At this point in the show, it began to feel more like a Janet Jackson showcase than anything else. “Escapade,” “Miss You Much,” and “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” all landed well enough, though not even Wilson and Studdard combined can match the singular power of Janet. “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” was reframed as the Prince/Jackson duo it was originally written to be, with Wilson and Studdard trading off parts. Jam and Lewis’s global reach also got its due with the Human League’s “Human” fitting right in alongside the Jackson hits. A little while later, Jam sat down at a grand piano and challenged the crowd to name the next song from a single note before striking the opening key of Jackson’s “When I Think of You.” The crowd got it instantly. They rolled on with a medley of Alexander O'Neal's "Sunshine," Force M.D.'s' "Tender Love" (with the group turning up to a sea of cellphone lights), and Chanté Moore's "Chanté's Got a Man" (with Moore on hand as well).

If the first half of the show was focused on the hits, the second half was all about the bands and groups that Jam and Lewis have shepherded to fame over the years. Johnny Gill was a crowd favorite, blazing through “Rub You the Right Way, “My, My, My,” and New Edition’s “Can You Stand the Rain” while tossing roses into the crowd. Stokley Williams delivered energy-packed versions of “Vibrant” and “She,” the latter starting off with a pretty horrific AI Snoop Dogg introduction. (Fortunately, a real video of Snoop handled the actual verses.) Then came a reunion 20 years in the making. For the first time in two decades, all seven original members of St. Paul’s Mint Condition stood onstage together for “U Send Me Swingin’” and “Breakin’ My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes).”

“That was a Minnesota group,” Lewis proudly stated afterward. “That was made in Minnesota.” It was one of the few times all night the famously stoic Lewis said much of anything. For most of the show, he simply anchored the band with his bass and a firmly planted stance, letting the occasionally shouted “YEAH” do the rest.

The Minnesota love letter kept unfolding. Jam and Lewis recalled cutting their teeth at school dances, bar mitzvahs, and even polka gigs, and described their formula as a funky bottom and pretty top, with their Minnesota roots as their “seasoning.” “The city and community that raised us is responsible for who we are,” Jam said. Minnesota gubernatorial candidate and senator Amy Klobuchar turned up to deliver a Senate proclamation honoring Jam and Lewis. She was joined by 99-year-old Minneapolis blues fixture, and Jam’s father, Cornbread Harris, who stole the moment with a few words of his own: “Jimmy Jam is the son of Cornbread Harris, so tonight you have two bad boys in here.”

The back stretch leaned on some of the hitmakers who carried the Minneapolis Sound nationally but first, 11-year-old guitar virtuoso Minneapolis Mateo came out and absolutely shredded a solo on Jackson’s “Black Cat,” a hit produced not by Jam and Lewis, but by fellow Minneapolis Sound pioneer Jellybean Johnson. Jordan Knight ran though his solo single “Give It to You” and New Kids on the Block’s “You Got It (The Right Stuff).” Bell Biv DeVoe kept the energy sky-high with “Do Me!,” “When Will I See You Smile Again?,” and a version of “Poison” that had the entire Grandstand dancing and singing along. Yolanda Adams turned “Open My Heart” into a showstopper, and the almighty Sounds of Blackness emerged for “I Believe.” As a friendly reminder, if you ever have the chance to see Sounds of Blackness live, take it.

I’ve now had the opportunity to see and write about three different tributes to the Minneapolis Sound in a single summer, and Saturday’s was easily the best one. The Prince Celebration of Life at the Armory and the Minneapolis Sound set at Eaux Claires both leaned heavily on Prince and his immediate orbit. Saturday’s show reached far wider. By folding in the S.O.S. Band, the Human League, New Edition, Bell Biv Devoe, and a Janet Jackson catalog’s worth of chart-toppers, Jam and Lewis presented the Minneapolis Sound not as a local scene but as a force that reshaped pop music far beyond the Twin Cities.

That’s not to say Prince was forgotten entirely on Saturday. He was conspicuously absent from the setlist right up until the opening notes of “Purple Rain” rang out to close things down for the night. Unfortunately, it sort of fell apart at the end of an otherwise fun show. Even with Sounds of Blackness and Stokely Williams handling vocal duties.

Not long before that, the moment much of the crowd had been waiting for all night: Morris Day and Jerome Benton strolled out for perfect versions of “Jungle Love” and “The Bird.” After the Prince Celebration show, I wrote that Morris Day might just be the coolest man alive, but I spent most of Saturday night ready to hand that title off to the impossibly stoic Terry Lewis. The instant Day and his pinstripes hit the stage, though, he took the crown right back.

The entire evening was played like a love letter to the state and city that made Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis who they are. As Jam put it earlier in the evening, the city raised them. On Saturday, they came home to show their immense gratitude for that upbringing.

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis Homecoming: A Celebration of the Minneapolis Sound

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