Discovered and championed by Stevie Wonder after busking outside a California strip mall, Andra Day now has an album produced by Raphael Saadiq (among others), a music video directed by Spike Lee, and two Grammy nominations. 'It's pretty incredible the way it came about,' Day says. While visiting the Twin Cities, Day stopped at The Curent to perform a couple songs and to chat with Brian Oake.

Mavis Staples has been singing professionally since the 1950s, and she's still going strong with a new album coming out on Feb. 19, titled 'Livin' on a High Note,' plus an upcoming HBO documentary simply titled "Mavis!" It tells the story of her 60-plus years as a singer, including her time in the family group, The Staple Singers. Mavis Staples discusses her life and work in this interview.

The soundtrack to a new documentary inventories the periphery of the late singer's catalog: unheard early recordings, instrumentals, collaborations, live appearances and other illuminating footnotes.

For today's 9:30 Coffee Break, we're looking for songs that have lyrics that say one thing, but most definitely mean another.

MPR Cube Critic Stephanie Curtis joins Jade and Sean McPherson to talk about the 2016 Oscar-nominated short films.

Happy Friday! Deep in January weather, we know it can be hard to fantasize about warmer weather and more exciting times — but don’t worry, we got you. Check out these five new music videos and you’re sure to be transported somewhere else. Poliça This new music video by Poliça might be reminiscent of an eerie episode of Sesame Street, but…

On Wednesday, Reina del Cid released her new video for “Death Cap,” a song featured on her 2015 album The Cooling. The video was shot in Iceland — with del Cid following in the footsteps of Björk, Bon Iver, Sigur Rós, and most recently Justin Bieber. As breathtaking as Iceland appears in the video, del Cid says it’s even more beautiful in person. “We originally…

Aerosmith reached the top ten on the Singles Chart with 'Walk This Way'; Arctic Monkeys went No. 1 on the U.K. album chart with their debut album 'Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not'; and Willie Dixon died of heart failure, Today in Music History.

What a cool month January has been! When I was a student at Macalester, I worked for the radio station and had a radio show every semester I was there. I loved the process of putting together my playlists and felt at ease telling jokes and talking during vocal breaks — so being able to…

With the big Babes in Toyland show coming up on Saturday — which marks their first gig at First Avenue since 2001 — we asked the members of the righteous and Babes-inspired punk trio Bruise Violet to interview one of their musical heroes, Lori Barbero. What transpired was over an hour of hollering, shrieking, giggling,…