AMPERS
Diverse Radio for Minnesota's Communities
In the 1990s, Venus de Mars was the goddess of Minneapolis dark glam with her group All the Pretty Horses. Today, she is an icon. Britt Aamodt takes a look at how a musical rebel became a trailblazer for transgender artists. [Read Transcript...]
Tou SaiKo Lee is a man of words. He’s a poet, spoken word artist and hip hop emcee. Britt Aamodt tells the story of how Lee married his Hmong heritage with a hip-hop beat in the group Delicious Venom. [Read Transcript...]
The ancient Hmong culture developed a number of musical instruments. Britt Aamodt looks at the qeej, an instrument whose tradition that is kept alive and celebrated by St. Paul’s Hmong community. [Read Transcript...]
Cornbread Harris was a Minneapolis pianist noodling around with a song recorded by the Count Basie Orchestra. Augie Garcia was a guitarist from St. Paul, who started improvising lyrics over Cornbread’s piano. Britt Aamodt tells how together the two came up with Minnesota’s first recorded rock-n-roll single. [Read Transcript...]
