| Jazz88’s Peter Solomon sat down for a conversation with L.A. Buckner, who talks about why he celebrates his home turf of North Side Minneapolis, the influences that inform his music, and the evolution of his band Big Homie. L.A. Buckner and Big Homie are a headliner at this year’s Twin Cities Jazz Festival. You can catch the band Saturday, June 21st at 6 PM at the Jazz88 Main Stage at Mears Park in St. Paul. Pictured: L.A. Buckner with his 3-year-old daughter Onyx.
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PETER SOLOMON: Hey, it’s Peter Solomon. You’re tuned to the morning show on Minnesota’s jazz station, 88.5. This morning, I have the pleasure of speaking with drummer L.A. Buckner. L.A. Buckner and Big Homie are a headlining act at the Twin Cities Jazz Festival this year. They’re playing the Jazz88 Main Stage at 6pm on Saturday, June 21. Buckner brought his three-year-old daughter Onyx with him to the studio. She behaved perfectly, and we sat down to have a conversation about his music.
L.A. BUCKNER: My name is Arthur L.A. Buckner. I’m a musician, drummer, producer, teaching artist from the North side of Minneapolis.
SOLOMON: What is it that makes the North Side special? Because I know your most recent recording with Big Homie was called “Norfside.” So obviously it’s something that’s very important to you.
BUCKNER: Totally, the north side of Minneapolis. It has a rich black history, a rich culture, musically, politically, (and) educationally. It’s the birthplace of Prince and Morris Day and the Time and Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis and Janet Jackson even calls Minneapolis her hometown. You know, the musical history is super rich here. It was a very competitive band culture back in the in the day, back in the in the 70s, in the 80s, a very highly competitive band culture. The entire world loves the Minneapolis sound. Everybody borrows from it. Once a week, I hear something on TV or on Instagram and like they trying to sound like Minneapolis, whether it be church, whether it be pop radio, R, B, whatever it is, it’s like the Minneapolis sound has permeated through all cultures.
SOLOMON: Now I want to ask you a little bit about your own family’s background. I was reading that both your parents were musicians. Can you tell me about the music that you grew up with in your home?
BUCKNER: My father is a vocalist, a musician. His mother was a pianist, Thelma battle Buckner, and she had eight kids, three sets of twins and two individuals that had a group growing up, the Minneapolis Gospel Twins, and I grew up in the black gospel church. So that’s where my roots are. That’s where my sound is still, as jazzy as I’ve become, as much as I love hip hop and battle rap, I still can’t get away. I still won’t get away from my churchy roots, my gospel, my black gospel roots, and that’s where my music sounds the way it does. It’s intense, it’s vociferous, it’s loud, you know, it’s passionate. But, um, I attribute that to my gospel side. For my grandmother, Thelma Battle Buckner.
SOLOMON: Do you remember a time before you were playing drums?
BUCKNER: Not really, not really. I’ve always been attracted to the drums since I was, like three years old. My grandmother and my dad purchased my first kit when I was seven. I became the drummer of my church when I was 11. So I was playing in front of people all the time, every week, multiple times a week. So that really prepared me for high school and beyond college. When I got to college, that was a lot of times I went to McNally Smith College of Music – rest in peace – and a lot of my friends there was the first time playing regularly in front of people, and I had already had this experience, you know, just so my stage presence was already developed. I was used to it by that time. So, yeah,
SOLOMON: when did you decide to become a band leader?
BUCKNER: That’s a great question. I was driven to become a band leader because I found myself, I was playing in 13 different projects. Drummers are naturally leaders from jump, like we’re counting off tunes. We’re establishing tempo. But we got to drive the bus. We got to, you know, set up where to go. But I made the decision to leave several of the projects I was in, I think, around 2017. I got married in 2016 around 2017, 2018 you know, I was still playing with a lot of folks, but I wouldn’t even want to invite my family and friends to the shows I was coming to see, because the environments were hostile. You know, I’d be the only black dude in the building. And being here in the Midwest, it’s a very peculiar experience, especially when you like, are comfortable in your blackness. I’m 6’ 5’, 6’ 6’, and, you know, I’m confident. I’m good looking. So it’s like, it’s not well received in a lot of places that are just mostly white bodies. You feel me. So I had to break away from a lot of the projects I was in to be comfortable inviting my friends and family. To these venues, to places, and I took leadership of my own situation, broke away from several other projects, and that’s when I became a leader of my own band, around 2018, 2019.
SOLOMON: So is that Big Homie?
BUCKNER: Big Homie, yeah, yeah. And “big homie” is a term of endearment I use. It’s a mentor or a teacher or anybody that’s showing you something you know, showing you the right thing you know. So I use Big Homie as a band name, but it’s also a term of endearment. I use it for everybody. I have younger big homies, you know? I mean, I have, you know, old folks, young folks. But anybody can be a big homie. If they showing you something, right? They’re showing you something good.
SOLOMON: So I was reading some articles that have been in various publications around the Twin Cities, and some of them were referencing your debut with Big Homie. It came very shortly after George Floyd was killed, and I believe you were quoted in the interview as saying that kind of lit a fire. I’m paraphrasing. It lit a fire under you, and you went ahead and put it out more soon than you might have otherwise.
BUCKNER: Totally.
SOLOMON: So here we are, like, five years on, and I was wondering if you could talk about the way that that event and other similar events have informed the music that you make. Yeah, and what, what you’re hoping people will get from that.
BUCKNER: Well, George Floyd happened here in the Twin Cities. So did Jamar Clark just a block away from this building. Daunte Wright happened here. Winston Smith happened here, Philando Castile happened here. So, like black men being taken out by law enforcement has become common. Unfortunately, it’s become common here in the Twin Cities. And my music, my cousin hit me up when “Norfside” dropped, he hit me up. He was like, “Man, I just listened to the album.” He’s like, “You make me want to be a revolutionary because, like, how you do that? “Like, it doesn’t and, you know, there’s barely lyrics on the album. It’s mostly instrumental but the music, it reflects my feelings on the inside. When I can’t really say what I want to say, the music can speak for me. I’m saying that’s why it sounds the way it sounds.
But it feels good, too, it sometimes it sounds like a home cooked meal on a Sunday afternoon, sometimes it sounds like walking down the street in Juneteenth Celebration, you know? I mean, so it’s like the music is able to – the times are definitely reflected in the music, and that’s where the ebb and flow. So, because we have a lot of good times here in the city too, it’s not all revolt and revolution all the time. It’s reflective of the spectrum of Minneapolis, of the vibes that you can get here in the Twin Cities. I don’t know if that answered the question all the way, but my music reflects the times that way, because that’s why I feel on the inside. I it.
SOLOMON: So last year, you released a new recording called “Norfside,” and can you talk about that album, and the general idea that you were going for with it?
BUCKNER: Totally. I feel like everybody else beats their city on their chest, people from Los Angeles, you know, saying you gonna know about it, people from New York, you gonna know about it, you know. And I feel like us being in the middle of the country, right in the center of the country. I used to think that we were a flyover city, right? But I talked to a world-renowned saxophonist and producer, Terrace Martin, one of my favorite musicians, and he said, “This ain’t no flyover city.” He was like, “No, you got to come through here. You know?” He spent time here. His father lived here for a number of years, and he would be here in the summers and winters and everything. And he said, he said, “Some of the baddest cats I know is from Minneapolis, is from the from the Twin Cities.” He said, “You got to come through here. If you really shaking the movement, you got to come through here.” And that really opened my eyes. That kind of changed my perspective. It changed my attitude about the city. And I feel like it was just time for me to, you know, make noise about where I’m from. It’s a special place, and I want everybody to know about it. And those who know know, you know, I mean, I love hearing somebody’s special tie that they have to Minneapolis. But yeah, the North side is a special place. I wanted to make noise about that. And I feel like, you know, the album was, was a good reflection of that. I.
SOLOMON: Now you got your daughter here with you. Is she a musician?
BUCKNER: Onyx is a dancer and choreographer, and she’s a artist in her own right.
SOLOMON: Yeah, that’s wonderful. I and so like that. That brings me to something that I think I can identify in your music, it always feels like, it feels like there’s this bright, positive energy that’s pulsing through it, and also it seems like it’s something that would inspire people to dance. And I’ve heard that people really do love to dance at your shows. Is that something that’s important to you?
BUCKNER: That’s huge, and you know, in Minneapolis, we come off as a tough crowd. A lot of artists come here and they don’t get the reaction that they’re used to getting in other cities. A lot of black artists come here and they don’t get the reaction that they get in other like blacker cities like Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, like people are more expressive and louder, and even in church, they go more buck wild in other cities. I feel like that’s because we are repressed here, and we’re kind of afraid to stand out and make too much noise, because, you know, it hasn’t been received well in past time. You know, I used to think we’re a tough crowd, because, like, well, the musicians are so bad here, you know, you got to really come with it. But like, it’s really socially we’ve been repressed, and I’ll be wanting to break out of that. So I encourage dancing at the show. I encourage like, if you like what you hear yell at me. I’m from the black church. You got to respond. You saying like that. That’s a good thing. If you yell and you clap in the middle of a song, if you say, “Woo, woo, that’s killing!” I’m saying like, I need we feed off of that energy.
SOLOMON: What’s the band that you’re bringing to the Twin Cities Jazz Festival?
BUCKNER: It will be another iteration of Big Homie. Be myself on drums. On saxophone, I have my friend Christopher Rochester, Dr Christopher Rochester, from the Global Music Initiative at McPhail Center for Music. I have David Feiley, one of the baddest, the baddest guitarists in the city. I have David Smith on keyboards. He’s a young, young fireball. He’s been a world renowned producer. He does live arrangements. He did live arrangements for from all these pop artists from Lotto to Meg Thee Stallion to SZA, giving ya just the list goes on and on. Did it all from his dorm room. And I have on bass my brother for 13 years. We’ve been playing for 13 years. Ethan Yeshaya on the bass, and I have a special guest, Kavyesh Kaviraj sitting in on a few tunes as well.
We just actually – some good news – We just recorded two EPs worth of music two days ago.
Solomon Oh, man, so I’m gonna look forward to hearing those when you’re looking to release those things?
BUCKNER: Oh, no idea. No idea. We still got to mix it in, overdub and add stuff in, add layers and all that stuff, but, um, it’s more musically complex or harmonically and compositionally, you know. I’m featuring a couple tunes from Chris Rochester, a tune from Ethan, a tune from David Feiley, and I got some of my own originals that are audibly action packed, you know. So I’m excited to get to work on that. That sounds exciting. And here’s some more of this at the Jazz Fest too. Okay,
SOLOMON: Great. So you’re gonna be playing some of the new music. Is there anything else you want to say in advance of that concert?
BUCKNER: Yeah, yeah, it’s gonna be we, I think we get an hour but, and usually hours like 12 or 13 tunes. I’m trying to cram 20 songs in the hour, so it’s gonna be shorter forms, but it’s just gonna be hit after hit, song after song. I want to mollywop the audience with just tunes, tunes, tunes, powerful tunes, reflective ballads. You know, we just gonna hit it and hit it hard. You know, it’s been a long time coming for the Twin Cities Jazz Fest to have me at Twin Cities Jazz Fest this year. They came to me, they said, “We want you on the main stage.” I was like, “Okay, now we gonna rock.” And I feel I’m playing with a chip on my shoulder. You know, I waited so long for this stage, for this opportunity. Twin Cities Jazz Fest is a big deal around here, and I’m gonna make sure that I play to the best of my ability. You know, I’m gonna leave it all on the stage. I’m very excited to be, to be on the stage this year.
SOLOMON: L. A. Buckner, it’s been a thrill talking to you. I’m looking forward to your performance at the Twin Cities Jazz Festival. Thank you so much.
BUCKNER: Thank you. And Jazz88 has always been family, y’all show so much love. And I appreciate every time you play my music. This is, this is always a pleasure to be up here to kick it with you guys.
SOLOMON: I spoke with drummer and band leader L.A. Buckner. La Buckner and Big Homie will play the Jazz88 Main Stage Saturday night, June 21st at Mears Park as part of the Twin Cities Jazz Festival. I’m Peter Solomon for Jazz88.
