Want a Taste of MN Music? Feast Your Ears on these Three Artists

Taste of MN 2026 boasts an all-local lineup, featuring both storied acts and rising stars

Despite its name and the presence of food stands, Taste of MN is not a solely culinary celebration of the North Star State — it is just as much a cultural and musical communion.

Beginning in 1983 with food stands and free concerts near the Capitol in St. Paul, this year you’ll find the festivities in downtown Minneapolis on Nicollet Mall over Fourth of July weekend. And this year, in the wake of Operation Metro Surge and the resulting instability in our community, it may well provide a much-needed opportunity for healing and celebration.

Taste of MN has hosted big names like Outkast and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts in recent years, but this year will showcase homegrown talent in an all-local lineup, “spotlighting the sounds that define the state’s vibrant music scene,” per its press release.

Across an evening set on Friday and a full day set on Saturday, both storied acts and rising stars will be represented. Three of these artists spoke with Lavender to give a sampler platter of what festival-goers can expect this year. What’s more, their connections with each other show just how closely knit our local music scene is.

POLIÇA — Friday, July 3

Headlining Friday’s set is Minneapolis-born synth pop outfit POLIÇA, once proclaimed by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon to be “the best band I’ve ever heard.”

Indeed, enjoyers of Bon Iver’s atmospheric pop will perk their ears up at POLIÇA’s sound, which has “long been defined by their balance of warmth and detachment,” per the band’s website. 

For founder and lead singer Channy Leanagh, making music by way of POLIÇA has long been a tool for experimentation and navigating change, which is evident in the band’s dynamic sound across its discography and how Leanagh modifies her voice even during live performances.

“Maybe it’s my ADD?” Leanagh chuckles in regard to her vocal experimentation. “I like treating my voice like an instrument. It keeps me as interested (in a performance) as others are.”

Leanagh also describes a diverse selection of musical influences on POLIÇA’s sound, from Russian underground electronic artist Soft Blade to iconic 90’s R&B group Sade. In fact, Leanagh covered Sade’s “By Your Side” as a part of Gayngs, an indie rock group that also included fellow Taste of MN headliner Dessa.

POLIÇA had to reckon with Metro Surge chaos earlier this year, almost cancelling their residency performance at Icehouse in February. By not cancelling the show, however, they ended up providing a much-needed space for catharsis.

“There was this huge lack of control. But it makes a difference when you make music,” Leanagh explains. She describes the residency as “Exactly what we needed.”

The recorded performances are catalogued on a new EP, “Better Live,” which is now available on all streaming platforms.

At all live POLIÇA performances, Leanagh says she wants folks to go to a different place; to feel with her, move with her and experience feelings together. As a late-night headliner, expect to feel lost in a techno club crowd one moment and caught up in the frenetic nostalgia of the city at night the next.

Leanagh herself grew up seeing artists like Jonny Lang play Taste of MN with her late father. “I’m playing this for him,” she says.

Listening to POLIÇA’s debut album “Give You The Ghost” and their latest EP “Dreams Go” back-to-back provides a good demonstration of their evolution.

Gully Boys — Saturday, July 4

Ten years ago, Kathy Callahan (vocals and guitar), Nadirah McGill (drums) and Natalie Klemond (bass) started a band from nothing. Several EPs and tours, a new lead guitarist (Mariah Mercedes) and a debut album later, Gully Boys have cemented themselves as rising stars of Minneapolis indie rock.

Their debut album, appropriately self-titled, blends pop punk, riot grrrl and grunge into their own distinct sound, which they say comes from a more intentional approach to music making.

“We’ve done so much calibrating,” Klemond explains. “It’s always just kind of been us making music that’s a mash-up of what we’re passionate about. With this latest album, we got really honed in on what we wanted to sound like.”

This focus also seems to have enabled them to go in new creative directions, like collaborating with Minneapolis-based rapper Zora on the hot girl anthem/headbanger “Big Boobs.”

The track “Murderapolis,” written in reference to the 2020 George Floyd protests, calls to mind the same issues Minneapolis is still facing six years later.

“The sentiment of the song is you can’t f— with Minneapolis,” McGill says. “Even though we have been ground zero time and time again, we have only deepened our love for our community.”

Tenure aside, the members of Gully Boys attribute their success to being a queer band, an important dimension of the Minneapolis sound being represented at Taste of MN.

“There is kind of a built-in community with being queer, and there’s a huge queer community in Minneapolis,” Klemond says. “It’s so deeply ingrained in who we are as a band and our music.”

McGill adds how starting Gully Boys helped them come into their own as a queer person, and how that has created a ripple effect for their fans as well as other artists.

“It was through being able to take up space as a Black femme in the first place that gave me permission to access other parts of myself that I had just like completely shut down,” they explain. “This, in turn, has given our audience permission to do so, and it’s also an expansion of how many more bands since we started who are, like, young queer bands. I think more is more.”

Being in Taste of MN is somewhat of a full-circle moment for Gully Boys. McGill says seeing POLIÇA in 2015 is what made them want to be a drummer. Now, on the road, Gully Boys are recognized for their distinctly Minneapolis sound.

“It’s funny to me that Minneapolis still remains like a ‘hidden gem’ of incredible talent,” Mercedes says. “It’s a lot more do-it-yourself. We don’t have these big companies that are churning out bands. We have ourselves and our community, and that’s really cool.”

Despite their noon slot on Saturday, Gully Boys says they’re going to make it feel like 10:30 on a Friday night. Another thing to expect, says Mercedes, is earnestness.

“We’ll play this song, punch your face, kick your teeth in, nasty riffs, and then we’ll pause, and the music stops, and we’re like, ‘Hey. How are we?’ Everyone’s like, ‘Oh my God, you’re people too!’” they explain.

To get a taste of Gully Boys before Taste of MN, check out their album “Gully Boys,” and for a taste of their classic sound, check out their 2018 hit “Neopet Graveyard.”

Dessa — Saturday, July 4

With Saturday billed as “a full day celebrating Minnesota’s deep hip-hop roots and indie spirit,” it’s a no-brainer that Dessa, critically acclaimed rapper and founding member of the indie hip-hop collective Doomtree, is in the lineup.

Even then, “rapper” doesn’t paint the whole picture. As an author and speaker on top of that, “language artist” is a better title for the 45-year-old born-and-raised Minneapolitan.

Indeed, the depth and sharp wit of her lyricism set to immensely catchy flows make it feel as if every Dessa song sets out to make a statement, even though she doesn’t see herself as “unadulteratedly confident.”

“A lot of the songwriting I do is initially born of uncertainty,” she says. “It’s when someone or something comes and challenges something that you believe in or a previously accepted model of the world, those moments of friction, for me, provide a lot of that songwriting energy.”

For example, the uncertainty of our current times inspired one of Dessa’s latest releases, “Camelot,” a lyrical takedown of mass consumerism and complacency in the face of rising authoritarianism set to a club beat. 

But then uncertainty reared its head again when the people of Minnesota showed that they would not be complacent during Operation Metro Surge, leading Dessa to be inspired all over again to write a Mother Jones piece on activism best practices inspired by her hometown.

“In ‘Camelot,’ there’s a lot of lines that kind of bemoan how apathetic we’ve become,” she says. “And then it was delightful to be proven totally wrong by Minnesota in January when people said, ‘Oh no, I will absolutely venture out in sub-zero temperatures, take time off from work, to stand in the cold, to register my dissent.’”

A known polymath, Dessa says having her fingers in every pie, so to speak, comes from her lifelong curiosity and craving for knowledge and experience (though she prefers cake, all told).

“I’m an enthusiast,” she says. “I really like connecting with people, so if there’s somebody interesting and magnetic, I’m eager to sit down and talk to them and understand what they’re excited about. And very often I think that sort of enthusiasm can be contagious.”

Expect to catch that enthusiasm at Taste of MN, where Dessa says she’ll be playing a more energetic set typical of her outdoor shows. Clips of previous outdoor performances can be found on Dessa’s Instagram, @dessa.

Besides “Camelot,” be sure to check out her songs “Bullpen,” “Hurricane Party” and “I Already Like You.”