Imagine the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019ve been planning all week to get together with your group of friends for a night out. Your plans have to be on point. Cell phones are not the norm; they are the rarity \u2026 if in existence at all. No, \u201cCall me when you get there and let me know how it is.\u201d Going live meant turning to your crew and saying, \u201cDid you see what I just saw?\u201d If you were a DJ and someone requested a song you had to have it \u2026 you couldn\u2019t download it on the spot. Oh, and when you got to the club you were partying with musical royalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You were at The Fox Trap and Prince was on the drums backing a singer, who at the time was the main attraction. You were at the Nacirema singing for the first time on stage and Prince is in the crowd. You\u2019re at Glam Slam and Prince is right next to you \u2026 after all, it\u2019s his<\/em> club. And we can\u2019t forget about The Riverview, The Quest (formerly Glam Slam), Escape, South Beach, Gabby\u2019s and Arnellia\u2019s, just to name a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you were out \u201cclubbin\u2019\u201d in the Twin Cities in the \u201870s, \u201880s, \u201890s and early 2000s this was quite possibly your reality. And if it wasn\u2019t Prince it was the Flyte Tyme or Morris Day, or Alexander O\u2019Neal \u2026 later the brothers of Mint Condition and Next. If reggae was your thing you were anywhere Ipso Facto was playing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For many this was the \u201cgolden era\u201d of partying in the Twin Cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI started off singing at The Nacirema,\u201d said one of the area\u2019s most recognizable voices, Kathleen Johnson, who is still a sought-after performer. \u201cMy sisters and I sang there back in the day. It was the club that Prince would come check us out at. Then came Vanity 6.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Johnson said her group, Myst, was a favorite of Prince, but he was looking for a different look at the time, thus Vanity 6 was signed instead of Myst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Johnson, the Nacirema, located at 39th<\/sup> Street and 4th<\/sup> Avenue in Minneapolis, was the place to be for Black artists and Black club goers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor Black bands and venues (it was the spot.) We were not otherwise allowed in the white venues,\u201d said Johnson. \u201cNot much has changed though, except the fact that there are no Black venues (specializing in live music) after Arnellia\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arnellia\u2019s is the club in St. Paul known by its namesake, Arnellia Allen. Called the \u201cApollo of St. Paul,\u201d Arnellia\u2019s was a staple on University Avenue in St. Paul until 2017, when Allen, who owned the club since 1992, passed away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c(Nacirema) is where we met Ms. Arnellia. She was a waitress there,\u201d said Johnson, who was a longtime friend of Allen and regular performer at her club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And there was Quest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Quest, which is now the site of Cowboy Jacks, 126 N. 5th<\/sup> St., Minneapolis, was originally Glam Slam \u2026 Prince\u2019s club. Glam Slam was open from 1990-1995 before transitioning to Quest and according to many, Prince was a regular at his club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some say he was also known to show up at North Minneapolis\u2019 most famous club, The Riverview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen the Nacirema closed then it was on to The Riverview,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clearly, she wasn\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRiverview … nothing like it on Friday after work,\u201d said Laverne McCartney Knighton, area director of the Twin Cities United Negro College Fund. \u201c(It\u2019s) where we went to meet everybody. Great times up in that joint It was indeed \u2018The View.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kelley Green agrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor me as a young 20-something in the \u201880s, going to The View was the main club stop for socializing,\u201d said Green. \u201c(It was) a great mix of younger and older people. Most 40-plus people (today most of those people are in their 70s and may be in their 80s) would be at The View for happy hour and when we started rolling up in there, usually after 9 p.m., they (older patrons) would start to leave. For instance, I used to see my dad, Edgar Jackson, Earl Bowman, Charlie Smith, Frank Wilderson, Cornell Moore and so many others get up and leave as soon as they saw us coming. The music was the best. At its heyday, you would see Kirby Puckett up in there \u2026 former Vikings, Joey Browner, Darrin Nelson and the list could go on. (It was) a great mix of people and we had a great time. I would go every Friday and Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if it wasn\u2019t The Riverview, according to McCartney Knighton it was Corks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe were the new young transplants here in the Twin Cities in the late \u201870s, early \u201880s and Corks was the place to go for young professionals,\u201d said McCartney Knighton. \u201cAll you had to do was make one phone call, \u2018Where you going after work? Meet you at Corks.\u2019 The place was small and we were thick as thieves in it, but we had a blast. (It was) the place to see and be seen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Sherilyn Thomas, here memories are more recent; as a former waitress of Escape Ultralounge in downtown Minneapolis. Escape, located in Block E, closed in the mid-2000s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy first VIP table was Michael Jordan at the Trent Tucker party,\u201d said Thomas. \u201cShook my \u2018lil teenage life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be young again. But with these great memories of yesteryear in the Twin Cities, in many ways we shall all remain forever young \u2026 and forever grateful for the club owners, bands, DJs and promoters who paved the way. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Imagine the scene. You\u2019ve been planning all week to get together with your group of friends for a night out. Your plans have to be on point. Cell phones are not the norm; they are the rarity \u2026 if in existence at all. No, \u201cCall me when you get there and let me know how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[2864,2865,32],"class_list":["post-4650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-minneapolis-sound","tag-the-fox-trap","tag-twin-cities","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Insight-News-Website-Images-30.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4652,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4650\/revisions\/4652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}