Obi Original & The Black Atlantics (Residency) feat. Miloe and Klon Rose @ Green Room—Nigerian-born singer, guitarist, and bandleader Obi Original is as much at home with West African highlife as he is with modern Afrobeats, not to mention good old American funk, and he's lined up some terrific local acts for this five-week residency. Night night four brings us Miloe and Klon Rose, while inishing things off on April 30 will be Bouchet Boyz and Bigg Kiaa. Good stuff.

Twin Cities Latin Jazz Orchestra @ Jazz Central

Dirty Shorts Brass Band @ Minnesota Music Cafe

Pop Punk Princess @ Mortimer's

All Nighter Tuesdays @ ROK Music Lounge

The Ries Brothers with The Holy North @ 7th St Entry

Industrial Strength with DJ Sin @ Terminal Bar

Worker’s Playtime: Adam Kiesling @ 331 Club

April Conspiracy Series feat. Dan Schwartz and Nick Salisbury @ 331 Club

Silvertung & the Almas @ Underground Music Venue

Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Evening @ Uptown Theater

Alpha Wolf @ Varsity Theater

The Mary Cutrufello Band @ White Squirrel

Lulu & the Shoe (Residency) with Plumstar, Emery Snow & the Flakes @ White Squirrel

Wednesday, April 24

Wain McFarlane @ Acadia

Enterprise Earth with Inferi, Crown Magnetar, & Tracheotomy @ Amsterdam

MN Songwriter Showcase @ Aster Cafe

Cory Healey Quartet @ Berlin

Dylan Salfer @ Bunkers

Maggie's Wednesday: Mia Dorr @ Crooners

Ricki Monique @ Dakota

Twin Cities Hot Club @ Eagles 34

Miss Shannon's Swing Night @ Eagles 34

Madison Beer @ Fillmore—I think about this photo all the time.

Mega Yacht @ Ginkgo Coffee

Marty O'Reilly, Clare Doyle @ Green Room

Erik Koskinen (Album Release/Residency) with Pieta Brown @ Icehouse

Korpiklaani with Visions of Atlantis and Illumishade @ The Lyric

The Mortiholics, the Side Effects, Speed Riders, Super Flasher, Cowboy Thoughts @ Mortimer's

KFAI'S Desert Islands Presents KFAI'S Radio Pocho 'Live' from Palmers with DJ's Terrell Lamaar and Miguel Vargas hosted by Theyself @ Palmer's

Madeleine Peyroux (Album Release) with Jill Sobule @ The Parkway

Weeklong Weekend, Homunculus Rex, Bird Bass @ Pilllar Forum

Down on Curfew @ ROK Music Lounge

BZ3 Organ Trio @ Schooner Tavern

Johnny Manchild and The Poor Bastards with Holdfast. @ 7th St Entry

Joe Satriani and Steve Vai @ State Theatre

Harold’s House Party on KFAI with Steam Machine @ 331 Club

Lenz & Frenz @ 331 Club

Dead On A Sunday with The Funeral Portrait and NITE @ Turf Club

Shauna Dean Cokeland & Brye with Second Spring @ Underground Music Venue

Sarah Morris and the Sometimes Guys @ White Squirrel

Nights with Tim @ White Squirrel

Thursday, April 25

Sole2dotz @ Acadia

Dustin Lynch with Skeez @ Armory

Luke Callen + Mckain Lakey @ Aster Cafe

Heyarlo @ Berlin

Jaybee & the Routine @ Bunkers

Christy Costello, Con Shoal, Hutchie, Slow Death @ Cloudland

Leslie Ball and Gary Rue @ Crooners

Tres Femme: Katie Finn, Katie Gearty, and Rachel Holder @ Crooners

T. Mychael Rambo & Johnnie Brown @ Dakota

LGBTQ+ Twin Cities Latin Dance @ Eagles 34

Karaoke With On-Call Entertainment @ Eagles 34

Snowshoe, Lilac Forest, and the Very Bad Days @ Eagles 34

BLACK KRAY AKA SICKBOYRARI with AOK AKA Bootychaaain, Hunned Mill, and Kane Grocerys @ Fine Line

Jeremy Messersmith, MAKR AN ERIS, and KC Rae @ Fitzgerald Theater—Looks like somebody made an offer on Mr. Messersmith's wonderful little house!

The Elderberries @ Ginkgo Coffee

Keep For Cheap with Big Delicious and Hazel Creak @ Green Room

Cornbread’s 97th B-Day Party Extravaganza @ Hook and Ladder—Somebody oughta write a damn book about James Samuel "Cornbread" Harris Sr.—and, in fact, somebody has. Former City Pages music editor Andrea Swensson’s Deeper Blues: The Life, Songs, and Salvation of Cornbread Harris is due out this summer. The one-man Minnesota music institution is, remarkably, still tearing up local stages with regularity (this very weekend he'll perform at both Icehouse and Palmer's) and tonight he’ll do what he does best while surrounded by friends, collaborators, and well-wishers. If you’re reading this far and are somehow unfamiliar with Cornbread, you should know that he’s credited with co-writing our state’s first rock ‘n’ roll recording (1955’s "Hi Yo Silver," with Augie Garcia), basically inventing the storied West Bank blues/jazz scene, and fathering another local legend (James Samuel "Jimmy Jam" Harris III). I saw Mr. Harris perform in the heat last summer at the State Fair amid the hunky firemen, and can confirm he has still got it.—Jay Boller

Rachel Kilgour (Album Release) @ Icehouse

Drums of Navarone @ Minnesota Music Cafe

Daniel Hope and Simon Crawford-Phillips @ Ordway

Tightwire, Rational Anthem, and No Encore @ Palmer's

Money Bones, Buckaroux Banshees, Trip Wire @ ROK Music Lounge

Scott Allen & the List, Tom Mason @ Schooner Tavern

Sheer Mag with Dusk and Citric Dummies @ 7th St Entry—You get just what you expect from this Philly band's third full-length, Playing Favorites: more lo-fi hard rock '70s revivalism that's actually punchier and catchier than most of what you actually heard in the '70s. (It's like if punk had happened before Kiss formed.) Nuggets include the title track (about digging the life of a road band) and "Eat It and Beat It" ("Enjoy your last meal," Tina Halladay tells some loser before she kicks him outta bed).

Minneapolis Songwriter Rounds: Katy Vernon, Matthew French, Cornelius Watson, Brooke Elizabeth @ 331 Club

Elliot Moss with Carlile @ Turf Club

Animals on LSD & Hockey Smile @ Underground Music Venue

Panchiko @ Varsity Theater

BongReaper, Deadfoot, Madam Driver @ White Rock Lounge

Phantom Fields with The Hilltop Pines @ White Squirrel

Self Evident, Electric Hawk, The Great Went @ Zhora Darling

Friday, April 26

DJ Kool Hanz @ Acadia

Thomas Abban @ Aster Cafe

Pat Keen/Joe Strachan @ Berlin

Luke Polipnick Organ Trio @ Berlin

Shoeless Revolution, Funk Metropolis @ Bunkers

Honey Tree, Call Me Fritz, Tin Whiskers, Sidedoors @ Caydence Records & Coffee

Peter Mulvey & Susan Werner @ Cedar Cultural Center

The Reds, Pinks & Purples @ Cloudland

Hit Songs That Lost at the Oscars @ Crooners

Mick Sterling @ Crooners

Maggie's Afterglow: Rick Carlson and Charmin Michelle @ Crooners

Al Di Meola @ Dakota

Sigcell, Dashed, Valors, Modern Wildlife @ Eagles 34

Miss Shannon's 4th Friday Sock Hop with the Southside Aces @ Eagles 34

Wakaan with Liquid Stranger @ Fillmore

Landon Conrath with Aiden Intro and 3leaf @ Fine Line

Sierra Ferrell with Cat Clyde @ First Avenue—I get why Americanamaniacs are so smitten with Ferrell's new Trail of Flowers. Her voice is plucky and rangy, occasionally deploying a plaintive catch that's never quite forlorn, and her music is full of fiddles and whatnot without being too creakily trad. Me, I wish her songwriting was a little sharper, but I admire her spirit and am myself fairly smitten with not just "Dollar Bill Bar" but her song about chitlins.

Kaushiki and Ambi @ Fitzgerald Theater

Local Acoustic Showcase @ The Garage

Old Country Buffet & Trailer Trash @ Green Room

Orchestra La Clave @ Granada

Kung Fu Hippies, Lolo’s Ghost, Tom Freund, Mark Joseph @ Hook and Ladder

Bryan Nichols & Zacc Harris @ Icehouse

PaviElle @ Icehouse

Josh Henderson's One More Night @ Jazz Central

Kliptic, Celo @ The Loft

The Maxx Band @ Minnesota Music Cafe

Juice! @ Modist Brewing

Gothess @ Mortimer's

Daniel Hope and Simon Crawford-Phillips @ Ordway

Schubert's Fifth Symphony @ Ordway

Unattractive Giant Monster, Mary Jam, and The Challenger Disaster Conspiracy @ Palmer's

The Skatalites with DJ General Moses & The Prizefighters @ The Parkway

Squinny, Kangaroo Court, Lunar Moth @ Pilllar Forum

Whiskey Burn, Cain & Co, About A Boat @ ROK Music Lounge

Hot Pastrami! @ Schooner Tavern

Dead Poet Society with Silly Goose @ 7th St Entry

Muscle Fork, Chandler’s House, Elour @ 331 Club

29 Wolves @ Terminal Bar

Daniel Romano's Outfit with Carson McHone and The Dead Century @ Turf Club

Headwar, Small Animal Hospital, Daisycutter, Slut Intent @ Underground Music Venue

Bizarre Dance Party @ Uptown VFW

Red Bull Directions with Coco & Breezy @ Varsity Theater

Odds of an Afterthought @ White Rock Lounge

The Collaboratory 4th Fridays @ White Squirrel

DJ Disco Dance Party with Michael Grey and Shannon Blowtorch @ Zhora Darling

Saturday, April 27

Joseph Walker @ Acadia

Homeboy Sandman feat. E-Turn with Carnage, Medium Zach @ Amsterdam—“I drop a monumental album every couple of months,” boasts 43-year-old Queens rapper Angel Del Villar on I Can't Sell These Either, the most recent of his three 2023 releases. (He also put out an album, Rich, that clocked in under a half hour, and a holiday record, 12 Days of Christmas & Dia de Los Reyes that maybe I’ll get to this December if I’m not distracted by the other material Homeboy Sandman will certainly send our way before then.) If anything, rappers are too prolific these days—Future and Metro Boomin released over 150 minutes of music this month, in two playlisty slabs, and surely that’s at least, oh, 10 to 15 minutes too much? But Homeboy exercises quality control, and he works small-scale; where so much mainstream rap feels like someone just turned the content spigot to full blast, his EPs and brief full-lengths feel like short, insightful dispatches from a friend. If he’s got too much to say for his output to ever be flawless he’s too level-headed to ever feel less than welcome; in the skills department, it helps that he’s in it for the rhymes as much as for the self-expression. And he does drop a monumental album every couple of years. (Not months, but you know how rappers exaggerate.)

Liam Gerard + Estefania & co + Madameblu @ Aster Cafe

Pat Keen/Dean Granros @ Berlin

TGNP NIght: Feat Dealdrugger (Alex Nutter), Channy Leaneagh, Ben Ivascu, Drew Christopherson, and more @ Berlin

Mikel Wright & the Wrongs, Zaker, Gastonguay, Baarspul Trio @ Bunkers

The Dirty Pretty, Silent Halo, Ardina @ Caydence Records & Coffee

The Reds, Pinks & Purples @ Cloudland

Thomasina Petrus and the Selby Avenue Brass Band @ Crooners

Joyce Lyons and the Phil Aaron Trio @ Crooners

It Takes Two More: Broadway's Greatest Duets @ Crooners

Maggie's Afterglow: Judy Vinar and Rick Carlson @ Crooners

Alejandro Escovedo with James Mastro @ Dakota

Spit Takes, Delicious Monsters, Visual Learner, Jumbos @ Dusty's

Coast Madrone, Pyrrhic Victories, Rabeca @ Eagles 34

Larry Wish + Rupert Angeleyes (Double Album Release) @ Eagles 34

12 Rods with Launder @ Fine Line

STRFKR with Ruth Radelet and happy sad face @ First Avenue

Joy Zimmerman and Ryan Dugan @ Ginkgo Coffee

Bbymutha @ Green Room—Chattanooga-gone-Atlanta Gucci Mane fan Brittnee Moore recorded her new album, Sleep Paralysis, in the U.K., and you can hear it in the doomy bass and jungle breakbeats, but she did it without surrendering her Southern rap roots or her own voice.

Strung Out, the Casualties, Venomous Pinks @ Hook and Ladder

Cornbread Harris @ Icehouse

Joey Van Phillips Trio @ Icehouse

Lil Texas, Dionysus, and Dead x @ The Loft

High & MIghty @ Minnesota Music Cafe

DJ Sammy Figs @ Modist Brewing

In Lieu @ Mortimer's

El Mexicano @ Myth Live

2024-25 Minnesota Orchestra Season Sampler @ Orchestra Hall

Tricksy, Greentop, and Civil Decline @ Palmer's

Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams @ The Parkway

TIMISAROCKER, The 1947, Until Apocalypse @ ROK Music Lounge

Becky Kapell & the Fat 6 @ Schooner Tavern

Canaan Cox with Clayton Ryan @ 7th St Entry

Through Fire, Keith Wallen, and Messer @ Studio B

Nicki Minaj with Monica @ Target Center—With her ever-shifting array of daffy personae, her refusal to distinguish between pop and rap, and her giddy delight in world domination, Nicki Minaj redefined the possibilities for women in hip-hop a decade and a half ago. That’s just a fact. Too much social media drama and too many petty beefs with other equally deserving women later, that can be hard to remember, and despite its memory-jogging title, her latest album, Pink Friday 2, doesn’t quite recall the glory days of its 2010 predecessor. Tracks swipe hooks whole from (in decreasing order of effectiveness) Junior Senior, Lumidee, Rick James, Blondie, and Cyndi Lauper; her references are dated (Christopher Reeve and Kelly Bundy are mentioned on the same track, and on one of the good ones, too). But when she simply prances past the haters, rather than trading bitter barbs (barbz?), or looks back at her childhood, or forward to her son’s, that’s when you’ll remember the old Nicki. She may no longer be the aspirational figure she first emerged as, but I bet she still puts on a hell of a show.

Derek Johnson, Cactus Hat @ Terminal Bar

Voltage Controller @ 331 Club

Turbo Pastel, Bethany Larson & The Bee’s Knees, Hannah Rey Dunda @ 331 Club

Augustana with verygently @ Turf Club

Mike with 454, Niontay, & El Cousteau @ Underground Music Cafe—What a night for underground hip-hop, eh? If anything the prosaically named Mike is even more of a miniaturist than Homeboy Sandman. The New York rapper’s March 2024 album, Pinball, recorded with producer Tony Seltzer, wedges 11 tracks into 21 minutes, but never feels rushed or incomplete. Even better was Mike’s late 2023 full-album collab with Wiki and The Alchemist, highlighted by “Mayor’s a Cop,” which cut through Eric Adams’s absurdist sideshow to express the essential truth about him. (And really, what mayor isn’t a cop?) Like his kindred spirit and sometimes collaborator, Earl Sweatshirt, Mike’s not always big on articulation, but he gets his point across, and he’s not into forced tough guy routines either. He just demands that you meet him on his turf.

Decadance @ Uptown VFW

Infuriate, Skimask, Ice Everlasting @ White Rock Lounge

Cole Diamond Band @ White Squirrel

Celebration of Life for Bill Malachway @ White Squirrel

Saturday is Instrumental with Big Trouble @ White Squirrel

Curve (Album Release) @ Zhora Darling