Make the Minnesota Music Archive a reality
Diverse Emerging Music Organization is building the first-ever Minnesota Music Archive, a digital hub of music, photos, and stories that preserve and celebrate Minnesota’s vibrant music landscape.
The Minnesota Music Archive celebrates ALL Minnesota music. We have the ambitious goal of preserving every obtainable recording by Minnesota musicians, from mainstream names to independent and small-label artists. It is a promise to past, present, and future Minnesota musicians that their music will matter for generations to come. There are over 1200 titles archived so far, across genres, eras, and cultures. However, we need your help to make the Minnesota Music Archive a reality.
This spring, DEMO will launch the Minnesota Music Archive. For the first time ever, Minnesota's music will have a unified digital home.
Nearly 90% of the world’s data has been created since 2023, and streaming now accounts for 69% of global music revenue—with 752 million paid accounts worldwide.
In this flood of digital content, local voices risk being lost in the algorithms. Global platforms prioritize what’s trending, and without guided curation and a unified effort to promote what “Minnesota local” means, our story disappears from the digital conversation.
Thousands of Minnesota recordings still live only on vinyl, cassette, and CD. If they aren’t digitized, preserved, and curated now, they could disappear forever and certainly can never be part of the digital conversation.
When recordings vanish, so does our place in the collective memory of music history. A digital archive isn’t just storage—it’s how future stories will be told.
Your year-end gift will help us digitize recordings, build exhibits, and launch the Archive in 2026. Every dollar brings us closer to preserving Minnesota’s music history and making it discoverable for generations to come. Donate online today or mail your gift to: 34 13th Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413.
Thank you for helping us keep Minnesota music alive in a world where algorithms often overlook local voices – and where analog treasures risk being lost forever.