Out to Lunch: Minneapolis musician Laamar doesn’t want to be pigeonholed

On Minnesota Now, we get to hear from so many different people in Minnesota over the phone and in the studio. But we don’t often meet them in the community, where news — and life — happens. In a new series we are calling Out to Lunch, we sit down for a meal with people from Minnesota news and culture to get to know them better.

Our lunch guest: Geoffrey Lamar Wilson

The restaurant: Lowry Cafe in Minneapolis

Wilson’s project, Laamar, burst onto the Twin Cities music scene in 2023 with the EP “Flowers.” Shortly after Laamar was named one of First Avenue’s Best New Bands. The band has since opened for Semisonic and will be playing a stage at Minnesota Yacht Club festival in St. Paul this summer.

Laamar’s first full-length album will be out this year.

The following has been edited for length and clarity. Use the audio player above for the full conversation.

What is your favorite part about being home in Minneapolis?

That’s a big question. There are different layers to it. I think in terms of family and community, being able to jump in the car, go see my parents. Or, have my parents just randomly show up at my back door. My dad loves to do that. ‘Oh, I smoked a chicken, see you later’ and not even come inside. But also, the proximity to nature, I was missing that living in the city.

I didn’t think I’d ever move back to Minnesota. It was kind of snobby. I lived in New York City. I met my wife, who was also from Minnesota, but we met in New York. Like, how unusual is that? And we did want to have a house and maybe, have kids someday.

What inspired your song ‘Home to My Baby’?

Coming after George Floyd and Philando Castile and sort of that super fraught period of time, I think it was just looking to tell the story from yet another perspective.

I think a lot of white people projected their impression on the song and assumed ‘Oh this was a traumatic experience for you being pulled over.’ And really it’s not about me at all. It’s really just like, think about this as you go about your day-to-day life. Like this is how other people are walking through life, and every time they get in their vehicle or might get pulled over, this is the experience that they could be having. So [it] creates some empathy.

What other parts of life inspire your music and your songwriting?

I appreciate that question, because I’ve been feeling a little bit pigeonholed, for better or for worse, in terms of people’s awareness of certain songs of mine. But I’m really inspired by and in nature and quiet spaces and human connection.

I think I’m a typical or classic songwriter in the sense of, like, inspired by poetry and art and nature. I love to be in a quiet room or a quiet building, or out at the cabin or something. And just working on the craft of songwriting endlessly. I don’t think I could ever get tired of that and trying to sort of distill my feelings and other feelings into words and into sounds.

We like to finish off the lunch asking people what we’re calling The Last Bite. Your question is, what are the ingredients to a great song?

I think a great song needs to resonate with people. And there are different ways to do that. But I think things that resonate with me are the emotive delivery of the music — whatever genre it might be in — and the feeling that it was delivered with authenticity, or real feeling.

It just resonates some sort of animal part of us. I mean, having great lyrics, of course, for some people, is the thing. Having great chord progressions or melody is a thing. One song isn’t great to everybody, but it needs to resonate.