Righteous Brothers

Keyboardist Lawrence Waddell earned a pilot’s license and is concluding a mathematical sciences degree at the U of M and the University of Illinois. “Mathematical sciences is the degree,” he says. “I got inspired by reading developments in quantum physics and relativity theory. There’s a lot of creativity in it. Discovering the ways of our universe takes imagination.” This from someone who admits he was “pretty much brain-dead throughout [high school].” Having grown up in inner-city St. Paul, he says, “Whatever your background, your circumstances in life, [you can’t] let it put boundaries on your dreams. You are what you will yourself to become.” Brain-dead or not, Waddell says he graduated from St. Paul’s Central High “because I had the wrath of my parents” to deal with.

Allen studies criminal justice at Concordia University in St. Paul, because, he says, “I’ve long been interested in being a homicide detective.” He thinks about opening a private agency. “Maybe [I’ll] mentor at an existing agency,” he muses. “[Get into] something interesting like locating runaways or missing children.” Even if his fourteen-year-old son wants to be a basketball player, Allen insists the boy follow in at least one set of his footsteps. “I always told myself I’d finish college,” he explains. “And, when my son becomes of age [and] is makin’ decisions for himself, he shouldn’t have to work at McDonald’s.”

Ricky Kinchen, Mint’s lone non–St. Paulite, hails from Chicago’s South Side. He’s oddly influenced for an R & B artist. “Really, I taught myself,” he says. “The first song I learned was ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ by Queen. Some of my favorite bands are from the UK—bands like Radiohead, Muse, and Led Zeppelin.” Along more expected lines, he says he also listened to 1980s chart-toppers Donald Byrd and The Blackbyrds. “And, since I was always in my brothers’ record collections, I found Chuck Mangione, Parliament/ Funkadelic, Band of Gypsys. Listened to everything I could.” He ultimately arrived at his definitive muses, bass-playing icons Bootsy Collins (funk) and jazz greats Stanley Clarke and Jaco Pastorius. Photography is also one of his passions; he even shot the band’s most recent album cover. He also shoots the likes of American Idol star Paris Bennett, The New Congress, Kip Blackshire, and rising gospel stars Darnell Davis & The Remnant. When Mint Condition toured Europe in 1997, he wandered the streets of Munich, Berlin, and Paris, taking pictures of the local architecture. “They were pretty good,” he says, “so I decided to learn more.”

Naturally, there are musical sidelines as well. Waddell, Stokley, and Allen have moonlighted with percussionist Wallace Hill and bassist Serge Akou as the Afro-Caribbean jazz quintet Joto. Tuesday nights, they get together at Babalú, which looks more like someone’s living room than a nightclub in Minneapolis’s Warehouse District. There the guys glide through Juan Luis Guerra’s “Para Ti,” Chick Corea’s “Spain,” and Thelonius Monk’s “Round Midnight.” Joto has an album in the works for CagedBird Records.

Hill has known Stokley for roughly the past decade and won a Minnesota State Arts Board grant for working with Stokley as his apprentice in West African and Afro-Cuban music. “It was twofold,” Wallace says. “I’ve taught with and learned from Stoke.” In addition to hitting the skins, their studies involved cultural discipline. “It’s about respecting the traditions of drumming, breathing, and one’s connection to [the] spiritual,” Hill says. Stokley agrees: “Drumming, that’s my heart, first and foremost. A few people have helped polish me off. As a musician. As a human. I met Wallace in St. Paul at the Youth League. He’s got a wealth of knowledge [about] rhythm.“ Stokley also credits St. Paul Central’s youth advocate Frank Warden, as well as Robert McClain from the Inner City Youth League. His father helped too: “After I pounded pots and pans long and loud enough, my dad was, like, ‘Sounds like he knows what he’s doing—besides driving us crazy.’ So, [Dad] introduced me to Panamanian percussionist Francisco Lloyd and said, ‘Take him!’ Also, [Trinidadian drummer] Cliff Alexis taught me in high school.”