Monique Linder went from marketing Prince to educating young musicians

Last year, Monique Linder shot a documentary in Ghana. Next week, she’ll be attending the Sundance Film Festival for the premiere of a different documentary, “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius).” In the meantime, she’s training young people how to become musicians at her OMG Studios in St. Paul.

Linder is a Twin Cities entrepreneur with a background in information technology. Wearing many hats, the Philadelphia native uses her marketing and technology skills to effect social change, produce events and educate young musicians. Her projects include making annual civil rights documentaries for Juneteenth, marketing for Minnesota State Fair concerts and making over the Family Stone, Sly Stone’s old group.

Linder, who formerly worked with Prince at his Las Vegas residency, discussed her various projects this week at the purple-decorated OMG Studios. Here are excerpts.

Q: You opened OMG Studios 11 months ago in the old King Koil mattress factory. What’s been the highlight in the first year?

A: The major highlight was my Innovation Lab and the youth movement development program. We started out with 15 [people] and we ended with four. We created an expectation: This is hard work, you’ve got to put in the work. It was started as a 10-week program and at Week 8, I’m like “There’s no way we can develop youth in 10 weeks.” It turned out to be a [yearlong] program.

This unique four we ended with came to every class. We ended with something powerful: The outcome is they didn’t realize they had musical talent in a way that you could envision them performing on a stage. I credit [musician teachers] Kip Blackshire, Jevetta Steele, Nunnabove, who had such an influence on them. They’re ready for the next step.

Q: How did you recruit these young people?

A: We do outreach through community organizations to give opportunities to marginalized youth. A lot of them weren’t willing to put in the hours outside of the program. We started with a program that was for ages 8 to 24. This year, I’ve got to make it older, 16 to 24. It’s a tough commitment. They have to be at all the meetings, at all the rehearsals, at all of our events, so they’re immersed. In the studio, they’re doing four hours a week but it’s important what they’re doing outside the studio.

We pay them a stipend: $25 an hour for their committed hours in studio. The other hours they’re on their own. But they’re not paying for the instruction. We raise money from philanthropy, corporate donations, private donations. We’ve estimated the annual cost for taking care of one [student] is $10,000.

Q: You spent a few years pulling this studio together. How did you do the fundraising? Wasn’t it partly funded by the city of St. Paul?

A: The studio, all in, cost about a half a million dollars. We applied for the Neighborhood STAR [Program] grant, which is the city of St. Paul. I put in some of my own cash. And I had an SBA loan. Before I built, I was [running] throughout the city renting spaces; the spaces never had everything I wanted.

We’ve rented to nonprofits for events and corporate parties and conferences, not just film or music production. We have live event production. We have a podcast studio. We have an artist green room. A recording studio, of course.

Q: Talk about the documentaries you make.

A: This year, we’re starting production on our sixth film. Our cultural films we release every year on Juneteenth. They tell a story. We call them reckoning with slavery. They may originate anywhere. Last year, for example, we filmed in Ghana. We went into a village and the king actually apologized for his ancestors enslaving people. This year, we filmed with Bryan Stevenson, who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, and he built the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala. We’re moving into Reconstruction. All of our stories end up in Minnesota.

Q: How long are these films? Where can people see them?

A: They’re 30 to 40 minutes or so. We have them online. We created our own website, KZMOHD.com. We started the network three years ago. It consists of a podcast network as well as a website. In 2024, we celebrated 180,000 new friends in our KZMOverse, our database.

Q: What’s the philosophy behind your work?

A: Our work is centered around building cultural sustainability and community, where music and art are essential to human survival and development. We are driven by love for humanity and a desire to empower, nurture and improve the health and wellness of youth and families in underinvested communities. It is what steers our ship and powers our innovation, creativity and purpose.

Q: Tell me about your background.

A: I’ve been around music pretty much all my life. My undergraduate degree is in information technology at University of Phoenix. I got my master’s from University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. I came here to work for Clear Channel [radio] in 2010; I was general sales manager and digital manager until I started OMG in 2014. Before that I was in Las Vegas, working for CBS [Radio]. I’d never been to Minnesota before I moved here.

Q: Why did you call your company OMG?

A: Oh My God was the name that came to me. God is the source of my strength and generosity of spirit.

Q: How many employees do you have?

A: Most of our people are contractors. We have 45 contractors. We’re not open if we don’t have a project. We have accounts all over the country. The core team is my family. My daughter, who has a law degree, does our contracting and social media and writing and editing. My other daughter is in charge of promotions. My cousin does all the event planning.

Q: What do you do with the State Fair?

A: I’m part of the entertainment team. I recommend talent for the stages. They do the due diligence. And I help with the marketing, making sure we do outreach with the community.

Q: What happened with the Prince pavilion at the State Fair that you were involved with in 2019?

A: What happened was COVID. We had the plans and designs. Was it economically feasible? And there were changes with the [Prince] estate. I shifted gears and built OMG Studios.

Q: How did you come to work with Prince?

A: It was when I was working for CBS in Las Vegas that I met Prince. He bought out a venue in Vegas called the Empire Ballroom. It was kind of like the First Avenue, off the Strip. We did the promotion on it. I started working for him when he did his residency at the Rio, which was a hoot. I didn’t know him. I wasn’t a fan. He selected me to work on it. It was worth it all.

Q: What are you doing with the Family Stone?

A: We started with the 100-year birthday party for Jimmy Carter; we put together a great show at the Armory [in 2024]. We said, “Let’s continue” and created the Everyday People Project. I’m their media agency of record. We need to go into communities, not just with concerts. So we’ll come in a couple of days before the show and talk to people about what’s going on in their lives, what amplification can we do to help them with the challenges. We’re getting sponsorships for the shows so everyday people can come to the shows.