Music Notes Now you can sing along to KDWB’s Hmong parody

Twin Cities’ music scene is a busy place with a long list of events. If you don’t obsessively visit the local blogs, alt-weeklies, and other outlets, you're bound to miss something important. That’s okay—we’re here to help with a weekly roundup of some of the enticing music news in town.

• A week ago, KDWB’s Dave Ryan In The Morning show released a not-so-charming little ditty that jabbed at the local Hmong community. After coming under fire for releasing this upon the world, the show’s defense is that the song was just for laffs, duh, and that most of its loyal Hmong listeners were not offended at all, although they did apologize to those who were.

The full lyrics to the parody were posted on MPR’s News Cut blog:

    No room for a couch
    'Cause we sleep on the floor
    One big group of Vangs
    Hmong family of twenty-four
    Kids work in St. Paul
    Hang out at the mall
    'Cause I know they dwell so well
    Thirty Hmongs in a house
    Hmongs get pregnant early
    First baby at 16
    Seven kids by 23
    Over the hill by 30
    Like sardines they live
    Packed in a two-room house with the kids
    But you know they age quite well
    They be Hmongs.

And now that you know the lyrics, you can sing along:


• Treehouse Records, the long-standing record shop at the corner of Lyndale Ave and 26th Street, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary under the ownership of Mark Trehus. City Pages recently interviewed him, and revealed that his personal collection of records is about, oh, only 25,000 or so.

• Diddy sent a video message to the entire city of Minneapolis, wherein he talks about the “intimate extravaganza of epic proportion” that he’ll be bringing to our fair cities on April 13. So FYI Minneapolis, you’re invited.

• MPLS.TV’s City Of Music filmed Fargo’s Secret Cities while they were at SXSW. They released this quirky hum-along last Monday. It’s worth a watch and a whistle.