Bell said the station has some runway — its lease with the Five Points Building ends in 2030 — but the dollars necessary to complete the project will be vital for its future.

Let’s go back to the idea of KMOJ as an institution.

As I tried to understand the Twin Cities and its Black community when I first moved here , KMOJ was an important portal for me. It’s always been a station that featured conversations about issues that became more popular to discuss after George Floyd’s murder. The station covered those issues with a nuance no other local outlet could match because it had been so comfortable addressing them over time.

“It’s just so much history, not to mention the music, but the causes, the demonstrations, the interactions with police, the school board, all of that,” Bell said. “And even with the pandemic, we never stopped.”

The Minneapolis music scene has been adored by fans around the world. And many of the local Black artists — Prince, Jimmy Jam, Morris Day and the Time, Lizzo and others — who subsequently earned national acclaim were already staples on KMOJ before the world met them.

That’s a legacy that can’t be ignored.