Hundreds of Musicians and Their Supporters Storm City Hall in Protest of Noise Ordinance

In one of the largest protests seen in New Orleans in the past decade, hundreds of musicians, club owners, and other supporters of live music protested outside, then inside, New Orleans City Hall today.

The protest was originally called because a noise ordinance was scheduled to be discussed in City Council meeting today. However, after the size of local dissent became clear, the discussion was postponed by Housing and Human Needs Committee co-chairs Stacy Head and Kristin Gisleson Palmer, who announced that "the current ordinance will be withdrawn," but their work to change the law will continue. Despite the cancellation of the hearing, the protest went on as scheduled. After more than an hour, including speeches and live music, the protest moved indoors. A line of dozens of musicians, led by Glen David Andrews, marched in to City Hall.



Inside City Council chambers, only one council member was present: LaToya Cantrell, who responded by encouraging protesters to line up and speak.

New Orleans Film About James Booker Sets SXSW Festival on Fire

Bayou Maharajah Trailer from Lily Keber on Vimeo.

New Orleans filmmaker Lily Keber's film Bayou Maharajah, about James Booker, "the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced," premiered this week at SXSW film festival in Austin Texas, and has already been generating excitement.

The trailer for the film was featured on RollingStone.com. The film’s poster debuted on IndieWire. The Hollywood Reporter named the film the #1 Must See Music Movie of SXSW 2013. PASTE Magazine called Bayou Maharajah the #2 Must See Movie at SXSW. Billboard Magazine mentioned Bayou Maharajah in three separate articles, including an extensive profile featuring interviews with Harry Connick, Jr., Joe Boyd, Scott Billington, Don Williams, and director Lily Keber. Variety Magazine listed the film first in their Searching For The Next Sugarman article and featured a picture from the film as the headlining photograph. Out Magazine listed Bayou Maharajah as the top Most Notable LGBT film to see at SXSW and featured a still from the film as the headlining photograph. A longer article for Rolling Stone followed.

Interviews with Director/Producer Lily Keber were featured on Austin Fox-7’s Morning News Show, KOOP’s Writing On The Air, efilmcritic.com, nola.com, and OffBeat Magazine. The Austin-American Statesman called the film “ecstatic, sorrowful, beautiful, pained, full of anger, joy and something otherworldly.”

Bayou Maharajah has also been profiled on NPR’s Weekend Edition, NOLA Defender, The Vinyl District, Larry Blumenfeld’s Blu Notes, Sal Nunziato’s Burning Wood blog, Alex Rawl’s My Spilt Milk. Roger Ebert has tweeted about Bayou Maharajah twice.

It's always exciting when New Orleans culture receives some of the international recognition it deserves.

Listen! Literacy and Arts Festival Next Weekend

One of New Orleans' most inspiring success stories is 2-Cent Entertainment. As we've written before, 2-Cent Entertainment is a remarkable New Orleans-based arts and activist collective who have built a national reputation for creating videos that are both informative and entertaining. They have received major national awards and rave reviews in the media. Their videos regularly get thousands of views, and the most popular have been seen millions of times.

Through all their success, their dedication to social justice has never wavered. They have a large local fan base who have been inspired by their commitment to building and supporting community. They have donated thousands of books to local students, and taught free classes to youth. Their videos address important issues and they lift up local voices.

Next weekend, 2-Cent will be taking another huge leap forward with Listen! Literacy and Arts Festival. From 2-Cent's description:

2-cent brings you a fun outdoor festival with a purpose. Listen! is an event put on by a collection of young people using literacy and art to address the issues facing the community. It's this generation's opportunity to use their talents in literary arts, music, visual arts, and film to inspire change. We feel an urgent need to focus on the violence and the education crisis. This is an opportunity for the youth to come together in a collective voice. All we ask is that the city come and listen.

Among the highlights of the fest are performances by Dee-1, Kourtney Heart, and Mannie Fresh, plus lots more. Listen! starts on noon on Saturday, May 21, at 2523 Bayou Road. We'll see you there.

Jazz Fest in New Orleans

Every year, Jazz Fest brings tens of thousands of visitors to New Orleans, and a nudge to the city's economy. As Katy Reckdahl writes in today's Times-Picayune, this year's festival presents an historic gathering of Haitian musicians. Jazz fest (and affiliated events around the city) present more music, arts and culture then we could ever discuss here, but we will highlight the list of authors appearing at the Jazz Fest Book Tent, which includes some friends of Louisiana Justice Institute:

Friday, April 29
12:00pm: Tom Jacobsen: Traditional New Orleans Jazz : Conversations With the Men Who Make the Music
1:00pm: Irvin Mayfield: Love Letter To New Orleans
3:00pm: Denise McConduit: DJ and the Debutante Ball
4:00pm: Diane De Las Casas: There's a Dragon in the Library

Saturday, April 30
12:00pm: John Swensen: New Atlantis: Musicians Battle For the Survival of New Orleans
2:00pm: Jason Berry:Earl Long In Purgatory & Up From the Cradle of Jazz
3:00pm: Troy Gilbert: Cafe Degas & Dinner With Tennessee
4:00pm: Freddi Williams Evans: Congo Square

Sunday, May 1
12:00pm: Yvonne Perret: Yat Wit
1:00pm: Eve Abrams: Preservation Hall
2:00pm: Cornell Landry: One Dat, Two Dat, Are You A Who Dat!, Happy Jazz Fest & Goodnight Nola
3:00pm: Moose Jackson: Loup Garou
5:00pm: Jordan Flaherty: Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six

Thursday, May 5
12:00pm: George Bishop: Letter to my Daughter
1:00pm: Earl Higgins: Metairie, Ames High & Joy of Y'at Catholicism
2:00pm: Cornell Landry: One Dat, Two Dat, Are You A Who Dat!, Happy Jazz Fest & Goodnight NOLA
3:00pm: Bud Faust: Great Moments in New Orleans – Volumes 1 & 2
4:00pm: Sean Yseult: I'm in the Band

Friday, May 6
12:00pm: Tom Jacobsen: Traditional New Orleans Jazz : Conversations With the Men Who Make the Music
2:00pm: Tristan Thomas, Ann Gileson, Catherine Burke: How to Rebuild A City
3:00pm: Denise McConduit: DJ and the Debutante Ball
4:00pm: Troy Gilbert: Cafe Degas & Dinner With Tennessee

Saturday, May 7
12:00pm: John Swensen: New Atlantis: Musicians Battle For the Survival of New Orleans
1:00pm: Dan Baum: Nine Lives
2:00pm: Stephanie Bruno: New Orleans Streets
3:00pm: Jessica Harris: High on the Hog
4:00pm: Ian McNulty: Louisiana Rambles
5:00pm: Richard Campanella: Lincoln In New Orleans

Sunday, May 8
1:00pm: Irvin Mayfield: Love Letter To New Orleans
2:00pm: Johnette Downing: The Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Bugs
3:00pm: Eve Abrams: Preservation Hall
4:00pm: Jay Mazza and Reggie Scanlan: I’ve Got the Fish in the Head

Pictured above: Boukman Eksperyans.

Tom Joyner Doesn't Understand New Orleans Social Justice

2-Cent Entertainment is a remarkable New Orleans-based arts and activist collective who have built a national reputation for creating videos that are both informative and entertaining. They have received major national awards and rave reviews in the media. Their videos regularly get thousands of views, and the most popular have been seen millions of times.

Through all their success, their dedication to social justice has never wavered. They have a large local fan base who have been inspired by their commitment to building and supporting community. They have donated thousands of books to local students, and taught free classes to youth. Their videos address important issues and they lift up local voices.

So it was shocking and disappointing when Tom Joyner, host of one the most popular nationally syndicated urban radio programs in the US, used the platform of his show to launch an ill-informed attack on the group.

It started positive. "I'm always looking for creative ways to teach our children. Here's a guy in New Orleans who wants to take hip-hop music to teach kids to read," began Joyner. But the popular radio host soon turned negative. "He made a video parody of Lil' Wayne's Every Girl," said Joyner, dismissively (while also confusing the collective efforts of the group with one member, Brandan "B-Mike" Odums). After playing a clip of Every Girl, seemingly unaware that 2-Cent's video involved changing the words to the song, Tom Joyner mocked the efforts of 2-Cent, implying that his work was shallow for making use of Lil' Wayne. "Go back to DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince. Parents Just Don't Understand. Start with that one," he said, ending with a condescending, "Go back in the lab, keep working on it."

The unwarranted attack brought so many angry calls and emails from 2-Cent's fans from across the US, the Tom Joyner Morning Show was forced to invite Odums on to respond. In a conversation on the show with Joyner and co-hosts Roland Martin and Sybil Wilkes, Brandan eloquently defended his positions.

"You guys have stirred a little bit of controversy," began Martin, who asked most of the questions on the segment. "What is the motive of taking these popular songs and trying to focus on literacy?" Throughout the interview, Odums brought wisdom to the hosts, explaining the ways in which 2-Cent uses popular art forms to reach young people with positive messages. "Our elders instilled in us a responsibility to make things better," said Odums. "By taking that inheritance that they gave to us, we sort of had to do things differently. We can't use the same tactics as the past, we need to find new ways to reach kids."

As a final lesson to Tom Joyner not to mess with New Orleans, 2-Cent have premiered their new video, Tom Just Don't Understand. They are also pushing Joyner's popular show to financially support community projects in New Orleans, like 2-Cent's upcoming Literacy and Arts Festival, called LISTEN! scheduled for May 21 at Community Book Center, 2523 Bayou Road. If you want to add your voice to those writing to Joyner to ask him to make amends, you can write to him at tomjoyner@blackamericaweb.com.