New Orleans doesn’t eat to live; it lives to eat. This is the theme for New Orleans Restaurant Week, which takes place from Monday, September 12 to Sunday, September 18. During that time, the Louisiana Restaurant Association will celebrate New Orleans cuisine with participating restaurants in the New Orleans metro area. Restaurants will offer two-course [...]
“I drank a lot.” That’s how Morgan Simpson says he prepared for his role in the drama Redemption Road, which hits theaters today. Simpson plays a down-in-the-dumps alcoholic Jackson Bailey who meets blues and country loving Texan Augy (Michael Clarke Duncan). Duncan’s character shows him how he can get his life back together by playing [...]
“It’s completely crazy, classy and trashy,” said Dana Abbott, describing the French Quarter Wedding Chapel. The new WE TV series, Big Easy Brides, shows the weddings that take place at the 24/7 chapel as well as the lives of the employees who work there. Abbott has been working at the chapel for the past two [...]
Satchmo SummerFest returns August 4-7, and with it comes the Satchmo Club Strut on Friday, August 5. This year’s club crawl on Frenchmen Street includes Allen Toussaint, Shamarr Allen and the Underdawgs, the Cottonmouth Kings and the Charmaine Neville Band. The brass band tradition will be represented by the Treme Brass Band and the Free [...]
“The faster they run, the less they get hit, but most people want to get hit.” Big Easy Rollergirl Joan Cougar Menstrual Cramp—her skate name—speaks from experience. She and other Rollergirls served as the bulls before and will do so again Saturday when thousands of runners in the traditional red and white attire fill the [...]
Friday, this year’s Essence Empowerment Experience started off with a welcome from Constance C.R. White, the new editor-in-chief of Essence Magazine. “This is my first Essence Music Festival,” White said. “I love it. I’m seeing it with fresh eyes, and I love the energy.” Friday’s talks were centered on the theme of “Transforming Your Life,” [...]
It started as a joke, but it’s not just a joke. “We are nautical by nature,” DJ Tony Skratchere says with his tongue gently in cheek as he quotes the title of his upcoming mixtape of yacht bounce, the fusion between ‘70s and ‘80s soft rock and New Orleans bounce music that has become a [...]
The name has changed but the event’s the same. This year, the Essence Empowerment Seminars are known as the Essence Empowerment Experience, but the series of free talks, roundtables and interviews at the Morial Convention Center remain focused on helping African Americans, improve their lives. According to Patrik Henry Bass, Senior Editor of Essence, this [...]
On June 18, Perseverance Hall opened as part of the New Orleans Jazz Historical Park in Armstrong Park—just a few years after its planned opening in 2008. Funding problems delayed the renovation of Perseverance Hall, which was built in 1819 or 1820 and served as a dance hall where African-American and white jazz musicians reportedly [...]
[UPDATED] Spyboy Ricky Gettridge, a New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian associated with the Yellow Pocahontas, tried to vote on May 16, 2011. He was denied the right to vote and arrested shortly after. According to Delores Antoine, Gettridge’s former spouse and now close friend, “In 2002, Ricky was placed on probation for two years [...]
