photos by Puja Patel
It’s rare that you hop into a taxi and the driver already knows where you’re headed. Such was the case on October 26, when I said I was going to the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans; the cabbie glanced into his rearview mirror and knowingly replied, "You’re heading for the Clairborne Bridge, honey!" He was right. As we got closer to the destination, it was clear that the festivities had already begun: Boys no older than 10 scurried around with trumpets in one hand and snowballs in the other, a wave of families carried fold-up chairs and coolers, and police officers idly blocked us off of the street and into an underpass. Together we walked towards the distant hyper-thud of a bounce beat.
It was the day of the annual Red Bull Street Kings competition—an event that, though sponsored by an energy drink, still gave off the vibe that it had been thrown by the city itself. (A few days in New Orleans and you’ll discover that, to visiting corporate entities in search of local flavor, brass bands are a hot commodity.) Four brass bands had been selected to battle during the free, five-hour event that closed down city streets for a quarter of a mile. Solange lingered by the main stage, but most of the audience had their eyes on the judges’ raised platform, where local legends Mannie Fresh, Trombone Shorty, and Kermit Ruffins looked on. Each band—the New Breed Brass Band, New Creations, TBC, and New Orleans’ first and only all-female group the Original Pinettes—hosted a 15-minute second-line (the name for the party of people who follow a brass band, celebrating and dancing as if at a jazz funeral procession) up to their place on stage. Host and local radio DJ Slab 1 called from the stage, "Where are these Original Pinettes? They call themselves the Street Queens but all they’ve proven so far is that women are always late."
They might be late today, but they started early. Formed in 1991, the Original Pinettes began as a group of students from the local all-girls St. Mary’s Catholic School. Like the city they call home, the band was torn apart by Hurricane Katrina, sending members to seek refuge with family and friends scattered in neighboring states. In 2006 Christie Jourdain, snare drummer and current bandleader of the Pinettes, sought to reconstruct; she rounded up the members who were still willing to play and together they went hunting for women to replace those who had dropped out in the wake of Katrina. "We went to local high-schools and watched second-lines," says Jourdain. "Now our band spans the ages of 17 to 38." But they’re still playing in a boys’ club. "We’re family down here, but we’re also women. We want to show that you can be strong and still ladylike; we are mentors, mothers, college-students, people with careers," she explains. "We’re all family down here. There’s a lot of love between bands but you have to earn respect." Even then, having local jazz celebrities give tutorials and advice is practically routine. "Trombone Shorty said he would teach me a skill," Jourdain mentions casually. "But he also told me it was up to me after that."
At Street Kings, costumes are on despite the unseasonal heat. One band is led by a man covered in feathers and glitter in his Mardi Gras carnival flair, another band plays Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" as uniformed kids play hype men, the Pinettes have confetti poppers and the unmistakable shrieks of their sisters. A woman who looked to be in her fifties, fully decked in a Bo-Peep costume, booty-bounces to the stage as a tall, top-hatted man toting a puppy exaggeratedly clears a path for her with his cane. Later that night on "Saturday Night Live", Miley Cyrus would twerk for lolz in retribution for her controversial VMA performance a month earlier.
"You want to talk twerking?" Mannie Fresh asks me a few days after the competition, chuckling. "Let’s talk twerking." We go over the basics—the introduction of bounce to the city’s ingrained interconnected music culture. There’s Miami’s influence via 2 Live Crew, Fresh’s own brassy, bass-heavy 1987 track "Buck Jump Time", and MC T Tucker and DJ Irv’s 1991 "Where Dey At", (widely considered the first bounce song ever) which popularized the Triggaman beat sampled from The Showboys "Drag Rap (Triggerman)". Then there’s DJ Jubilee’s 1993 "Do the Jubilee", which finally gave a name to the booty-dancing that had become so popular. "Stop! Shake it, twerk it!" commands the emcee.
"Really, bounce became a reflection of this city musically," Fresh says. "Twerking is part of that culture. You grow up into it." And, sure enough, there’s plenty of the dance when Fresh assumes the role of Street Kings DJ. We watch three generations of women tease a toddler who tries to emulate the casual bounce of her older sister. "You’ve got too much jiggle, girl!" the grandmother says to the tot. She hoists herself out of a lawn chair with a resigned sigh and begins to demonstrate. "See? You gotta get that wobble!"
For committed fans of regional, urban dance music, it’s been a bit bizarre to watch the pop world suddenly go bonkers over booty-bouncing. The dance comes rife with racial implications; it’s oversexualized, controversial, and currently in the hands of a predominantly white industry that thrives on both. Lily Allen’s video for "Hard Out Here" has spawned the newest bout of discussion about twerking, as she damns the Man responsible for objectifying her sisters while zooming in on the slow-motion wave of a hired back-up dancer’s ass twerking behind her. But while the media crows in disgust and anger, dissecting the racial and feminist undertones of the video and associated phenomenon, the innovators in New Orleans seem to have a different take.
"Seeing a four-year-old twerking is not an uncommon thing in New Orleans," says producer and DJ Rusty Lazer the next day as we walk around the French Quarter with coffee and beignets from Cafe Du Monde in hand. He’s served as bounce queen Big Freedia’s long-time DJ and currently manages and produces for Nicky Da B, the rapper responsible for the most current wave of crossover-bounce appeal via his Diplo-helmed single "Express Yourself". "It’s remarkable how outsiders have treated [twerk]," Lazer says. "These kids grow up in a community where it’s common and there’s no innuendo; it’s acrobatics, it’s expression, it’s part of music culture. The outsiders sexualize the dance more than it was ever intended to be. People see a female ass move and think it’s only good for one thing; provoking or providing sex. I think the controversy speaks to the level of sexual maturity in pop; that they don’t see the world, or movement, as a complex tapestry. It’s an oversimplification that comes from what it takes to be in that realm and it’s easy to simplify these historically complex cultures into digestible nuggets. For bounce, for twerking, that nugget is sex."
It’s no surprise that the person partially responsible for turning upside-down ass-shaking into a viral internet presence is supportive of pop’s current obsession with the aesthetics of his local sound, but he’s taking the attention with a grain of salt. "Everyone has their take on it but dancing is a form of expression and empowerment," says Nicky Da B. "This applies to men, to gay people, to women. Everyone shakes their booty here, it’s just a matter of what to." Adds Mannie Fresh: "The word 'gender' doesn’t even exist here. We are an open, free place."
The Original Pinettes
Five hours and rounds of battle after the Street Kings competition’s initial start, the name of the thing is quickly altered as the Original Pinettes are declared the first ever Street Queens of New Orleans. They accept their award to wild approval from the crowd; much of their corner are women who went to St. Mary’s and have brought their own families to the community celebration.
"Things have been crazy," says Jourdain two weeks after the competition. She tells me about the phone calls for gigs that immediately followed. (Unsurprisingly, many are from corporate entities, like the H&M that will open in the French Quarter this month.) Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and fading aerobics-king Richard Simmons recently attended one of their shows, hanging out on stage and eventually making requests. "It’s cool when famous people are in town and want to be a part of your shows because they love the energy," she says. She adds laughing: "But try and tell us what to play and we will have no problem telling you to fall back and let us do what we do!"
Still, there’s no hiding that this is a significant moment for her and her self-described "sisters from love, not by blood." They’re in tune with the world outside of their city, but revel in the acknowledgement given within. "People come here and want to be a part of something," she says. "We see so many music worlds interwoven in New Orleans; it’s in our blood, in our history. I honestly think it’s great that pop stars are emulating us with twerking and all that, but they won’t actually understand us unless they come here and try to understand. And we invite them to."