Two boys sitting on the front porch of Louis Armstrong’s childhood home.

There is a House in New Orleans: Myths and Realities in One of the World's Most Romanticized Musical Cities

From the towering legend of Storyville to the gritty visuals of project life as depicted in '90s Cash Money and No Limit videos, evolving and conflicting images of the city New Orleans have loomed large in its music: dangerous, decadent, permissive, exceptional. The traditions we think of as most representative of the city depend on its actual geography: generations of Mardi Gras Indians and second-line parades taking to the same streets, hip-hop and bounce songs claiming and celebrating neighborhoods and other hyperlocal institutions, even the division between "uptown" and "downtown" styles at the dawn of jazz. We'll discuss how ideas of New Orleans are woven into a century of its impressive contribution to American pop music - and importantly, the realities and challenges that face musicians and culture bearers trying to live and work in the city today. 

Moderated by Alison Fensterstock, journalist

Gwen Thompkins, host of WWNO-FM's Music Inside Out

Cherice Harrison-Nelson, Big Queen of the Guardians of the Flame Mardi Gras Indians and cofounder of the Mardi Gras Indian Hall of Fame

Hannah Krieger-Benson, musician and program director at the Music & Culture Coalition of New Orleans

Don B, producer for artists including Soulja Slim, Mia X, Mystikal and Cheeky Blakk and son of rock n'roll pioneer Dave Bartholomew

Free and open to the public, courtesy of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music and New Orleans Jazz Museum.