Raised in the New Orleans Magnolia Project, Juvenile is a bounce rapper who rose to national prominence. Photo by Aubrey Edwards
In 1991 in a bar called Ghost Town in the Hollygrove neighborhood of New Orleans, two rappers DJ Irv and MC T Tucker recorded a song that changed the course of the local music scene over the next two decades. The song, called “Where Dey At,” was the genesis of a whole new genre of music called bounce.
The bounce scene spread throughout New Orleans’ poor neighborhoods, the projects, and local clubs. While similar to hip-hop, the bounce sound is completely indigenous to New Orleans. It draws upon the rhythms of the Second Line and the vocal chants of the Mardi Gras Indians. It’s energetic, infectious, and danceable.
Relatively unknown in other parts of the country until 2005 when rapper musicians arrived in cities like Houston and Atlanta and introduced the celebratory sound. While it is hasn’t gained widespread national attention, you can hear elements of bounce in some hit songs today.
In order to document this relatively unknown, yet distinctively New Orleans sound, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art is exhibiting Where They At: New Orleans Bounce and Hip Hop in Words and Pictures sponsored by the Greater New Orleans Foundation.
The exhibit showcases the collaboration of photographer Aubrey Edwards and journalist Alison Fensterstock who photographed and interviewed more than 40 rappers, DJs, producers, label and record store owners from the bounce music scene.
Contributed by Penny Montblanc
