Catching up on the local blogosquare, I came across this post on Democracy and Hip-Hop. It mostly concerns the New Orleans Bounce music documentary Ya Heard Me (which I'm now dying to see), but in the post, author Krisna Best characterizes KC's culture as compared with New Orleans' in this brisk, proud and knowing sweep:
I'll be right up front, I'm from Kansas City, y'all. Where I'm from we listen to Tech N9ne and Young Rich, Approach, Soul Providers, Vell Bakardy, Mac Lethal, and Joc Max, we go to G's Jamaican Cuisine for local hood hip-hop, the Peanut for backpacker rap, while the grown and sexy crowd goes to Bodyworks and the Epicurean. We don't eat crawfish and red beans and rice, but we will throw down on some barbeque and hotwings, brisket, pulled pork, and burnt ends. Our teams are the Chiefs and Royals. Our Mardi Gras is St. Patrick's Day. Yeah, NOLA's got the Irish Channel and Veterans street parades, but we got Snake Saturday, Brookside, and Downtown parades. We just ain't quite the glorified small town that NOLA is (and actually we're a bit larger both land and population).
Krisna continues...
My city was home to Jazz innovators too. Our 18th and Vine is [was -- Ed.] like NOLA's French Quarter. Now, don't get me wrong, we didn't have nearly the commercial explosion and hype that New Orleans enjoyed. But our music is just as valuable. We don't have all the Jazz preservation societies and bullshit that without it, current New Orleans Jazz would fall like the house of cards it is (not saying it hasn't made historically legitimate contributions). We have The Foundation, which was a union and performance hall for local Jazz musicians, but that's about it.I just don't want y'all to get it twisted and drive up to KC looking for a Midwest equivalent to the Vieux Carre. 'Cause it ain't there.
Read the full post here.
Ya Heard Me trailer
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