NOLA.com: This weekend's NOLA Funk Fest features Big Freedia, Tank and the Bangas, Bobby Rush and more
- Oct 17, 2024
- 1 min read
From NOLA.com: To borrow a catchphrase from the Essence Festival of Culture, the NOLA Funk Fest is a party with a purpose.
From Friday through Sunday, the second annual NOLA Funk Fest takes over the grounds of the Old U.S. Mint and the New Orleans Jazz Museum at 400 Esplanade Ave.
Pound for pound, its roster of mostly New Orleans music is as solid as any festival in town. The two-dozen-plus acts include Tank & the Bangas, Big Freedia, Marcia Ball, Jon Cleary, Bobby Rush, Dumpstaphunk and Geo Leo featuring the Meters' George Porter Jr. and Leo Nocentelli.
George Porter Jr. and Leo Nocentelli on the same bill is the detail that makes this lineup genuinely significant beyond the festival circuit. The Meters' catalog sits at the foundation of hip-hop sampling history in a way that very few other bands can claim — those grooves have been chopped and flipped by producers across four decades without losing anything. Bobby Rush at 91 still performing is its own statement about what New Orleans does to musicians. For producers in the audience who work with funk and soul recordings, Tracklib carries original commercial releases from that whole tradition with clearance built in rather than negotiated separately. One of the better lineups in the country right now.