BOUNCE MUSIC 101: NOLA’s (formerly) Best Kept Secret

New Orleans is famous for being the home of Jazz music. However, Bounce music is a genre that is so uniquely New Orleans it has only started to receive attention from the country in the last few years. With the re-emergence of “twerking” as a dance trend, more people began to pay attention to where it originated. Bounce music started in NOLA in the late 1980s, and underwent a few shifts before it became what it is today. Future Tulane students should get to know NOLA the way locals do, and what better place to start than with music? 

As a native Louisianian, I grew up with bounce music so it’s as common as any other music genre to me. However, once I came to Tulane I realized that not everyone actually knows what bounce music is. It’s really hard to explain, so I’ll just let y’all hear it for yourselves. “It’s simple, uptempo, heavy bass, call and response type music, and it has a lot to do with a lot of a** shaking,” as Big Freedia once said in an interview. Big Freedia, self-proclaimed “Queen of Bounce” is probably the most famous Bounce artist ever because of her national following and mainstream appeal. She’ll be at Tulane on the 19th of February to discuss race, gender, and cultural appropriation with Tulane professor Marc Perry as a part of the 2014 Black Arts Festival, and I for one am BEYOND excited to meet her. After setting the Guiness World Record for Most People Twerking Simultaneously, her popularity exploded leading to concerts around the nation and her own reality show on FUSE Network, Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce, which follows her rising career and family life. 

Like everything else unique to New Orleans, the best way to understand Bounce music is to experience it for yourself. If you come to New Orleans for a weekend, I can guarantee that more than a few clubs around the city will be playing Bounce music, and Club Republic has a Bounce Night every month, so check it out! Don’t be afraid to search for artists other than the most popular ones. Finding the older or lesser-known artists will give you a really good insight into New Orleans life and culture over the years.

Here’s the video for one of Big Freedia’s biggest hits, “Y’all Get Back Now”: 

And her Guinness World Record Attempt:

Big Freedia follows me on Twitter (seriously), and so should you: @TulaneAlex

50 Years of Desegregation: How Tulane is Celebrating

Guest blogger: Alex Williams

50 years ago, Tulane admitted its first Black students. This school year is a milestone for the university as it celebrates this very important anniversary. As the semester winds down, I thought it would be a good idea to reflect on everything Tulane has done so far to celebrate. In just the first semester of this year, Tulane has had 6 very distinguished speakers, which is almost unheard of. Among them are Michelle Alexander, legal scholar and author of The New Jim Crow, the book that was chosen for Tulane’s first year reading project; prison reform activist Jackie Sumell; and Angela Davis, Freedom Activist and former Vice Presidential candidate. As a freshman, it made me really happy to see how much Tulane does to commemorate important occasions. For more about the actual desegregation, check out this link from Tulane magazine: http://www.pageturnpro.com/Progress-Printing/53269-109569_Tulane-Sept13-Ptp/index.html#16

In addition to featuring a number of speakers, Tulane has held many events to commemorate the anniversary. On November 20, the Tulane Law School held a re-enactment of the court cases that led to Tulane’s desegregation. Current law students played the lawyers and judge. It was moderated by Tulane Law School professor Robert Westley; Laura Adderley, the chair of the African & African Diaspora Studies department; and Carolyn Barber-Pierre, the Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs and director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs. Mrs. Barber-Pierre is the head of the committee that is sponsoring these events, which includes panel discussions and documentary screenings. 

“We have so much to learn from our history about race relations, justice, equality and the vestiges of desegregation we are still dealing with today,” says Barber-Pierre. “This re-enactment is designed to get our students thinking about the great injustices of the past and to help them navigate similar situations that are unfortunately still a part of our society in many ways.”

This year, special attention is being paid to the first Black students who attended Tulane, including the ones who filed the initial lawsuit that led to the desegregation. Stephen Martin, Sr. was the first Black scholarship athlete to play at Tulane, and the first Black athlete to play in the Southeastern Conference. Pearlie Hardin Elloie and Barbara Guillory Thompson were the two original plaintiffs in the desegregation case, and are featured in an upcoming documentary about Tulane’s desegregation. This documentary features many other groundbreaking Black students at Tulane, and is slated for release next year. A preview of the documentary as well as a short article about it can be found here: http://cooperproject.org/doctulane50preview/. Marilyn Bernard, a 1968 graduate of Newcomb College and one of the people featured in the film had this to say:

"It’s really interesting. When Carolyn called me and said, ‘It’s been 50 years and we’re doing this documentary.’ I’m thinking it never occurred to me that 50 years later somebody would want to know, ‘How did you feel when you did that, when you went to that school?’ because it was just part of my life. It was just a part of my entire 66 years." -Marilyn Bernard (photo from Tulane Jambalaya, 1968)

Although so much was done this semester, next semester is going to be just as great. More speakers, more events, and more awareness about the issues that we still face today. I will definitely update as the year goes on, so stay tuned!

When I’m not blogging, I enjoy the company of my dog and getting into shenanigans. Follow me on Twitter as I make my way through freshman year! @TulaneAlex

How Tulane Is Decorating For The Holiday Season

Guest blogger: Alex Williams

Winter break is near, and for many Tulane students that means celebrating Christmas or other winter holidays. Despite the 75°+ temperatures last week, it is still winter, and Tulane is celebrating it.








This year, Chanukah fell during the Thanksgiving break instead of closer to Christmas, so many students were here to celebrate it. The Chabad here at Tulane even set up a giant menorah in front of the LBC.

The rest of the campus is getting into the seasonal spirit, altough a bit more quietly. The sophomore honors dorm, Weatherhead (AKA SoHo) is decorated inside and out like a winter wonderland. Within my own dorm, Josephine-Louise, many girls have decorated their room doors to celebrate the holidays.

  

On behalf of myself and my friends in the admissions office, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Follow me on Twitter for some of my holiday adventures! @TulaneAlex

7 Reasons Why Josephine-Louise Hall Is Awesome! (in no particular order)

Guest blogger: Alex Williams

Josephine Louise Hall, affectionately called JL (or jail, depending on your articulation), is an all-girls dorm on the Newcomb side of campus. Newcomb College was originally a women’s college before it became a part of Tulane University, and JL was its dorm. More than 1/3 of the incoming freshman female population is placed here every year, and not everyone is placed there by choice (myself included). I was really disappointed initially, because I’d heard stories about how boring it was to live there. I experienced the exact opposite when I got here, though, and now I want everyone to know how great it is.

1.  THE ROOMS ARE HUGE. Without exaggeration, JL has the second biggest rooms available to freshmen behind Wall Residential College. Pretty sweet since you don’t even have to pay extra for it. Check out this mini-tour video I made on move in day! 
2.  There’s an awesome quad right outside for sunbathing or studying! Just be wary of kids or dogs playing. No one wants to have their Chemistry homework messed up by a kid too engrossed in a game of tag to pay attention.
3.  It’s really close to Newcomb Hall and campus nightlife. Many freshman English and foreign language classes are held in Newcomb Hall, and it’s really convenient to wake up 10 minutes before class and still make it on time. It is also bordered by Broadway St., which is where Greek Row and The Boot (the best college bar in the country) are located.
4.  The closets are huge! Every other dorm has wardrobe style or small in-wall closets, but the closets in JL are definitely big enough to double as storage space for the things that can’t fit under your bed.



There’s a ton of wall space for hanging stuff up, too!



5.  There are sinks in the room. That way, you can brush your teeth and take mirror selfies without walking down the hallway to the bathroom.
6.  Quite possibly the best feature of JL is the grand ballroom on the first floor. It’s mainly used as a study space, but is also where we hold our dorm programs. My favorites so far have been our Halloween party featuring Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers, a free dessert and coffee mixer sponsored by the JL community government, and a free gumbo dinner sponsored by the Baptist Collegiate Ministry.

   

   
   Who doesn’t love free food? Especially homemade gumbo.

7.  The sisterly feel. This may sound cheesy, but JL is a really unique part of campus. JL has a reputation for being an unsocial dorm, but that didn’t happen with us. The girls here bond so well, it’s almost like being in a sorority. There’s no boys to impress, so the entire dorm has a more relaxed feel. On my floor, it’s not uncommon to see spontaneous group discussions happening in the middle of the hallway, just because 2 girls stopped to talk to each other. Sometimes, we go out together to events or parties as a floor, and it’s a really unique bonding experience that none of my friends in other dorms have experienced. 





This is a goal board my RA made. There’s a bunch of different questions, and it’s really cool to see what the other girls on the floor want to accomplish.

So there you have it! Even if JL isn’t at the top of your list, keep these things in mind in case you end up as one of the new JL residents next year ;D