Skip navigation

Category Archives: NOLA

Ain't My Fault (UPDATE)

We wrote about the toe-tapping indictment of BP at the Gulf Aide Benefit Concert.  The all star cast of Mos Def, Trombone Shorty, Lenny Kravitz and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band also released a studio version of the song. Check out this must hear "Ain’t My Fault" on Entertainment Weekly.

The Gulf Aide benefit concert went off this weekend, raising money for the people and places affected by the on-going oil leak.  Big name celebrities like Lenny Kravitz and Tim Robbins joined locals like The Voice of the Wet-Lands Allstars at the concert grounds near New Orleans. 

My friend (and favorite DJ) Ben Berman at Offbeat Magazine, told me about a great moment where Mos Def and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band collabo’d on a timely cover of the Crescent City classic, "Ain’t My Fault." 

Mos Def’s lines could’ve been lifted right from last week’s BP, Haliburton and Transocean senate hearings; "BP: big pimpin’/ big pile of BAD presses/ boiling point/ billionare point pressures/ Awwwww, it ain’t my fault."

…Well maybe just the last line.

Read more about the Gulf Aide from local music magazine Offbeat.

Have you heard any other protest songs about the gulf gusher?

Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina Struggles to Reclaim, Rebuild, and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall near New Orleans leaving death and destruction across the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama Gulf Coast counties. The lethargic and inept emergency response that followed exposed institutional flaws, poor planning, and false assumptions that are built into the emergency response and homeland security plans and programs. Questions linger: What went wrong? Can it happen again? Is our government equipped to plan for, mitigate, respond to, and recover from natural and manmade disasters? Can the public trust government response to be fair? Does race matter?Racial disparities exist in disaster response, cleanup, rebuilding, reconstruction, and recovery. Race plays out in natural disaster survivors’ ability to rebuild, replace infrastructure, obtain loans, and locate temporary and permanent housing. Generally, low-income and people of color disaster victims spend more time in temporary housing, shelters, trailers, mobile homes, and hotels-and are more vulnerable to permanent displacement. Some “temporary” homes have not proved to be that temporary. In exploring the geography of vulnerability, Clark Atlanta University Prof.Robert Bullard and Dillard University Prof. Beverly Wright explore why some communities get left behind economically, spatially, and physically before and after disasters strike.