Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission turns 50 this year, and we're giving you 50 reasons to visit our Cajun and Creole city in the heart of South Louisiana. Learn why Lafayette's been named the "Happiest City in America." 1. People European settlement of Lafayette began in the mid-1700s…
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Our Mardi Gras season, which stretches from the Twelfth Night of Christmas or Jan. 6 to Mardi Gras day, the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday and the advent of Lent, is filled with extravagant balls and pageantry like no other. Organizations that host Carnival parades, balls, and pageants are known in…
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South Louisiana is home to the greatest free party on earth, a colorful celebration known as Mardi Gras. But what most people see on television the weekend before Lent starts much earlier. The entire Mardi Gras season runs several winter weeks in Lafayette and throughout the Acadiana region and…
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"I have so much respect for the original oystermen like my grandfather back in the day," says Albert "Buzzy" Besson, "My grandfather would go out in his boats and dredge for oysters. It was a very labor-intensive process. We still produce a wonderful product, but now we farm oysters."…
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From Tony Chachere to Beyonce, Creole people have made a long-lasting impression on the global landscape. October is known as Creole Heritage Month, a time to acknowledge, educate, and celebrate all things Creole. This holiday was created in the 1970's to uplift Creole culture and language across…
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Try Googling "snow cones" and see what comes up. It pretty much lands you in Baltimore. The Maryland city claims to be one of the originators of the desert, dating back to the Industrial Revolution when ice was shipped by the truckloads to southern states. Louisiana claims home to the "sno-ball"…
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June is African American Music Appreciation Month. A time to honor, celebrate, and reflect on all the musical accomplishments Black Americans have given throughout the centuries. Louisiana has a strong connection with the musical legacy of this country, from traditional gospel music to the bounce…
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Swamp pop represents, according to its foremost historian, Shane K. Bernard, the cultural collisions of “Cajun and Creole, black and white, French and English, rural and urban, folk and mainstream.” Sharing affinities with rhythm and blues, rock and roll, country and western, and rockabilly, swamp…
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An early 20th-century precursor to zydeco, la-la music melds indigenous American, African, European, blues, nascent rhythm and blues, and Louisiana Creole and Cajun traditions to form a popular genre that is both provincial and unmeasurably influential. Primarily associated with Black Creoles of…
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Cajun music is a central component and marker of Cajun identity and culture in southwestern Louisiana. Largely accordion and fiddle based, and mostly sung in vernacular French, Cajun music has foundations in Indigenous American, African, German, Irish, Anglo-American as well as Francophone folk…
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