Corey Ledet

I knew I wanted to be a musician the minute I found my grandfather's drum set and heard all the stories about how he was a great musician. He played with Clifton Chénier and Rockin’ Dopsie and all the jazz bands in his time. And that's what influenced me to want to become a musician like him.

Music makes me feel alive. And that's what I love about it. Music is my therapy. It literally is my therapy. It has helped me out in a lot of bad times in my life, and it continues to help me out. So that's what I love about music.

I love playing festivals because you get to see everybody having fun. You get all kinds of different cultures, and everybody comes together to have a good time. And whatever's bothering them, they forget about it for that little bit of time.

I'm influenced by so many different styles of music, to where my music has really evolved over the years, from jazz to country to rock to R&B, anything.

I love to collaborate with different musicians, mainly because sometimes you get to get with other musicians and you get to learn different styles, you get to learn different techniques, you get to learn different musical theories. So that's why I like to collaborate with as many different musicians as possible.

I think about music all the time. I think about it at night when I go to bed, and it's the first thing on my mind when I wake up. And just like all the musicians in Louisiana, it's just who we are.

Lafayette, Louisiana, is extremely special because of the rich culture that we have, and that's influenced me tremendously, from the cuisine to the language, just to the hospitality. The culture overall, in general, is just an amazing place.

What I love about accordion, especially the piano accordion, is because basically it's a piano. It's got all 12 keys. You could play in any key, and you can literally play any style of music in this world on the piano.

My hope for the next generation is to keep the culture going and really especially to pick up the language. You know, we're part of that generation where the parents didn't want us to pick it up. So I really hope the next generation picks up the language and keeps that part of the culture going.

For me, as a zydeco musician, I believe learning the Creole language is a big part of our Creole heritage and culture. It’s less than 10,000 people that speak it fluently today. So I'm doing my part not only to learn it, but I'm also learning how to read and write.

I'm Corey Ledet. I'm a two-time GRAMMY^® Award nominee, and I'm also a zydeco musician.