Season 2: Episode 2: "You live your culture, or you kill your culture. There is no in between."

For this episode, Jordan meets with three Lafayette-area creatives working in the realm of Louisiana French preservation: Jonathan Olivier, a writer; Drake LeBlanc, a filmmaker and media artist; and Jourdan Thibodeaux, a musician. 

From the starting point of Thibodeaux's groundbreaking song "La Prière" (2023, Valcour Records), we discuss the ways that music, art, content creation, and humor can help to foster a passion for the Louisiana way of life—a way of life that goes beyond language to the fostering of community gathering and oral storytelling. 

This episode was published in partnership with Télé-Louisiane. Read more about our collaboration with the bilingual Louisiana media platform here.

Watch This

View the music video for "La Prière" by Jourdan Thibodeaux et les Rôdailleurs here.

Mark Your Calendar

Catch the following events coming up that celebrate Louisiana's Cajun and Creole French cultures:

Le Grand Hoorah at Lakeview Park and Beach from September 30–October 1

The Coop Live! Festivals Acadiens Kick-off Party Presented by Valcour Records at Hideaway Hall on October 13 at 4 pm.

Jourdan Thibodeaux et les Rôdailleurs will perform at Festivals Acadiens et Créoles on October 15 at 3:30 pm

Vermillionville's Blackpot Festival and Cook-Off October 27–October 28

Vermillionville's Blackpot Camp October 22–October 27

Where to Find our Guests

Find Jourdan Thibodeaux on Instagram and TikTok @jourdanthibodeaux

Find Drake LeBlanc on Instagram @lovebenoir

Find Jonathan Olivier on Instagram @jonaolivier

Learn more about L'Assemblée de la Louisiane here.

Learn more about Valcour Records here. 

Find more Louisiana French Language media coverage from Télé-Louisiane here.

Resources for Learning or Practicing Louisiana French

The following French classes and tables are offered throughout the state, for those interested in learning: 

French Table at the Blue Moon Saloon

Lakeview Park & Beach Table Francaise

Bourrée and French Table at Bayou Teche Brewery

Bayou Teche French Table at Cane River Pecan Company

La Table Française at Vieux Village

La Table Française in Arnaudville

Lakeview Park & Beach Table Francaise

Table Française at Tante Marie's

Café Français at the West Baton Rouge Museum

Find more French Tables in the Acadiana area here.

Reading List

Here, find articles that we either mentioned in the episode, or that we think might enrich and/or further the conversations we had. 

“Tu Vis Ta Culture ou Tu Tues Ta Culture”: With his latest album, Jourdan Thibodeaux implores French Louisianans to hold on to their heritage

By Jonathan Olivier (in partnership with Télé-Louisiane)

L'Assemblée de la Louisiane: Louisiana culture activists unite to ensure a sustainable future for Louisiana culture, way of life, and land

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

Travaillons Ensemble: Announcing a new partnership between Country Roads and Télé-Louisiane

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

"A Part of Something That's a Part of Us": The new generation of Cajun music is woman

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

Woman of the Prairie: Ashlee Michot is a mother, an artist, and a fierce ambassador of her Louisiana French culture.

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

The Documented South: 6 Gulf South-produced and -focused documentaries in production or on the festival circuit this year (includes Roots of Fire, which features Thibodeaux and is about preserving Louisiana French culture)

By Alexandra Kennon

Meet Your Co-Hosts 

James Fox-Smith is the Publisher of Country Roads magazine, and has been on the masthead since 1995 when he followed a Louisiana girl (Country Roads' Associate Publisher Ashley Fox-Smith) to her hometown of St. Francisville to take over her mother's magazine. The past two decades have made this Aussie into a true Louisianan, as passionate and knowledgable about the intricacies of this region's culture as any bayou-born Cajun. Overseeing the company for much of its forty-year history, he's worn almost every hat the magazine has to offer, from sales to editorial to marketing—and writes a monthly publisher's column, titled "Reflections" which you can peruse, here. You also might catch him hosting the Louisiana Public Broadcasting's weekly series Art Rocks!—which spotlights artists, performance, culture, literature, history and the impact of art in our world.

Jordan LaHaye Fontenot is the Managing Editor of Country Roads magazine, and has been a part of the editorial team since 2018. Born and raised in the heart of Acadiana, she came to Country Roads with a passion for Louisiana storytelling. She holds a degree in English from Louisiana State University, where she received the 2018 Sarah Sue Goldsmith Award for Nonfiction. In addition to her work at Country Roads, she has published stories in regional and international publications including inRegister, Atlas Obscura, and the Oxford American. Her first book Home of the Happy: A murder on the Cajun Prairie, will be  published by Mariner Books in 2024.  

Alexandra Kennon is the Arts & Entertainment Editor at Country Roads since 2020, and has been writing and photographing stories about Southern culture, cuisine, history, and art for the magazine since 2016. She holds degrees in Journalism and Theatre Arts from Loyola University New Orleans, where she was Managing Editor of Pacemaker-winning university newspaper The Maroon, and could typically be found flitting between the newsroom and black box theatre. She has acted in productions ranging from independent festival films to Tennessee Williams world-premiere stage productions, and previously led historical, culinary, and cultural tours of New Orleans. Her book Classic Restaurants of New Orleans, published by Arcadia/The History Press with a foreword by Walter Isaacson, is available most places one finds books.