Podcast

Shotgun Griot is a podcast featuring conversations with creatives in New Orleans, Louisiana. Host Amina Desselle interviews artists working through various forms of expression, including musicians, visual artists, writers, comedians, culinary professionals, dancers, actors, and more. Each episode explores the guest’s personal journey and creative vision.

Community

Shotgun Griot hosts events and gatherings for local creative professionals in New Orleans. These events foster creative community by providing space for artists to share work, reflect on events in their communities, and discuss developments in their crafts.

Relevant History

Shotgun Griot was named in reference to two distinctly African traditions woven into the cultural fabric of New Orleans. Shotgun architecture arrived in the United States from West Africa through the legacy of free Haitians of color. Traditionally one room wide, one story tall, and several rooms deep, the shotgun reconfigures Western notions of privacy to create an African-derived sense of shared space. The Shotgun Griot podcast is recorded in a shotgun house in New Orleans.

The griot tradition began centuries ago in West Africa. The griot is a storyteller and musician who passes on the stories of a community through spoken word and song, sometimes serving as an advisor or a local mediator.  The art of the griot is purposeful and resilient, traditionally passed from generation to generation within a family. The artists of New Orleans maintain the city’s collective memory in a variety of media, providing creative testimony to the lived experience of residents, as they imagine and construct our shared spaces. In the words of Senegalese film director Djibril Diop Mambety, “The griot is a messenger of one’s time, a visionary and the creator of the future.”