Louisiana musician Jourdan Thibodeaux aims to put Cajun and Creole culture into focus with haunting new music video

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - If you consider yourself Cajun or Creole, whether it be by blood or by culture, Jourdan Thibodeaux, a musician and budding social media star from Cypress Island, Louisiana, has a message for you in a now-viral music video going around social media.

The video for the song “La Prière” is from a new album by the same name, released under his band’s name, Jourdan Thibodeaux et les Rôdailleurs (translated as “Jourdan Thibodeaux and the Rangers” in English).

The song La Prière comes off like a ghostly chant that may be something that could be heard echoing in the halls of an isolated cathedral in the wilderness. It sounds like hundreds of years of history captured by the most modern of studio recording equipment.

The opening lines of the song read, “You live your culture or you kill your culture. There is no in-between.”

Combining results from Facebook and Instagram, Thibodeaux’s stirring song has gathered well over 35,000 views.

He’s a small, rural town star aware he’s participating in a culture that’s fading, yet one of the rarest in the world. His latest song, much like the rest of the content he’s created online, is aimed at re-engineering the mindset of thinking of Cajun and Creole culture as something that is living, rather than a relic of the past. When the 37-year-old Cajun fiddler isn’t playing music in front of crowds, he’s cooking up dishes or teaching French on Instagram, a platform where he’s collected 47,000 thousand followers.

His latest music video brings the scene of West and South Louisiana to life with vibrant images of cooking, dancing, and sweating on stage in front of large festival crowds. He’s become a mainstay for the largest of Louisiana festivals with a recent performance at Festivals Acadiens et Créoles in Lafayette and he will perform at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on Sunday, May 7.

His band includes an All-Star lineup of Cedric Watson on accordion, Alan Lafleur on bass, Joel Savoy on guitar, and Adam Cormier on drums.

Thibodeaux is a recording artist for Valcour Records out of Eunice, Louisiana.

Photo : The song La Prière comes off like a ghostly chant that may be something that could be heard echoing in the halls of an isolated cathedral in the wilderness. It sounds like hundreds of years of history captured by the most modern of studio recording equipment.(Jourdan Thibodeaux)