Evolution Of A Man

i can’t even begin to tell you how great a time i had in new orleans this weekend! i haven’t had this relaxing and entertaining a vacation in a really long time.

i arrived in the big easy on friday evening and went straight to the superdome for the first night of music. I took in j. holiday, rihanna and chris brown!

knowing a lot of their music, i really got into the show; but i must admit, if there was any a moment when i realized that i’m an adult- it was during friday night’s concert. there was just something about that entire night and it’s performances that just screamed teenager or young adult. maybe it was all the screaming that was going on, i dunno. i just felt slightly out of place if that makes any sense. i still love their music and will always be a fan, but i’m now just really aware of my generation.

saturday and sunday were spent, for me, perusing the streets of new orleans. my mom wanted to go to all of the seminars being held in the convention center, but this was my first time in new orleans and i was NOT about to spend it sitting down inside somewhere, lol. i hit the streets during the daytime.

my first stop: cafe du monde!

i can’t tell you how good those things were. i had a good 20 of those things during the 5 or so days i was there. and i bought a box of the mix so that i could make them at home. what!

in addition to stuffing myself with beignets all week, i did my little forest gump thing, and walked just about everywhere in the french quarter. i must have clocked a good 20 miles or more with all the walking i did. hell, i do that much walking around nyc… why not take it right over to new orleans? lol

…and with the whole drinking in the streets being legal thing, i was quite light on my feet! i ran into some pretty interesting things.

those drinks were so damn tasty! but the oysters? not so much!

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the friday and satruday night performances were absolutely amazing! from the main stage to the superlounges- jill scott, musiq, solange, ledisi, keyshia cole, mary j. blige and more. i pretty much just kicked off my shoes and jumped right in to all of the performances.

we were on the floor for saturday’s musiq and jill scott performances, which prevented me from getting any good video, but i did switch it up a bit and caught some awesome superlounge performances by solange, ledesi and estelle:

sunday night was the best, though. keyshia cole may have warmed it up, but my girl, mary brought the house down!

mary j. blige had everyone on their feet partying the whole time! it was definitely a cool moment.

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in the days after the festival, my mom and i stayed behind to do a little touring of our own. one of our adventures included a ride through the 9th ward and other katrina devastated areas:

you know, there’s one thing seeing all of this on television, but it’s really something different and crazy seeing the disaster area (almost a full 3 years later) in person. i can’t even imagine what the residents of new orleans are going through. after a while, i couldn’t even take anymore pictures…i just felt very sad.

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so yeah, i had a fabulous time in new orleans. it was my first time attending the essence music festival, but it definitely won’t be my last. especially, since beyonce is slated to headline one of the evenings! best believe i’ll be there. lord willing, somewhere backstage, lol.

see y’all next year…