Bamboula 2000

Bamboula 2000 is a dance and music ensemble that draws on multicultural roots that reach deep into the soil of Congo Square in the City of New Orleans. For hundreds of years, the town square played host to dance and music rituals performed by people of Caribbean and West African descent. The word bamboula refers to a love dance that was performed to the beat of drums and either a female or male traditionally performed the sensuous movements. The bamboula passed down its syncopated rhythm to strains of music found today in Martinique, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, and New Orleans, including calypso, zouk, and dancehall music. Bamboula 2000 takes its heritage and updates it with its original numbers, blending elements of reggae, jazz, funk, urban, and other genres. In 1996, the ensemble put out its first recording, Cultural Warrior. Members took their show on the road, both at home in the U.S. and abroad, and that same year the group took home an Offbeat Music Award and a Big Easy Award. In 2000, the ensemble performed for the sixth time at the Jazz & Heritage Festival held annually in New Orleans. A second CD, New Society, was issued that same year.

Percussionist Luther Gray is Bamboula 2000's leader. In 1993, he spearheaded the effort to claim a spot on the National Register of Historic Places for the historically rich Congo Square. Along with Jamilah Muhammed four years previously, he helped establish the Congo Square Foundation. The remaining members of Bamboula 2000 are keyboardist Lloyd Daly, percussionist Eric Burt, guitarist Mario Tio, drummer Cameron Woods, lead vocalist Elbert "Moses" Fulgham, bassist Terrence Anderson, and background singers Carde, Drena Clay, and Cheryl Jenkins. Also included in the ensemble are dancers Kai Knight, Erica "Famata" Larkins, Jamilah Peters-Muhammad, and Charlene Tantira Bridges (collectively they are known as the Bamboula Queens).