Daniel MasterPIECE Jones
Industrial Canal, New Orleans
I know Daniel through Amelia. We met up in the Industrial Canal in New Orleans. Daniel MasterPIECE Jones brought a microphone and a speaker. I'm delighted when folks bring something different than a guitar. I love the guitar, they are beautiful and travel well. That makes them pretty ubiquitous for a tinyboatsession. When another musical tool appears the novelty is delightful.
This stretch of water represents the last in a series of several canals dug from Lake Pontchartrain almost to the Mississippi River. The Industrial Canal finally connected it. The first of these canals was natural–a little stretch of water called Bayou St. John. It runs into the massive Lake Pontchartrain estuary that is connected to the sea. New Orleans exists not just because of the Mississippi River, but because this bayou headwaters are a mile and a half behind the old city and connect it to the sea via salty Lake Pontchartrain making it a perfect place for trade. The city tried to improve on Bayou St. John with many canal projects over a century. It got closer and closer until the Industrial Canal finally connected the river with Pontchartrain. Solving that problem caused many others. Unlike the old canals built through the city, this one feels like the edge, even though on the Mississippi side it bisects the 9th ward into its upper and lower sections. In one breath the infrastructure that makes the canal work is gritty yet grand.
Daniel rapped one of his in front of a sunken tugboat and the steamboat NATCHES. Afterward, we got to talking about the iconic vessel, and I told him that back in the 19th century the riverboat men would do something called a ‘shoutboast.’ This was basically the equivalent of free-style rap battle meets slam poetry when a boatman would boast of his accomplishments, real and mostly, well pretty much all embellished. Daniel liked the idea and gave it a try. @Dmasterpiecejones