HEART OF LOUISIANA: Freetown

LAFAYETTE, La. (WAFB) – The unique language, music, and culture of Creole Louisiana is the focus of a museum in an area of Lafayette known as Freetown.

Erica Fox is a musician and artist who helped found the Maison Freetown Cultural Center in Lafayette.

“Freetown is a community, was basically where free people of color of this area kind of migrated because it was the backside of what was the sugarcane plantation,” explained Fox. “We wanna share and highlight those contributions of people that at certain times in our history did not get recognized or acknowledged for their contributions to the development of this city.”

This is a place where you can hear Zydeco music sometimes sung in the Creole French language. Maison Freetown also hosts gatherings where people are encouraged to speak Creole known as Kouri Vini.

“Some people who may not know about it learn to speak it, and then there’s some folks who grew up with it. They get to celebrate, you know that conversation that they heard in their household,” said Fox.

You had a language that was actually created in Louisiana that is on the verge of disappearing.

“The language Kouri Vini, which is French Creole language, was very prevalent. As a matter of fact, my own family, that was their first language, which we spoke French within our family household,” said Fox.

And at this jam session at Maison Freetown, you hear the Creole French in these Zydeco songs.

Cedric Watson is one of the musicians who has recorded songs he sings in Kouri Vini. Randall “RJ” Jackson also performs songs in Creole French. It’s a distinctly different language from the more common Cajun French.

Jackson says the Creole language would vary from one town to the next.

“It has to be like maybe five or six different dialects of Louisiana Creole throughout the Black Creole communities in southwest Louisiana,” said Jackson.

At Maison Freetown, this endangered Creole French language has a universal appeal when it’s wrapped in the vibrant sounds of Zydeco music.

For more information, visit the Heart of Louisiana’s website.

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