The New Orleans dance scene wouldn’t be what it is today without DJ and multifaceted artist KILOBAUUD, formerly known as Lil Jodeci.
Based on his established following in the local nightlife scene, you would never know he once was getting by selling life insurance and parking cars as a valet. After becoming ill from his day job, he started casually DJing in 2011. He realized his DJ gigs paid more than parking cars and began his music career playing hip-hop music before pivoting into the genre that made him feel most alive: house music.
Year after year, he launched events that forever changed New Orleans’ dance culture. First, it was Lemon Head Sundays in 2011, a day party that established him as a DJ and event producer. Then, it was the Pink Room Project in 2016, a DJ collective-led underground dance event he describes as “chaos culture.” A year later, he introduced Set De Flo in 2017, a liberating dance party with local and visiting DJs playing the most innovative and electrifying dance, house and electronic mixes until the wee hours of the morning.
Set De Flo is like a portal. As soon as you step into the space, you’re greeted by chest-thumping beats, smells of incense, palo santos and likely the sweat of people dancing full-out on a packed dance floor. It’s something like the modern-day Studio 54, where everyone is in their own world, dancing like nobody’s watching. In its earlier days, the events were emceed by Lord Chilla, a brutally honest and comical vibe controller who would recite empowering affirmations, shout out horoscopes and knew just what to say to charge your dancing batteries for another song.
For more than a decade, KILOBAUUD has curated sacred, underground you-had-to-be-there experiences for New Orleaniens and visitors lucky enough to be in the know. Now, he is stepping into a new era. One that calls for archiving his sound with recorded albums, amplifying local talent with Set De Flo’s new role as a record label and a long-awaited name change from Lil Jodeci to KILOBAUUD. The name Lil Jodeci began as a joke on Twitter that just so happened to stick, he says. As he was experiencing a creative rebirth, he selected the name KILOBAUUD as an all-encompassing entity meant to capture all facets of his artistic creations with a nod to his love of technology.
“I would like the people to see my brain, the rawest form I can give them of my brain, unfiltered and without judging,” KILOBAUUD said. “Like, here’s what I have to offer. It’s like performance art.”
His March album, “Swamp Nighas from Under Space,” features seven layered dance and electronic songs with hints of New Orleans bounce, classic soundbites and groovy breakdowns. Its international, timeless, experimental and trippy sound brings the listener on a voyage through “under space” that only KILOBAUUD knows the destination.
With the evolution of Set De Flo as an event and Black-owned, independent and underground record label, KILOBAUUD plans to continue producing new projects, attract more financial investment for local talent and give local artists the infrastructure to create music and generate revenue.
“Bounce music is electronic music,” KILOBAUUD said. “It’s an art form that white people have bastardized. We need to take our shit back, make our money off it and tell our own stories.”
Follow on Instagram: @kilobauud
