New Orleans native, singer, and Hip Hop Caucus’ Artist Relations Director Dawn Richard is uplifting sustainability and bringing her signature energy to this year’s Mardi Gras — riding with two exciting floats.

On Saturday, February 22, she’ll join the Krewe of Freret, which is making strides toward a more sustainable Mardi Gras by eliminating plastic beads and incorporating eco-friendly throws. On Sunday, February 23, she’ll ride with ESSENCE, celebrating the legacy of Black culture in the heart of New Orleans.

The former OffBeat cover star told us last summer, “I’m a poetry girl. Rumi is a favorite. He’s romantic and whimsical. [William] Blake is also a favorite. Some of my music has these spiritual and grandiose Biblical things, and Blake very much influenced that. My grandmother exposed me to those two poets. This is tangible. I went through it. I lost this. Now I’m reflecting it. I was afraid to write like this. I don’t think a younger me was prepared. This is the healing. One of the things I love about Rumi is that there is hope. I ended the record in hope, because every album I’ve ever done ends that way.”

As Michael Allen Zell reported, Dawn Richard is internationally-known now, but it all started in a New Orleans East garage with parents who met as teenagers. Her father Frank is best known as the lead singer from the funk band Chocolate Milk. He and her mother Debbie started out together on Dorgenois Street in the Lower 9th Ward. Richard stressed, “My parents worked hard and got across the canal to the East, which was the mecca where Black people were thriving. They were elementary education teachers. My dad was gigging but he also was teaching music for [Thomy] LaFon Elementary School. They had big dreams for us. We got a house on Johnlee Drive. That’s where my childhood was.”