On August 16, around 1 a.m., NOPD arrested Kay Joe, otherwise known as the freestyle rapper Unscripted, for “playing loud music at a prohibited time” on Frenchmen Street in New Orleans. When police arrested Joe, they also impounded his truck and confiscated his equipment. Joe could only access his equipment, his livelihood, once granted a court order.

Frenchmen Street is an area that has traditionally encouraged live performances and embraced the uniqueness of the city’s ambiance. “I always perform after the brass bands,” said Joe in an interview with OffBeat. “Frenchmen Street is a late-night type of place, and out of respect for the brass bands, I wait until they’re finished to do my performance.” While Joe’s late-night performances may have been tolerated and even celebrated in the past, recent changes to the local community have affected street performance culture. 

In February, a new resident reportedly moved into the neighborhood area surrounding Frenchmen Street. Supposedly, this person asked Joe to stop performing, because the noise from Joe’s performance was affecting the resident’s sleep quality. The resident then threatened to shut Joe’s performance down. Earlier this month, Joe was arrested for performing in this same spot.

“Street performers are allowed,” says Joe. “As long as we don’t block entrances to doors and our sound levels are below 80 decibels. The biggest issue surrounding my arrest is there should have been a decibel reading to determine if I was in violation. NOPD can’t determine that, only the Health Department, who is trained and equipped with a decibel reader, can.”

“Nobody should have to go through this,” said Joe, in an Instagram Live video following the arrest. “I was locked up, handcuffed and everything. They towed my ride for street performing, something I’ve been doing for three and a half years, and all of a sudden it’s illegal. I guess I’m being made the example.” 

Street performers on Frenchmen have become a contentious subject lately, and Joe marks the second performer arrested on Frenchmen Street in the past five weeks. On July 8, Eugene “Little Eugene” Grant, who often performed on Frenchmen with the Young Fellaz Brass Band, was arrested for performing outside the entrance to Frenchmen Art & Books. Because the brass band was blocking his store’s entrance, David Zalkind, the store’s owner, contacted the police about the band, after requesting that they move away from the bookstore’s entrance. The NOPD asked the band to move away and initially, they did, but returned when the NOPD left. NOPD officers returned a few minutes later to check to see if the band had moved; they had not, and when Grant objected to moving, he was arrested. On July 21, a protest rally was organized in support of Grant.

Under Chapter 66, Section 139 of the Code of the City of New Orleans, LA, noise above normative levels is permissible for performers or parades with verified, city-issued permits. According to Joe, he’s tried several times to obtain any permit he needs, but “the city doesn’t issue out permits for street performing.”

• It shall be unlawful for any person to play musical instruments on public rights-of-way between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m.Persons may obtain a temporary permit as provided by this article. The provisions of this section shall not apply to any person who has obtained a temporary permit as provided for by section 66-176 or are specifically exempted from the provisions of this article as provided by sections 66-138 and 66-139 or any noise resulting from activities of a temporary duration, for which a temporary permit has been granted by the city as provided for in section 66-176.

Renard Bridgewater of the Music & Culture Coalition of New Orleans (MaCCNO) has been working with Kay Joe for several years, aiding him in navigating his work as a street performer. Bridgewater says Unscripted has been targeted for years, “but there has been a significant uptake since February of this year for sure.” Bridgewater mentions one particular interaction Joe had with someone (presumably a nearby resident) who ” literally went up to his truck and pulled the plug on his equipment” instead of saying “Hey, would you mind turning it down, I have to work at xyz hour.”

The tension was exacerbated once law enforcement got involved, says Bridgewater. “The relationship started in a very nefarious and combative way from jump. There were many complaints filed either with NOPD, the health department, and then over a series of months there was a narrative that was continuously put out there of Unscripted being someone not easy to work with, who was combative, who was playing hip-hop all hours of the night…all various scenarios that were being presented obviously in a negative light. No one had actually done any due diligence to go down there and ask, ‘Is this the case?’ It was just kind of accepted at face value from those residents and their complaints and then that was it.

You had that situation, those complaints being made, and then I think maybe around festival season there was an uptick where you had nine different law enforcement agencies that operate in and around the French Quarter. At least four, if not five, agencies on any given night operate at that corner of Frenchmen and Chartres.”

With specific regard to Unscripted, Bridgewater says he had been reluctant to return to Frenchmen and Chartres due to the harassment he’d experienced there in the past.

“Long story short, you have two different law enforcement agencies that are employed by Frenchmen businesses and neighbors, to maintain some form of status quo. I can’t speak to what their procedural guidelines are but I do know one of the two are out there Thursday through Sunday (10 p.m.-3 a.m.). The privatized patrol employs both Levee District police officers AND deputies of the Sheriff’s Office. Only one agency will be present at a time depending upon the availability of the officers and their respective agency.”

He continues, “On June 17, Unscripted received a summons from a Levee District office. Fast forward to the morning of August 16, I was contacted about midnight where Unscripted mentioned that he was being shut down. The sheriff’s deputy (different from the Levee District) that threatened Unscripted with arrest on May 30 was the same individual that shut him down from performing on August 16.”

Other New Orleans performers—including MC Ray Wimley, a local rapper who gained viral internet fame when a video appeared of him freestyling with rapper Common on the streets of New Orleans—have similar performance styles to that of Joe. “What me and Ray Wimley do is exactly the same thing,” said Joe. Still, Unscripted was the one arrested.

“You know, Ray and Unscripted are our cultural ambassadors,” adds Bridgewater. “Because a lot of folks are going to the street to be able to hear music.” Though Bridgewater emphasizes the fact that Wimley has had his [un]fair share of negative attention from law enforcement, he would be remiss not to acknowledge the stark contrast in how he and Unscripted have been treated. “ Why is one MC being criminalized and the other one is given all of these opportunities?”

After dealing with the bureaucratic fallout following his arrest, after finding his truck—minus the new iPad which he’d left inside—in an impound lot and being forced to cash a check in order to receive the money which the police confiscated from his person, Joe is still coming to terms with what happened. “I’d never been to jail in my life,” said Joe, incredulous. “I went to jail for street performing.”