February 23, 2022 | David Johnson, digital media editor of OffBeat, interviewed Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes, Big Chief of the North Side Skull and Bone Gang, and his son Aurélien Barnes, a Grammy-nominated musician who also participates in the Black Carnival tradition of “masking skeleton” on Mardi Gras day. In the second half hour of the program, Dr. Kim Vaz DeVille, a professor of education and the associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana, speaks about her work with the Good Life Project. She has surveyed a number of Black Carnival culture bearers, including Mardi Gras Indians and Baby Dolls, with the goal of understanding how the pandemic and the COVID-19 lockdown affected Mardi Gras traditions in New Orleans’ African American community. Podcasts of the radio program are uploaded to the OffBeat website on an ongoing basis.