JULY 29, 2022 | David Johnson, digital media editor of OffBeat, interviewed Dominique Francis Dilling, director of the Backstreet Museum, and standup comedian Ryan Rogers as he debuts his first album, She is Me. Beat Café is a weekly program on WHIV 102.3 FM that is broadcast on Fridays at 1 p.m. Central. Webcasts of the radio program are uploaded to the OffBeat website and Spotify on an ongoing basis.

The Backstreet Cultural Museum was founded in 1999 by Sylvester Francis, a photographer and cultural activist who amassed a large collection of Mardi Gras Indian suits, Baby Doll costumes and regalia associated with second line parades and social aid and pleasure clubs. He died in 2020 due to complications from COVID, whereupon his daughter, Dominique Francis Dilling, took over leadership of the museum. Following extensive damage to the museum’s original home from Hurricane Ida, Dominique managed to secure a new location for the collection that opened in July 2021.

Ryan Rogers, a native of  the West Bank of metro New Orleans, is a standup comedian with a new album that debuted on July 29. With his acerbic wit and magnetic stage presence, Rogers refracts the world through his brazen, queer, sidesplitting humor. He’s performed all over the U.S. and internationally. He has opened for Tiffany Haddish, Luke Null, Shaun Jones, Chris Cope, John Hilder and many others. He also created New Orleans’ LGBTLOL Queer Comedy Fest. Rogers shares his unlikely journey to the comedy microphone and the varied sources of his material.

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