APRIL 27, 2022 | David Johnson, digital media editor of OffBeat, interviewed photographer Polo Silk and two social activists working with Sing for Hope to place free pianos in public venues around New Orleans.

In this first half hour of this program, Polo Silk discusses his ongoing documentation of the rap, hip hop and bounce club scene in New Orleans, subjects he has covered since 1986. His photographs are on display in a temporary exhibition at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. In the second half hour of the program, we meet Adam Lazoya, the project founder and piano technician of PiaNola. He began tuning and rebuilding pianos as a profession, which eventually led him to create his own traveling piano where he performs in various cities across America. He teamed up with Kalli Padgett in New Orleans to present a Sing for Hope program in New Orleans. Padgett is the founder of an artists’ collective known as Creole Connection, which custom-decorated the pianos.

Beat Café, a weekly program on WHIV 102.3 FM, is broadcast on Fridays from 1-2 p.m. Central. Podcasts of the radio program are uploaded to the OffBeat website on an ongoing basis.