“When I was a teenager [sic] or college-age, there were maybe maybe five people my age playing this music,” say Cajun musician Michael Doucet, who, along with his band BeauSoleil, has spent the better part of four decades bringing the lively chank-a-chank rhythms and fervent melodies of southern Louisiana to audiences across the globe. Today, as groups such as Feufollet and the Lost Bayou Ramblers build upon the rich legacy Doucet and cohort helped to resuscitate in the Seventies, BeauSoleil continues to expand the genre’s horizons. The band’s latest album From Bamako to Carencro explores the form’s roots unlike any before it, tracing the African influence on Cajun music from Mali’s capital city to the Caribbean Isles to rural Louisiana. In this week’s episode of OffBeat’s Look-Ka Py Py Podcast, Doucet talks about the inspiration behind the project, his passion for Cajun music, his love of James Brown’s and his current tour with the Turtle Island Quintet.

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