The back-and-forth relationship between musicians and younger dancers is what pushes the music forward: the post-Civil Rights era audience led the Dirty Dozen Brass Band into funk while still celebrating bebop as its own form of protest music; the hip hop generation leaned back into the drums-and-bass grooves of Rebirth’s Frazier brothers; and the brass band music of a post-Katrina era goes viral within a fifteen-second dance video on social media.

With the shift of public discourse toward social media, the current evolution in New Orleans brass band music amplifies the voice of a new generation through viral brass band covers and SoundCloud mixtapes.