John Papa Gros: New Orleans is important

John Papa Gros: When Hurricane Katrina blasted through Louisiana, the Gulf Coast, our levees failed, our city got flooded, it got destroyed. So many people were out there asking, "Why do we need to put money back into New Orleans? It's just going to flood again. Why do we need to have New Orleans?" It was at that point that my life changed. I no longer was a musician trying to make a living playing New Orleans music — I became a cultural ambassador showing why New Orleans is important to the rest of the world. From Europe to Japan and all across the States, my mission was and is to showcase how important New Orleans is, how important our food is, how influential our culture is, how we use our music and our food to celebrate life. That hasn't changed in hundreds of years, and there's a good reason for that. It's because we do it really well (laughs). New Orleans is the city I love, and I'll always go to bat for her.