Brandon Montrell, known to most as Boogie B, was shot and killed in Center City New Orleans over the weekend while he was minding his own goddamn business. His mother wrote a scathing editorial for the Times-Picayune (as it’s been subsumed into the gelatinous media-mass of NOLA.com) about how fucked it was. I quickly discovered his series of fantastic videos on the history of New Orleans. I’m ashamed that it took his untimely death to put him and his social media presence back on my radar. I’m even more upset that this happened to somebody so devoted to his hometown, in said hometown that greater forces had forced him out of several times. The most prominent example occurred in 2005, when the atrocity following Hurricane Katrina sent him to exile off and on for a few years in DC, where I made his acquaintance. He drifted in and out of the DC area in the time that I lived there, including one return trip where my friend Jake and I ventured out to an open mic at a Mexican restaurant in a Northern Virginia mall. I hadn’t seen Boogie in years, but he remembered me and made me feel like I belonged there. I can’t stop thinking about that today.

Rest easy, Boogie B.