WE’VE GOT SOUL

There is no argument that you can find authentic blues shows here in the City With Soul, but you’ll also find fantastic funk, hip-hop, jazz, R&B, gospel, indie, country, folk, and rap artists mixing it up on a nightly basis.

Headline acts often make a stop in Jackson, as it centrally located between Memphis and New Orleans for a variety of genres. Significant annual events like Jackson Indie Music Week, Cathead Jam, Farish Street Heritage Festival, Lynch Street Festival – and great venues in Midtown, Fondren, Downtown, or Belhaven – keep the music alive!

Jackson is also home to the world-renowned Mississippi Mass Choir and Malaco Records, the last soul company in America.

A lot of places claim to be the birthplace of blues, but Jackson has 15 Mississippi Blues Trail Markers to prove its blues music history. These markers honor the people and places that made their mark in Mississippi Blues music and beyond, translating across different genres around the globe. You can still catch some great sounds at Johnny T’s Bistro & Blues and F. Jones Corner in the Farish Street Historic District. Don’t miss Blue Monday at Hal & Mal’s hosted by the Central Mississippi Blues Society for an authentic blues experience.

The City With Soul claims writers – past and present – and wordy events for the lit-minded to experience. Explore the works of poet and professor Margaret Walker Alexander at the writing center she founded at Jackson State University. Stroll through Eudora Welty’s House and Garden, not just as a museum, but as the place she lived and wrote every day. See where acclaimed author Richard Wright went to school, now the Smith Robertson Museum & Cultural Center showcasing a rich collection of African American art, literature, and culture. Attend readings by notable authors at Lemuria or other local bookstores and coffee shops. Eat at places like Brent’s Drugs, the Fondren diner featured in both the book and film version of Kathryn Stockett’s “The Help.” Meet established and up-and-coming authors at the Mississippi Book Festival held annually in August. There’s more, so you just have to come see for yourself.