New Orleans' favorite DJ will hold her last weekly HUSTLE! party this Saturday, but she's not going anywhere.
Melissa Weber (DJ Soul Sister) announced last week that this Saturday’s HUSTLE! will be the party’s final weekly edition at the Hi-Ho Lounge. This week’s HUSTLE!, which will feature guest DJ Mannie Fresh, celebrates the 13th anniversary of Weber’s legendary throw-down.
From its early days at Leo’s Bar and Grill in the Bywater to its almost nine-year run at Mimi’s in the Marigny to its current iteration at the Hi-Ho on St. Claude, HUSTLE! has offered up the rarest grooves to get down to on any given Saturday, and will be sorely missed. Weber wants New Orleans to know, however, that she’s not going anywhere.
HUSTLE! will continue, just not as a weekly party. Instead, it will “exist as an infrequently thrown party at various TBA locations,” according to the DJ Soul Sister Twitter page. The first of these locations will be The Ice Pit, a brand-new venue in the basement of the Orpheum Theater, where HUSTLE! will touch down on Saturday, June 24. The venue's name, its underground location, and its industrial aesthetic evoke images of a Russian warehouse rave in the ‘90s (or at least, a Russian warehouse rave in a ‘90s movie). Its small stage and tasteful lighting, however, give it a strangely intimate ambiance.
On June 2, Weber wil play her second annual "Revolution: A Prince Celebration" at One Eyed Jacks as well, and starting in July, she will also throw a monthly party there titled “Soul Sister Presents: Soulful Takeover.” She plans to play the same type of soulful grooves she’s so well known for, but as is always the case with parties, the venue plays a key role in setting the tone.
While there is no guarantee that HUSTLE! will find a new home at The Ice Pit moving forward, Soulful Takeover at One Eyed Jacks will be a fixture. Weber envisions the two events existing concurrently.
The move towards monthly Soulful Takeovers and “infrequent” HUSTLE! parties has been in the works for some time now. When Weber started throwing weekly parties, she was in her late 20s. Now, she’s 41, has a full-time administrative job at Tulane, a long-running Saturday evening “Soul Power” show on WWOZ, and is working towards a Master’s degree in Musicology.
This is the first move Weber has made by choice. Leo’s, HUSTLE!’s first location, closed and was converted into Sugar Park Tavern. The upstairs tapas bar at Mimi’s, where the party thrived for almost nine years, can no longer hold regular live music events after a 2012 crackdown on venues not zoned for live music.
She remembers leaving Mimi’s in 2013, not knowing what was next for HUSTLE! Despite the popularity of her Mimi’s party, some still doubted whether she would be successful at a new spot.
These days, the Hi-Ho (a much bigger room than Mimi’s) is packed every weekend for HUSTLE!—so packed that Weber believes the party has finally outgrown the venue. The overcrowding is partly due to a recent influx of Tulane students, a fairly new phenomenon at HUSTLE!, and one Weber never expected.
Still, diversity is an essential ingredient in making HUSTLE! the best weekly party in town, and filling the Hi-Ho with Tulane students every weekend doesn’t exactly spell diversity.
Weber believes she can maximize the party experience by changing up the venue and cutting down on the frequency. At HUSTLE!, she’s not only the DJ, but also the hostess and the planner, in a sense. It’s not enough, then, for her four-hour set to be the best in town. There are other factors to consider as well.