TUKKI: From the Roots to the Bayou

A documentary film exploring the historic and contemporary connections between jazz and cultural ties between West Africa and New Orleans. TUKKI: From the Roots to the Bayou Winner of the Best International Documentary at the African International Film Festival in Lagos in 2025 As a boy in Dakar, Alune Wade dreamed to the sound of American jazz drifting from his radio. Now a musician and composer, he embarks on a profound musical pilgrimage across the Atlantic to trace the very roots of the music that inspired him. Tukki (the Wolof word for "journey") follows Alune as he traces how African traditions, carried by the enslaved, gave birth to jazz in New Orleans, which then reverberated across the ocean to inspire music in Senegal, Nigeria, and Ghana. The film weaves together interviews with scholars, musicians, and cultural workers with in-studio and live performances to create a new way of approaching documentary cinema, showing how history is not a relic, but a living, breathing force—a perpetual movement that defines our past and continues to inspire new generations across the globe. The film will be folllowed by a Q&A with the director, Alune Wade in conversation with co-producer Rachel Breunlin of the Neighborhood Story Project, New Orleans. The event is supported by Collaborative Public Humanities in Action, funded by the Mellon Foundation, at Louisiana State University, the Race and Capitalism Project at the University of Houston, and the Deluxe Theatre. TUKKI is by Alune Wade and Vincent Le Gal, Tukki is co-produced by Crescendo SUNU Production (Senegal), La Chemise Production (Paris), and the Neighborhood Story Project (New Orleans).