to Peaches. It turned into this every-Sunday block party. We’d have a thousand people every Sunday in front of the store: Food vendors out front, and artists [performing] inside.” One of Peaches’s employees around this time was New Orleans legend Mobo Joe, whose label Mobo Records released albums from artists like Ruthless Juveniles, Dog House Posse, and Cheeky Blakk before he was arrested and sent to federal prison in 1998. When he got out several years later, Shirani offered him a job. “I had another job and a girlfriend that stayed right down the street so I used to hang at Peaches,” Mobo Joe recalls.“Shirani said, ‘Man, you probably should start working here.’ I would work there at night after I got off my other little job. Peaches plays a big part. She [does] a lot for the local scene. No matter what kind of music it is, she really supports the locals.” Speak to any artist who came up in this era of New Orleans music, and they will share similar stories. Mac, who got his start under the name Lil’ Mac in the early ’90s before joining Master P’s No Limit roster, is another. “Peaches was the first place that allowed me to do an in-store—this was 1990 or so—for my first record, The Lyrical Midget ,” he says.“I was about twelve or thirteen, and, from that day, I formed a relationship with Miss Shirani that lasted decades. I remember looking forward to seeing the side of the building where they’d advertise whatever artist was coming
out.You was official if you had your album painted on the side of the building! It drew a lot of hype.” Kango Slimm, one half of the long-running duo Partners- N-Crime, of Big Boy Records fame, echoes Mac’s sentiments: “Peaches meant everything to us. [In] the beginning of our career in the early-to-mid ’90s, it was one of the first stores we sold out of. There was a thing called the ‘numbers system’ there—a sheet of paper that would tell you how many albums that artist sold that week. We were always at the top, and [Big Boy’s] rival company, Cash Money, thought they were rigging the numbers for us! Mia X, who was working there at the time, had to let them know that these numbers were real, and these guys were really selling like this. We were always one of their top sellers. They didn’t just sell records, they actually pushed artists, and told you about the artists.” Times weren’t always bright and sunny. Like everybody in the region, Peaches was greatly impacted by Hurricane Katrina.While Uptown wasn’t the worst hit section of the city, the store was flooded and looted. For a minute, all seemed lost. “That was a very dark time,” Lee reflects. “Windows were busted out and most of the [inventory was missing].The sad part is [it was] stuff that the neighborhood wouldn’t have taken. Like all these rare rock-and-roll collectibles that the neighborhood just didn’t care about. So it wasn’t our customers stealing. Someone
14 WaxPoetics
( top and opposite ) The current home of Peaches Records, on Magazine Street in New Orleans’s Garden District. Exclusive prints of these images are available at Waxpoetics.com.
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