New Orleans bounce music lost one of its earliest stars with the death of Willie Puckett Jr. The rapper, dancer, and longtime nightlife fixture died May 3 after suffering respiratory failure linked to cancer. He was 50.
Raised in the city’s 10th Ward and the former St. Thomas projects, Puckett became a defining face of New Orleans bounce during the genre’s explosive rise in the 1990s. Before stepping into music, he built his reputation as an electrifying dancer…