Sonic Celebration in Mobile, Alabama's Port City Secondliners and the Jukebox Brass Band.

This article examines the role of brass bands in Mobile, Alabama’s Mardi Gras celebrations, focusing on the Port City Secondliners (PCS), a majority Black social club founded in 2009, and their musical ensemble, the Jukebox Brass Band. Through ethnographic research and musical analysis, it highlights how PCS and Jukebox use “sonic celebration”—defined as musically driven modes of joy reflecting community values—to assert Black cultural identity, local pride, and intergenerational Carnival traditions distinct from the dominant white and New Orleans-centered Mardi Gras narratives. The band’s original song “Hey Port City” exemplifies this localized sonic celebration by blending New Orleans brass traditions with hip-hop aesthetics to celebrate Mobile and nearby Prichard, Alabama, fostering community-building and economic revitalization in historically marginalized Black urban spaces. The study situates these practices within broader Afro-diasporic musical lineages and contemporary movements emphasizing Black joy, placemaking, and cultural renewal.