It is day 18 of our Advent adventure and day three of the Human Experiment Week.

What is it about humans that makes us so unusual?

Other animals have language, they use tools, they even have a sense of self,

they can pass culture from one generation to the next. But humans create culture on an entirely

different level. Our culture is combinatory and exponential. It's also one of the most beautiful things about humans.

And nowhere is human culture richer or on fuller display than in our music.

Flutes have been found dating back 40,000 years.

Music is a human language that developed long before writing or the alphabet or

hieroglyphics. And today we're going to visit one of the most musical

places in one of the most musical cities in the world. We're joining producer

Baudelaire Seuss on a trip to Congo Square in New Orleans. We're going to hear how African drumming found its way into

American music and the birth of jazz. That's up next. New Orleans is one of my favorite places to visit. There's the amazing food, the

voodoo traditions, and of course the music. The music is literally everywhere in New Orleans.

But there's one place a couple blocks away from the French Quarter

where a lot of this music was born,

a place with a history that goes back hundreds of years,

a small square that was once a refuge for

enslaved peoples. And to this day, it's a sacred place that's honored every Sunday. My name is Baudelaire and this is Atlas Obscera, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

Today we visit Congo Square in New Orleans and we sit down with a Congo Square legend

to hear how at the center of all the history is the rhythm of a drum.

More, after this. Congol Square!

Square! It is most fitting to celebrate an honor jazz in New Orleans, the birthplace of the music.

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