Truth be known, I practiced my French before contacting Jourdan Thibodeaux for this interview, in case he wanted to parler en Francais. I was relieved we spoke English because I knew I’d mess up my verb tenses. Now that my parents are gone, I don’t have anyone with whom to practice – but that’s no excuse. And this is what Thibodeaux is trying to prevent from happening as a songwriter, singer, musician and social media personality actively promoting French culture and language by living it.

“If you want to claim a culture, you should be actively participating in that culture,” Thibodeaux has emphasized more than once. For the past six or so years, he has dug deep in his roots and concentrated all of his talents on preserving the French language and culture – which, by the way, includes Cajun, Creole and everything in between. He is living his culture through his language, songs, fiddle playing, storytelling and parenting.

I first became familiar with the social media sensation last year after coming across his Louisiana French du Jour videos on Facebook, where he delivers jokes and stories in French, while often sipping coffee or a drink from the front porch of his home. The jokes – with English subtitles to help teach words and phrases – are funny, especially if you’re from Louisiana.

On Instagram, and now TikTok, he shares glimpses of his life on his 30-acre farm near St. Martinville, clips of concerts, even cooking demonstrations. I watched the Renaissance man catch a turtle, clean it and demonstrate how to make a turtle sauce piquant. Over 66,000 viewers, mostly ages 25 to 44, are currently entertained by Thibodeaux. The strapping 37-year-old is everything you might imagine your charming, good-looking, “lovin’ life” Cajun grandfather to have been in his heyday.

Born during a hurricane, the Cypress Island native had an exciting start to life and you might say his DNA was predestined. He has been speaking French for so long that he can’t put an age to when he began. Like his family and friends instilled his native language into the fabric of his life, Thibodeaux has done the same in his own home, where French is the only language for his 8 and 12-year-old daughters, who also attend a French immersion school.

The lead singer and fiddler for the band Les Rôdailleurs, describes his music on the band’s CD’s Boue, Boucane, et Bouteilles and La Prière as French music – not Cajun or Creole. “My grandpa would call it French music,” he says. “It wasn’t delineated as Cajun, Creole or Zydeco in the old days. It was French or Country.”

As the band’s songwriter, he relates performances to “shouting out his diary to the masses.” As he explains, “I take my honest experiences and write about how they made me feel – that‘s literally the lyrics that I sing in front of people. All of my stories are true about my life.”

You just have to see Thibodeaux on stage to understand when he says performing “takes me to another place. It’s a good feeling – a wild feeling.” His emotions and energy come across in every song. As the music builds, you can almost predict the point that the crowd will be aroused. And they WILL be aroused.

What you would never know from his performances is that Thibodeaux, admittedly, knows nothing about music theory. “I don’t know what notes I’m playing or chords…any of that. I just play what feels right,” he says.

These days Thibodeaux is working on two back-to back albums and a separate project which he is excited to soon share. “It’s a big push for Louisiana as a whole – the culture, the French language, the coast…everything that impacts the residents of Acadiana,” he shares.

Every aspect of Thibodeaux’s life promotes his culture, including his full-time job as partner at a USDA manufacturing facility in Breaux Bridge that produces packaging and private labeling for Louisiana food products.

Given all this, the married father of three considers his children to be his greatest contribution in his efforts to promote and continue the legacy of the French culture. “I know they will continue the tradition because of how they are raised,” he assures. “The definition of who you are is built in the foundation of your upbringing, and no matter what you go after in life you’re always going to be building on that foundation of who you are.”

When you speak to him, you know that Thibodeaux isn’t focusing on being remembered. He’ll tell you, “I’m in this for the impact on our culture. If in the future people are still playing French music and speaking the language, and I somehow contributed to that, then I feel like I’ve done something with my life.”

It’s true what he says in one of his favorite songs La Priere: “You live your culture, or you kill your culture. There is no middle.” Since talking to this Louisiane native son, I’ve made a promise to myself to attend the next gathering of the French Table near my home, one of many around the area where people get together and converse in French at all levels. Merci Jourdan.