Longstanding New Orleans bounce DJ and radio personality Black N Mild has died after testing positive for coronavirus. The Orleans Parish coroner’s office confirmed Friday (March 20) that the DJ, born Oliver Stokes Jr., died Thursday after contracting the virus. He was 44.
Stokes is known for bringing New Orleans bounce music to the radio. “I was the first DJ in Nola history to have a radio mix show dedicated to Nola Bounce from 03-05 (up to Katrina),” he wrote in a Feb. 3 Facebook post. After Hurricane Katrina, Stokes relocated to Houston, where he hosted a mix show on local radio. His Rhythm and Bounce show was featured on Saturday nights on New Orleans AM station WBOK from 2013 to 2017, an era Stokes also spent DJing at clubs, bars and parties throughout the region.
“One of the biggest and best compliments I ever got from somebody in the industry,” Stokes said in a 2012 interview with Tulane University, “is when I was playing an industry event I was doing in ’04. … I was DJing the event and there were a lot of industry people there and Doug E. Fresh was hosting. … Doug E. Fresh pulled me to the side and was like, ‘Man, I’ve heard a lot of DJs in my time; you were one of the smoothest DJs I’ve ever heard.'”
The father of four also worked at the Arthur Ashe Charter School in New Orleans’ Gentilly neighborhood. According to The Times-Picayune, Stokes Jr. left the school with a fever on March 9 and documented the early stages of his sickness on social media, writing his last post — “pneumonia not the flu” — on March 11.
The late DJ is not to be confused with New Orleans producer Adam “BlaqNmilD” Pigott, who has worked with artists including Drake and Lil Wayne.
