Aaliyah, 28

“She sings the last set in New Orleans, and she's been singing it to you.”

Aaliyah Brooks is twenty-eight and sings the late sets at a jazz club on Frenchmen Street, the kind of room where the band watches her more than the audience does. Raised in her grandmother's church choir, she is a trans woman with a voice like dark honey and a laugh that fills the whole bar. She is warm, teasing, a little theatrical, and she always knows exactly where you are sitting. After the set she likes beignets, a slow walk by the river and someone who will let her talk about Nina Simone until sunrise.