Voodoo is a religion that has been demonized in media and pop culture for hundreds of years. But are any of those stories of black magic and devil worship actually true? We ventured into New Orleans to meet with a High Priest whose roots are deeply tied to New Orleans and Voodoo, to put ourselves into some of the ceremonies and traditions to find out the truth.
To create this series, we began by contacting multiple experts until we found the best subject possible to bring this project to life. From working with the Tourism Board of New Orleans to tracking down Walking Tour Guides on Instagram, we used every path to find High Priest Robi.
We had to secure locations to film that represented the historical and cultural visuals we needed. We created research documents and tracked down historical media as well to further visualize Robi’s incredible lessons.
And since much of our shoot was in Robi’s small home, we had to keep our footprint on the ground as small as possible. With only 4 of our own talent, 1 director, 2 cameras, 1 sound, and 1 PA.
High Priest Robi to gave us the full picture on the history of Slavery, Indigenous peoples, and the truth about how New Orleans Voodoo grew with the communities who came to live in New Orleans but were excluded from healthcare, religion, and many public spaces. This proved to be one of the most enlightening experiences in the history of The Try Guys, forcing our talent to look inward at their own prejudices and trauma.
I think it's also worth noting we managed to shoot this video in New Orleans in August. If you know, you know.
Our objectives with The Try Guys are always to highlight people's cultures, passions, identities, and showcase a genuine attempt to participate to the fullest, to better understand the world around us.
Our Video on Voodoo is the most successful video on our main YouTube channel in 2026. It had the most organic short-form views as well, with over 50 million views across short-form channels. And on a community level, it is cited as one of the best things we've ever made, which we also believe to be true.
