L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti 'Slow Jams' a Freeway Closure, and It's Pretty Great

Demolition begins in earnest this weekend to remove L.A.’s famed Sixth Street Viaduct, forcing a 40-hour closure on a section of the 101 Freeway east of downtown. How is Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti helping city residents prepare for the possibility of seriously slow-moving traffic in the area? With a … slow jam.

Yes, Garcetti teamed up with students from the Theodore Roosevelt High School Jazz Band to film a music video in the vein of those "Slow Jam the News" segments on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. And it’s not bad! Mostly, Garcetti comes across as a self-aware dad slightly embarrassing himself in the name of teaching valuable a lesson.

“See, we’re bringing down the Sixth Street Bridge, makin’ way for something new,” Garcetti croons in the video. “The demolition will cause delays, but sometimes — just sometimes — you have to get your hands dirty to build something beautiful.”

The video employs plenty of fade-outs and angled close-ups of Garcetti’s face, in which he manages to look both totally serious and like he’s definitely in on the joke. But the high schoolers backing him up are clearly the best part. As Garcetti says himself at the end of the video: “Thank you, Roosevelt, for making that slightly less awkward.”