New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah announces a March 22, 2019 release for his forthcoming album Ancestral Recall (via the Ropeadope / Stretch
Music labels). Released today, the album's title track features poet laureate Saul Williams. Of the song, Highsnobiety proclaims that Adjuah "craft[s] rhythm-driven zones that are as transcendent as they are grounded in richly organic sonics." Additional collaborators on the recording include Elena Pinderhughes, Weedie Braimah, Logan Richardson, Mike Larry Draw, Chris Turner, and others.
Heralded by NPR as ushering in "a new era in jazz," Adjuah continues to forge new ground. JazzTimes cites him as "The architect of a new commercially viable fusion" and "Jazz's young style God." In 2015, Adjuah released Stretch
Music - the inaugural recording of Adjuah's vision of genre blindness in sound. The trailblazing document centered around acculturating as many musical forms, vernaculars, and cultures as possible into one fresh and resonate creative improvised concept. The recording garnered Adjuah a Downbeat Critics Poll "Rising Star Composer" win in addition to many "Rising Star Trumpet" wins from the publication. Stretch
Music was accompanied by a groundbreaking app by the same name, for which Adjuah won JAZZFM's 2015 Innovation of the Year honor.
The Centennial Trilogy: Adjuah's three-album series commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first jazz recordings was released in 2017. The recordings are a sobering re-evaluation of the world's social and political realities and speaks to a litany of issues that continue to plague the collective human experience. The trilogy was praised by Pitchfork, NPR Music, Stereogum, The FADER, GQ, The New York Times, Interview Magazine, Paste, Noisey, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, and many more. The final album of the trilogy, The Emancipation Procrastination, is nominated for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album at the 61st GRAMMY Awards. The recording marks Adjuah's second nomination.
Ancestral Recall continues Adjuah's mission to unify people via their musical and cultural voices by tearing down the sonic and social constructs that separate them. As a newly ascended Chieftain in the
Black masking culture of New Orleans, he has been deeply committed to turning identity politics, as it is used in music, on its ear. Ancestral Recall seeks to excavate and update hidden histories in sound by displaying a sonic tapestry that illuminates the har-melodic movements found within rhythm. Adjuah explains: "In its inception, Ancestral Recall was built as a map to decolonize sound; to challenge previously held misconceptions about some cultures of music; to codify a new folkloric tradition and begin the work of creating a national set of rhythms; rhythms rooted in the synergy between West African, First Nation, African Diaspora/Caribbean rhythms and their marriage to rhythmic templates found in trap music, alt-rock, and other modern forms. It is time we created a sound that dispels singular narratives of entire peoples and looks to finally represent the wealth of narratives found throughout the American experience. An experience that shows all forms of expression in sound are valid, as all people are." The goal is to connect people in one understanding rather than dividing them by definition.
Christian was also just featured on Boogie's "Whose Fault" from the album
Everything For Sale, which reached #1 on the iTunes hip hop charts upon release on January 24, 2019.
Tracklist:
1. Her Arrival
2. I Own the Night (feat. Saul Williams)
3. The Shared Stories of Rivals [KEITA] (feat. Saul Williams)
4. Forevergirl (feat. Chris Turner & Mike Larry Draw)
5. Diviner [Devan]
6. Overcomer
7. Songs She Never Heard (feat. Logan Richardson)
8. Ritual [Rise of Chief Adjuah]
9. Prophesy
10. Before (feat. Elena Pinderhughes)
11.
Double Consciousness
12. Ancestral Recall (feat. Saul Williams)
US Tour Dates:
Feb 5-8: New York, NY - Blue Note
Feb 14: Amherst, MA - UMass Amherst
Feb 15: Chapel Hill, NC - UNC Chapel Hill Memorial Hall
Feb 19: Seattle, WA - Nectar Lounge
Feb 21: Oakland, CA - The New Parish
Feb 22: Sacramento, CA - Harlow's Restaurant and Nightclub
Feb 23: Los Angeles, CA - The Roxy
