Bark Out Thunder Roar Out Lightning marks New Orleans artist Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah’s (fka Christian Scott) first studio album under his reclaimed name as a tribal leader. It also marks a major departure from his previous efforts. This will not come as a major surprise to those who have witnessed Chief Adjuah’s live shows over the past year or so when he usually opens and proceeds to do half of the show playing his invented “Chief’s bow” while singing and chanting distinctly West African rhythms. Others though will likely be surprised to see no trumpet or chordal instruments in the mix.
The single, which you may have heard, “Xodokan Iko – Hu Na Ney,” which ties elements of New Orleans favorite “Iko Iko” to African chants and rhythms, is a distinct clue to what the album offers. Surely. we heard plenty of African percussion of his 2019 Ancestral Recall. Chief Adjuah rather calmly just sees it as an evolution ushering in a ‘future Rock n Roll that’s fully connected to all these skeleton keys, threads, and seeds.” In other words, just a different kind of ‘ancestral recall,’ just another extension of his Stretch music.
First off, his main instrument, Chief Adjuah’s Bow, is a double-sided harp that he created in 2021. It was built to serve as a bridge to the African forefather nations of the blues and its descendants, places like Mali, Senegal, Ghana, Benin, and Nigeria, and instruments like the Ngoni, Ankoting, and Bolon. Chief Adjuah has adorned the instrument to function as a hybrid acoustic and electronic device, complete with pedals and effects. Secondly, of the fourteen musicians/vocalists displayed in the credits below, ten are playing some form of percussion instrument. His core collaborators are those we have recently witnessed in live performances, namely bassist Luques Curtis, mainstay percussionist Weedie Braimah, and drummer Elé Howell. Past collaborators include his twin brother Trail Chief Kiel Adrian Scott, and drummers Joe Dyson Jr, and Corey Fonville.
The harp-like sound of his Chief’s Bow welcomes us into “Blood Calls Blood” with vocals, chanting, and infectious percussion following. “Trouble That Mornin’” sounds like impassioned blues straight out of Mali enhanced with electronic effects while the “Iko Iko” mashup follows with a glorious choruses of chanting vocalists. The fifteen-minute title track features the new instruments, Chief’s Bow and Adjuah’s N’Goni, in a hypnotic, Tinariwen-like excursion sans electric guitars underpinning spoken word wrapped up with chanting, containing lyrics such as “…Black woman reflection of cosmic radiance/incandescent earthly mother and mirror to our universe/birthing all color the credulous condemned her/believing her to be as baseless as the phallic gods conjured to replace her…”
The balance of the album features tracks in the two-six-minute range with the distinctly rhythmically clapped and percussion-infused New Orleans “Shallow Water” honoring his grandfather, the late Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr. (Guardians of the Flame) and “Ashe Chief Donald” his uncle, NEA Jazz Master, Big Chief Donald Harrison, Jr. (Congo Square Nation) in tribal chants. He adds his own, “Golden Crown” (Xodokan Nation) self-tribute to these. In between we have the Braimah djembe feature, “On to New Orleans,” the Chief Bow-infused vocal tune, “End Simulation” and a spirited percussion duet with Howell of the title track as a bonus.
Even the most ardent Chief Adjuah fans may not quite be ready for this non-jazz offering, but it proves increasingly infectious with repeated listens and marks yet another step forward for one of the most innovative artists of our time.
