Ruler Rebel (Ropeadope)

Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah

Released March 31, 2017

The Guardian Highest Rated Jazz Albums of All Time

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=0_l7XnRzXYU&list=OLAK5uy_mOsF7fe8ifEbwkQEk1RHWbz55uCXAX9UU

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/0soaQv6QtHWofCbn2GB6iv?si=dZQ2ysvcTSqr-JZz6wFp5Q

About:

Ruler Rebel is the first in a three-album series collectively titled The Centennial Trilogy.

The series is, at its core, a sobering re-evaluation of the social and political realities of the world through sound. It speaks to a litany of issues that continue to plague our collective experiences. Slavery in America via the Prison Industrial Complex, Food Insecurity, Xenophobia, Immigration, Climate Change, Sexual Orientation, Gender Equality, Fascism and the return of the Demagogue.
The first release in the trilogy, Ruler Rebel, vividly depicts Adjuah’s new vision and sound – revealing Adjuah to the listener in a way never heard before via a completely new production methodology that Stretches Trap Music with West African and New Orleanian Afro-Native American styles.

Track Listing:

1. Ruler Rebel (Christian Scott) 5:45

2. New Orleanian Love Song (Christian Scott) 2:33

3. New Orleanian Love Song II [X. aTunde Adjuah Remix] (Christian Scott) 4:56

4. Phases (Christian Scott / Sarah Elizabeth Charles / Cliff Hines)
4:15

5. Rise Again [Allmos Remix] (Christian Scott / Allan Cole)
3:42

6. Encryption (Christian Scott) 5:38

7. The Coronation of X. aTunde Adjuah (Christian Scott) 5:36

8. The Reckoning (Christian Scott) 3:16

Personnel:

Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah: trumpet, siren, sirenette, reverse flugelhorn, SPD-SX, sampling, sonic architecture
Lawrence Fields: piano, Fender Rhodes
Luques Curtis: bass
Kris Funn: bass
Joshua Crumbly: bass
Cliff Hines: guitar
Corey Fonville: drums, SPD-SX
Joe Dyson Jr.: Pan African drums, SPD-SX
Weedie Braimah: djembe, bata, congas
Chief Shaka Shaka_ dununba, sangban, kenikeni
Elena Pinderhughes: flute (6, 7)

Special Guest
Sarah Elizabeth Charles: vocals (4)

Recorded April 16-21, 2016, at The Parlor, New Orleans, LA, by Matt Grondin and Nick Guttmann

Mixed by Nick Guttmann at The Parlor, New Orleans, LA

Mastered by Paul Blakemore, Cleveland OH \

Art Direction: Kevin Kedroe & Allan Cole

Photography: Kiel Adrian Scott

Package Design: Kevin Kedroe

Produced by Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah and Chris Dunn

Executive Producer: Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah

Review:

Ruler Rebel is the first of a trilogy to be released this year by the imaginative and increasingly popular 33-year-old New Orleans trumpeter Christian Scott – as a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the first jazz record in 1917, and a typical Scott genre-mash with a undisguised socio-political subtext in African American history.

Scott’s reverence for Miles Davis is soon plain in his softly exhaled, muted sounds against the silky orchestral synth textures on the title track opener. Two New Orleanian Love Songs embrace open-trumpet sweeps over keys loops and hip-hop grooves. The soul-jazz sound of vocalist Sarah Elizabeth Charles (for whom Scott has previously produced) mingles with ghostly brass tones on Phases, and the sensational young jazz flautist Elena Pinderhughes commandingly swoops through the handclap-driven Encryption and the church-bell synth mimicry and terse percussion of The Coronation of X aTunde Adjuah.

It’s imaginative, studio-produced jazz in the tradition of Marcus Miller’s 1980s work with Miles Davis, but in its references it feels as contemporary as today’s date.

John Fordham (The Guardian)