79rs Gang's "Expect the Unexpected" Lives Up to Its Name

Romeo Bougere and Jermaine Bossier, by Ceaux Young

On their new album, 79rs Gang freshens up Mardi Gras Indian music with a new sound and intense songwriting.

One of the many things COVID-19 cost New Orleans was the Mardi Gras Indians’ season. Indians paraded on Mardi Gras but missed Jazz Fest, St. Joseph’s Day and Super Sunday. That raises a distinctly New Orleans ethical conundrum: Can they wear the suits they made this year next year? Or was the work they put in throughout 2019 largely ritualistic, something to be re-done in 2020 because every year they debut new suits?

79rs Gang’s Expect the Unexpected raises some of these questions indirectly. Big Chiefs Jermaine Bossier of 7th Ward Creole Hunters and Romeo Bougere of 9th Ward Hunters have come together musically as 79rs Gang, and they recorded the album before the outbreak. Still, the album is so steeped in Mardi Gras Indian traditions that the ones not addressed seem as present as the ones that are. The songs visit familiar subjects leaning heavily on boasts about their gang’s excellence, but Expect the Unexpected doesn’t come off as retro. Bossier and Bougere handle the material with subtly contemporary touches, then back it with music that is distinctly 2020. The extensive use of electronic textures makes the Gang, the album, and the tradition feel current in a time when that’s hard to do.

Producer Eric Heigle has helped Lost Bayou Ramblers realize a version of Cajun music that reflects the times the band lives in, and he does the same with 79rs Gang. To his credit, the productions don’t sound the same. He doesn’t imprint his style on the projects he touches; instead, he hears these classic Louisiana forms and figures out how to make them resonate now. The Meters and the band that included Willie Tee and Earl Turbinton gave The Wild Tchoupitoulas and Wild Magnolias respectively the 1970s version of cutting edge funk, and they made The Wild Tchoupitoulas and They Call Us Wild classics. But cutting edge funk in 2020 is played on synths with electronic drums in the mix. The tracks on Expect the Unexpected still include traditional percussion instruments, but the sound is clearly new.  

So are the songs. A number of tracks sound familiar, but 79rs Gang don’t recycle the Mardi Gras Indians’ greatest hits. “Stop the Water” shares a cadence and the “Wah” sound with The Wild Magnolia’s “Handa Wanda,” but in their song, 79rs Gang address the floodwaters that followed Hurricane Katrina with enough vitality to get some fresh life out of a subject that seemed to be musically mined out. They boast in the way that Mardi Gras Indians have always boasted, and on “Shot the Signal,” they pull in New Orleans brass to add to the street parade vibe. On “History,” Bossier boils down African-American history in New Orleans to nuggets that fit on a Mardi Gras Indian’s patches. One hand, they seem too tight, as if written to fit on the back of a baseball card, but Bossier’s pithiness boils each thought down to its essentials.  

The most complicated moment on Expect the Unexpected is “War Cry (Way Downtown Mix).” The song is the most fully realized on the album with contributions from Nicholas Payton and Alvin Ford Jr. among others, and the expansive production makes it seem particularly significant. “War Cry” offers a familiar warning for what happens when two rival gangs meet, but the battles that take place in the song aren’t bloodless combat settled by bravado and needlework. That makes the song hard to fit into a larger narrative. Does it dip into the familiar battleground language in a way other songs on the album don’t, or does it add something unsettling to our understanding of Mardi Gras Indian culture circa 2020? Is it less ritualized than we think? Bossier and Bougere make the danger palpable in any case, and the low, rumbling synth doubles it. 

If nothing else, “War Cry” and Expect the Unexpected remind us that Mardi Gras Indians can still surprise us. They have become familiar bordering on family-friendly entertainment. They clearly can be all of those things, but 79rs Gang remind us that it’s risky to take them for granted.