79rs Gang: Dropping the Needle & Threading It Too

In May 2020, as New Orleans began to really sit with the prospect that live music, second lines, parades, and festivals would be shuttered, the 79rs Gang released Expect the Unexpected. At a time when the streets of the city went silent, the duo’s music rang out loudly and received attention and accolades from NPR Music, Bandcamp, and the Chicago Reader. Romeo Bougere and Jermaine Bossier are redefining what “Mardi Gras Indian music” can be, expanding beyond the traditional sounds they shared on 2014’s Fire in the Bayou and inviting collaborations on and off stage with a diaspora of musicians including Haitian collective Lakou Mizik and Cajun powerhouse Lost Bayou Ramblers. 

But the music is, as with most art forms in New Orleans, just one part of a much deeper cultural heritage. Bougere and Bossier are each Big Chiefs of what have been called “rival” Black Masking Indian gangs. Bougere leads the 9th Ward Hunters, and Bossier the 7th Ward Creole Hunters. As such, their artistry includes traditional cultural practices like beadwork, but also the more metaphysical traditions of preservation of tradition through oral histories and performance.

The following is an abridged version of an hours-long conversation about ancestries and tomorrows, art and commodity, and visions for a more inclusive cultural council…

Read the whole article, by Amanda Mester, in The New Orleans Arts Rag Volume 1