When Big Chief Romeo Bougere of the 9th Ward Hunters and Big Chief Jermaine Bossier of the 7th Ward Creole Hunters set aside their territorial differences to make music together, the result was the 79rs Gang — founded in 2013 on the idea that the Black Masking Indian tradition could be a band as well as a ceremony. Their debut, Fire On The Bayou (2014), kept it traditional: chants and percussion, followed by the 2017 single “Wrong Part of Town.”
The group’s second album, Expect the Unexpected (2020, Sinking City Records), is the one that changed the conversation. Producer Eric Heigle — known for his work with the Lost Bayou Ramblers — layered sequencers, synthesizers, and drum machines under the chants, pushing the tradition into electronic, hip-hop, and dance territory. The record features Arcade Fire’s Win Butler, LCD Soundsystem’s Korey Richey, Grammy-winning trumpeter Nicholas Payton, Cyril Neville, and the Haitian collective Lakou Mizik, and its single “79rs Bout to Blow” announced the project as a full-band proposition.
Live, the 79rs Gang performs as an eight-piece band — the two chiefs masking and on percussion alongside Heigle and players including Theodore “Scoo” Gurley, Raja Kassis, Taylor Guarisco, Cesar Bacaro, and Theron Anderson. In the lineage of the Wild Magnolias, who took Mardi Gras Indian funk around the world in the 1970s, the 79rs Gang is doing the same for the next generation. As Bossier puts it: this is music for the whole world.
