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The Crescent City’s explosive ensemble Cha Wa release its sophomore studio album Spyboy, featuring its 21-year old lead singer Spyboy J’Wan Boudreaux.
Spyboy is an impeccable blend of traditional New Orleans street music styles transformed into a modern mix of fiery, toe-tapping sounds. The album drops in advance of the band’s headlining performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on the Jazz & Heritage Stage. A collection of classic compositions, two covers (“Hey Baby” and “Soul Rebel”), and seven newly written, brass-infused songs, Spyboy was produced by Galactic’s Ben Ellman and features special guests Big Chief Monk Boudreaux (The Wild Magnolias, HBO’s Treme), Nigel Hall (Lettuce, Nth Power)…
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…and Danica Hart. Breaking out on the inimitable NOLA music scene, Cha Wa was founded by drummer Joe Gelini after he paid his dues playing behind Monk Boudreaux and other iconic Crescent City artists. The band is unique in combining three of the major threads of New Orleans music, and the fact that its members compose original songs in that vein. With songwriting contributions to Spyboy from band members Joe Maize, Thaddeus “Peanut” Ramsey, Ari Teitel and Clifton “Spug” Smith, along with J’Wan and Gelini, Cha Wa ignites an entire new generation with contemporary anthems set ablaze by its high-flying ensemble.
Big Chief Monk Boudreaux guests on two songs. One, “Visible Means of Support,” which Monk wrote along with Gelini, recalls the days of the Jim Crow South when Monk would be unlawfully stopped by the police as a young man while simply walking on the street. The cops would invoke an archaic law (which required a “visible means of support”) and if Monk couldn’t produce a paystub or proof of employment, he would be thrown in jail. As the lyric goes, “I used to go to jail every weekend, just because the color of my skin…if I didn’t pay the bail, didn’t pay the fine, I would have to do the time.”
“Get On Out The Way” depicts an Indian tribe coming down the street, and emphasizes that there is only one thing to do: move. “Golden Crown” pays tribute to the patriarch of the tribe, as the Big Chief is the only one with a golden crown. The song “Geechie Boom Boom” is for two mentors: Norwood “Geechie” Johnson, who introduced the bass drum to The Wild Magnolias, and J’Wan’s cousin Boom Boom, one of NOLA’s most in-demand drummers.
It is common among New Orleans brass bands to cover pop songs (such as Rebirth Brass Band’s “Casanova” or Hot 8 Brass Band’s “Sexual Healing”). Cha Wa’s rendition of “Hey Baby” is sung as a duet between J’Wan and Danica Hart. With Hart’s vocals high up in the mix, Cha Wa introduces a female perspective to challenge standard gender roles. Meanwhile, J’Wan’s take on the Bob Marley classic “Soul Rebel” is an act of resistance against oppression.
With a heritage that is Choctaw, Cherokee and African American, J’Wan thanks Native Americans for being the first to take in runaway slaves on his spoken-word track “J’Wan’s Story.” And “Chapters” is a song J’Wan wrote which reflects on his own life history.
Whereas “Cha Wa” and “Spy On Fiya” turn up the heat at the start of Spyboy, the classic track “I’ll Fly Away” closes out the album in dedication to former band member Steve Malinowski, who unexpectedly and tragically passed away from an aneurysm the night of a Cha Wa concert. “I’ll Fly Away” is sung acapella by Malinowski’s former girlfriend.
The result of this intoxicating mix of spirit and soul is Spyboy!
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