The Emancipation Procrastination

Last updated
The Emancipation Procrastination
The Emancipation Procrastination.jpg
Studio album by
ReleasedOctober 20, 2017
RecordedApril 16–21, 2016
StudioThe Parlor, New Orleans, LA
Genre Jazz
Length53:01
Label Ropeadope Records RAD-380,
Stretch Music
Producer Christian aTunde Adjuah, Chris Dunn
Christian Scott chronology
Diaspora
(2017)
The Emancipation Procrastination
(2017)
Ancestral Recall
(2019)
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic 83/100 [1]
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [2]
Exclaim! 9/10 [3]
Erie Reader 4.25/5 [4]
Financial Times Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [5]
Mojo Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [1]
Pitchfork 7.9/10 [6]
Tom Hull B+ [7]

The Emancipation Procrastination is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter Christian Scott released on October 20, 2017, by Ropeadope Records. [8] The album is the third and final installment of The Centennial Trilogy, with Ruler Rebel and Diaspora being the first and the second respectively. [9] The Emancipation Procrastination was nominated for a Grammy Award at the 61st Grammy ceremony.

Contents

Background

The album's title is a play on words referring to President Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation to free more than 3.5 million enslaved people in the secessionist Confederate states. [2] [10] The Emancipation Procrastination delves into darkness and social commentary rarely treated with such a light hand. [11]

Reception

The Emancipation Procrastination was nominated for a Grammy Award at the 61st Grammy ceremony. This marks the Adjuah's second nomination. [12] At Metacritic, that assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 83, based on four reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim".

Seth Colter Walls of Pitchfork stated "After two releases filled with high-concept fusion, some listeners might be hungry for solos that hang around longer and aren’t so beholden to the mood of the production. Adjuah delivers exactly this on The Emancipation Procrastination. It is also here that he more willingly invites associations with past styles. The prominent use of electric guitar suggests a vintage rock-fusion approach, and soulful Fender Rhodes playing by Lawrence Fields often seems like it’s channeling some of Miles Davis’ late-1960s sound... he settles on a final texture, one both burnished and regal. It's the sound of a player confident not just in his chops, but fully at home in his own compositional world." [13] In his review for Financial Times , Mike Hobart commented, "It is the spirited interplay of the just-released The Emancipation Procrastination that begins to reveal historical jazz roots, though the jams reference Miles Davis and fusion jazz rather than the stomps and rags of old-time New Orleans." [5]

Matt Collar of Allmusic wrote "The Emancipation Procrastination... flips the paradigm, and fully embraces his own brand of trip-hop-inflected electronic jazz fusion. It's an approach he's been exploring since at least 2015's Stretch Music , an album whose title Scott also uses as an all-encompassing definition for his particular style of jazz. The definition might even be more applicable than ever here, as Scott pushes his sound even further away from the strict jazz tradition and into a multi-hyphenated region of jazz-tinged trip-hop electronica. As the title implies, The Emancipation Procrastination is a break from the past, and is so forward-thinking and contemporary that it really doesn't sound like a jazz album in any traditional sense. But you get the distinct impression that Scott wouldn't have it any other way." [2] Geraldine Wyckoff of OffBeat commented "The Emancipation Procrastination ends much as it began, with the warmth of jazz winding through refreshingly familiar yet excitingly new paths. The vividly persistent horn and adventurous nature of Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah bravely lead the way". [14]

Track listing

The Emancipation Procrastination track listing
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."The Emancipation Procrastination"Scott6:25
2."AvengHer"Scott5:02
3."Ruler Rebel (X. aTunde Adjuah Remix)"Scott5:54
4."Ashes of Our Forever"Scott4:07
5."In the Beginning (Interlude)" (Feat. Weedie Braimah)Weedie Braimah2:24
6."Michele with One L"Scott3:11
7."The Cypher"Scott4:46
8."Videotape" Colin Charles Greenwood, Thomas Edward Yorke, Philip James Selway 4:40
9."Gerrymandering Game"Cliff Hynes, Scott, Lawrence Fields2:03
10."Unrigging November"Scott5:00
11."Cages" (Feat. Stephen J. Gladney)Scott, Lawrence Fields9:34
12."New Heroes"Scott, Lawrence Fields10:45
Total length:53:01

Personnel

Chart performance

ChartPeak
position
US Top Jazz Albums (Billboard) [15] 7

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References

  1. 1 2 "THE EMANCIPATION PROCRASTINATION by Christian Scott". Metacritic . metacritic.com. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 "Christian Scott: The Emancipation Procrastination". allmusic.com. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  3. Press, Kevin (October 23, 2017). "Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah: The Emancipation Procrastination". Exclaim! . Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  4. Swanseger, Matt (November 8, 2017). "Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah // The Emancipation Procrastination". Erie Reader . Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  5. 1 2 Hobart, Mike (29 December 2017). "Christian Scott Atunde Adjuah: The Centennial Trilogy — 'bittersweet and contemporary'". Financial Times . Retrieved 22 February 2020.
  6. Colter Walls, Seth (21 October 2017). "Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah The Emancipation Procrastination". Pitchfork . Retrieved 8 May 2018.
  7. "Tom Hull: Grade List: Christian Scott". Tom Hull . Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  8. "Christian Scott – The Emancipation Procrastination". Discogs . discogs.com. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  9. Mullin, Kyle (July 19, 2017). "Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah: The Best Of What's Next". Paste Magazine . pastemagazine.com. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  10. "Christian Scott - AvengHer. From the upcoming final album, 'The Emancipation Procrastination', of his Centennial Trilogy, due to be released ~Oct 20th". Reddit . reddit.com. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
  11. Zacharias, Isabel; Fleeger, Matt (January 5, 2018). "Christian Scott's Centennial Trilogy Is A Masterpiece". KMHD . opb.org. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
  12. "Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah Announces New Album 'Ancestral Recall'". BroadwayWorld.com. 9 February 2019. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
  13. Colter Walls, Seth (October 21, 2017). "Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah Ruler Rebel". Pitchfork . pitchfork.com. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  14. Wyckoff, Geraldine (21 November 2017). "Christian Scott ATunde Adjuah, "The Emancipation Procrastination" (Ropeadope)". OffBeat . Retrieved 9 December 2018.
  15. "Christian Scott Chart History (Top Jazz Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved April 8, 2019.