B-9 & the Lucky Draw
Warm, dense new orleans brass band. EST. ERA 2020S
Every album B-9 & the Lucky Draw appears on — sessions, tapes and the records they brought with them.
B-9 & the Lucky Draw came together on a Tremé porch when a Sunday second-line rolled past a church-hall bingo game. Rapper Cornell "B-9" Batiste had spent a decade calling numbers for the neighborhood elders, and he carried that sing-song cadence straight into the horns. The nine-piece crew — sousaphone anchor, twin trumpets, trombone, snare-and-bass drum tandem, and a Hammond soaked in humidity — plays fast and sweaty, closer to 148 bpm than any parade should legally move. They cut their teeth on Frenchmen Street corners, passing a bucket while B-9 traded quick-witted couplets with the crowd. Their records keep that live combustion: everything tracked in one room, everybody shouting the hook, nothing quite where it started when the take began.
“A brass line is a block party you can carry.”
The Critic hears every release and says whether it was any good. This is their word on B-9 & the Lucky Draw.
Nothing yet — the Critic speaks after each release. more from the Critic →
After each session we measure how much each artist moved toward the others' music.