Chief Adjuah (Formerly Christian Scott)
About this Artist
Chief Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah (born March 31, 1983, in New Orleans, Louisiana) is a two-time Edison Award winning and five-time Grammy Award nominated sonic architect, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, designer of innovative technologies and musical instruments, Stretch Music record label and app company founder, and crowned Chieftain of the Xodokan Nation of the Black Tribes of New Orleans. He is the grandson of legendary Big Chief, Donald Harrison Sr., and the nephew of jazz innovator and legendary sax man, Big Chief Donald Harrison, Jr. His musical tutelage began under the direction of his uncle at the age of 13. After graduating from the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) in 2001, Adjuah received a full-tuition scholarship to Berklee College of Music where he earned a degree in Professional Music and Film Scoring 30 months later.
Since 2002, Adjuah has released 13 critically acclaimed studio recordings, three live albums and one greatest hits collection. According to NPR, Adjuah “ushers in new era of jazz". He has been heralded by JazzTimes Magazine as "Jazz's young style God" & “The architect of a commercially viable fusion.” Adjuah is known for developing the harmonic convention known as the “forecasting cell” and for his use of an un-voiced tone in his playing, emphasizing breath over vibration at the mouthpiece. The technique is known as his “whisper technique.” Adjuah is also the progenitor of “Stretch Music,” a jazz rooted, genre blind musical form that attempts to “stretch” jazz’s rhythmic, melodic and harmonic conventions to encompass multiple musical forms, languages and cultures.
Since 2006, Adjuah has worked with a number of notable artists, including Prince, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, McCoy Tyner, Marcus Miller, Eddie Palmieri, rappers Mos Def (Yasin Bey), Talib Kweli, Robert Glasper, Vic Mensa, as well as heralded poet and musician Saul Williams.
Adjuah scored his identical twin brother’s and Director’s Guild of America Award recipient, writer-director and Spike Lee protégé, Kiel Adrian Scott’s, Student Academy Award nominated film, Samaria. Other recent film credits include the inclusion of Adjuah in the upcoming Bill and Ted Face the Music, starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, where he plays a member of The Future Council and contributes music for Louis Armstrong’s character. Adjuah is also featured in the romantic comedy, The Photograph, released in 2020. The chief also starred in Billboard and 1800 Tequila’s Refined Players Series and is the subject of the PBS American Masters’ new short “Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah – The New Chief” which is nominated for an NAACP Award for Outstanding Short-form Series.
Additionally, through his partnership with Adam’s Instruments, Adjuah designed a signature line of horns, the Siren, Sirenette and Adjuah Trumpet/Reverse Flugelhorn, that are revolutionizing brass instrument design all over the world.
Adjuah is dedicated to a number of causes that positively impact communities. He gives his time and talents in service to several organizations which garnered him a place in Ebony Magazine’s 30 Young Leaders Under 30. Holding master classes, creating and participating in discussion panels, creating content, and purchasing instruments for youth music programs and individual youth musicians are all part of Adjuah’s community-based work. Since Adjuah’s emergence on the jazz music scene, he has been a passionate and vocal proponent of human rights and an unflinching critic of injustices throughout the world.