“This is the New Way Pocky Way for the New Day.”  – Victoria Harrison, Age 7.

So opens this intriguing and powerful record that embraces the Mardi Gras Indian heritage. The singular, curious, and beautiful tradition of black men dressing as Plains Indians to chant and parade on Mardi Gras morning (and St Joseph’s Day-Super Sunday) is well known to Big Easy natives.

Here, the Harrison family, led by the recently deceased Donald Harrison, Sr., has created a record that simultaneously points to the traditional past and to an encouraging future like no other Mardi Gras Indian record has done.

New Way Pocky Way is a very well produced and executed record, due largely to the efforts of Cherice Harrison-Nelson and the rest of the Harrison family, who co-produced this record.Much of the record delivers hip-hop/funk styles and lyrics filled with positive messages about violence and environmental issues.

From grade school kids to family patriarch, the entire Harrison family shares performing, arrangement, and production tasks for this record of 11 songs. Several Indian classics such as “Iko Iko” and “Two Way Pockey Way” are done traditionally with drum and percussion accompaniment behind the vocals.

The title cut is a slinky hip-hop song with trumpet fills, and the chorus “Roll with it, roll with it, on Mardi Gras…Party people where you at?” “Indian Red,” hauntingly sung by Cara Harrison, is performed in the form of a Ghanian funeral chant.

This record release is also a sad occasion, since Big’ Chief Donald Harrison Sr passed away in November of last year. “Big Chief Where Are You?” is a sad dirge with a children’s’ voice chorus, and symbolizes the family’s mourning for their departed father and grandfather.

The final song “Flames Are Leaving Now” is Chief Harrison’s farewell to New Orleans. Recorded only a month before his death, the song passes on leadership of the tribe to Harrison’s grandson, Brian Nelson.