Ranky Tanky's 'This Village' Lands Today, and It's the Most Ambitious Gullah Record Yet

The most important Lowcountry release of the summer isn't from Hilton Head or Bluffton — it's from up the coast in Charleston, and it dropped today. Ranky Tanky's This Village is out July 17, 2026, and it is the two-time Grammy-winning Gullah quintet's biggest swing to date.

The numbers tell part of the story: at 16 tracks, it's the longest album the band has made, and it carries the most original material they've ever written — a meaningful shift for a group that made its name reanimating traditional Gullah songs. The lead single arrived on Juneteenth, a release date chosen with obvious intent. Charleston Jazz Academy head Demetrius Doctor arranged and composed the album's intro, and the record was mixed by Vance Powell, the Grammy-decorated engineer known for his work with Jack White and Chris Stapleton, among many others. That is a serious production apparatus pointed at a very specific cultural mission.

For readers new to them: Ranky Tanky (the name is Gullah for "get funky") formed from a crew of Charleston jazz veterans and built an international reputation blending the sacred and secular music of the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry with jazz, funk, gospel, and R&B. Trumpeter Charlton Singleton — who's turned up as an artist-in-residence at the Hilton Head Jazz Camp — is one of the anchors. This is not a heritage act preserving music under glass; it's a living band pushing a tradition forward.

Why it belongs in a Hilton Head blog: the Gullah Geechee corridor doesn't stop at a county line. The same cultural water that runs through Beaufort's praise houses and the sea-island churches around Bluffton runs through this record. This Village is, on its face, about the reach of the Gullah village — how far it extends and how it holds. For a coast whose musical roots are constantly flattened into beach-bar wallpaper, an ambitious, nationally-produced, majority-original Gullah album is a statement of confidence. It says this music is a future, not a museum.

Stream it today, buy it if you can, and play it loud on the drive across the bridges.

Sources: Ranky Tanky drops single, announces album – Post and Courier; Ranky Tanky explores reach of Gullah on 'This Village' – Charleston City Paper; Ranky Tanky's New Single – Garden & Gun