The Soul Rebels started with an idea shared between founding members Derrick Moss and Lumar LeBlanc; to play the music they loved on the radio in the New Orleans Brass Band tradition that they grew up on. Together with a group of young, like-minded players from all over New Orleans, they formed the Soul Rebels and set out to make their mark on the music they love.

The band came to be when LeBlanc and Moss met as percussionists in New Orleans’ iconic Dejean’s Young Olympia Brass Band. The two were steeped in the fundamentals of New Orleans jazz, but inevitably, contemporary styles of music began to catch their attention. “We wanted to make our own sound without disrespecting the brass tradition,” LeBlanc recalls, “so we knew we had to break away.” They found a new direction when they spun off and formed their own band and set out to make the music they wanted to make.

Graduates of university music programs throughout the South, the group took the marching band format they had learned in school and incorporated influences from outside the city as well as R&B, funk and hip-hop; especially through half-sung, half rapped lyrics.