FM
History
The Soul Rebels formed when Lumar LeBlanc and Derrick Moss, originally members of New Orleans’ iconic Dejean’s Young Olympia Brass Band, decided they wanted to play the new, exciting music they were hearing on the radio while respecting the tradition they loved. Both New Orleans natives, the pair was steeped in the fundamentals of New Orleans jazz, but inevitably, contemporary styles of music began to seep into their psyches. While LeBlanc attended the famed St. Augustine High School, Moss went to Lil’ Wayne’s alma mater McMain High School, and paraded alongside soon‐to‐be Cash Money Records CEO Ronald “Slim” Williams in the school’s marching band. New sounds were all around and they found them as exciting as the horn‐combo style featured in jazz funerals since the turn of the Twentieth Century.
“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 stylistic middle ground when they spun off and formed a band of young, like‐minded local players from all over New Orleans. Graduates of university music programs throughout the South, the band took the marching band format they had learned in school and incorporated influences from outside the city as well as late‐breaking local styles – R&B, funk and hip‐hop – especially through half‐sung, half‐rapped lyrics. “Most of our originals have vocals,” says LeBlanc. “You wouldn’t have done that in a traditional brass band.”
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